Hi Greg,
Thank you for the email and concern about the Paragon Subway branch. And thank you for the gift certificates, an unexpected but very welcome surprise. I will pick them up later this week.
Unfortunately I do not have a record of any particular date of an 'incident', as I was not trying to contact anyone regarding the Paragon service. But when I contacted Mike Allan in regards to another reason, I thought I would mention to him my general experience at the Paragon Branch relative to the Silom branches.
I have been an avid fan and frequent customer of Subway since living in Canada, and now living in Thailand, and in my travels around the world where Subways operate. As well as a frequent customer of many other restaurants. So I do know about customer service expectations from a customer point of view, and about customer service from a restaurant point of view.
In fact, if Subway ever needs a 'mystery shopper' to evaluate locations by a 50+ foreigner woman's point of view, I am the one who always fills out service rating surveys, and always contacts owners/managers regarding both bad AND good service.
Since it opened I have gone to the Subway Paragon location quite often because it is a handy lcoation for me to take-home. In all the times I have been there, the staff have never been 'friendly' to customers... or maybe just not to me. They never greet or smile. And they give an air of not liking their job. Every time I was there I did not feel like a valued customer, They do not seem to know what the 'customer' in 'customer service' means.
It is not a matter of language barrier because, although I do not speak much Thai, I am able to get by in communicating everywhere else quite well.
Here are a couple of things I can be more specific about:
- a number of times the lettuce was browned and I asked for fresh lettuce that did not have brown. They were reluctant to go & get another container of fresh lettuce. Most times they did so after looking angry, but twice I had to say I would not take the sub because they would not do so.
- I recall 2 times that the tuna bin was almost empty - instead of getting a new container, the staff just used what was left, which was less tuna than the standard sub usually gets, and did not get a new bin to top it up properly. I mentioned this but they did not get more tuna
- so now when the tuna bin is low, I ask for new tuna right away, but they are reluctant to do so. Sometimes I do not get a sub and leave, sometimes I continue with the order.
- I also ask them to clean the knife before cutting the sub, as it usually has other people's stuff on it (and I HATE mustard and have had several sub's ruined with leftover mustard on the knife). Again, they are reluctant to have to do this.
I think this should be a standard policy & I should not have to ask - no one wants previous toppings & sauces on their sub.
Again, these are general happenings in the times I have been there since opening. It is the general attitude of unfriendliness & seeming not to care that bothers me the most. Especially in the 'land of customer service and smiles'. Actually, the Burger King at Paragon is even worse, they are 150% unfriendly bordering on surly, so at least your Subway is much better than that!
Thank you again for your prompt attention to this matter and your kind offer of the certificates. I will give it another chance but will wait for a couple of weeks.
Pat Armstrong