Customer Service - Some Recent Experiences

I wanted to do a slightly different type of post here talking about customer service. I have experienced this from both sides; I spent many years working in restaurants and since then have eaten at many types of restaurants. Three recent experiences will help to illustrate my points. First the good; for those who have read my post on Gray House Pies, in addition to the wonderful pies, I was very impressed with my interaction with the owner, both with his willingness to share his passion for his products and his concern that they be presented in the best possible fashion, even if it took taking a couple of dollars out of his pocket. Clearly his pies are not just a job, this is a place that wants its customers to enjoy the quality of their food and to return again. This was especially interesting as he knew that I had already purchased gift certificates and thus had paid most of the amount already. The bad, fairly recently I headed out for lunch at Caballo Bayo in Chagrin Falls, which has been my main go to place for Mexican Food recently. While the food was good and the service was OK, I ran into an issue when the check came. In most of my lunch visits I have ordered the #1 special, which is a Chili Relleno, Taco, beans and Guacamole Salad; a good deal and even more so because they have allowed me to get a Shrimp Taco as part of this. Well this time there was a $2 charge added to the bill for the Shrimp Taco; when I asked my waitress she explained that there had been a change in management and that now they had to charge for this. I of course asked her why she hadn't mentioned anything when I ordered and all she could do was apologize. I of course paid, however I left with a very bad feeling, about this for several reasons. First the fact that they added a charge without putting it on the menu or telling me in advance is never a good thing. I found during my time waiting tables that letting people know about things like this and letting them decide is much preferable to just springing it on customers. Second the amount of the charge, $2 seemed excessive, especially when you look on the Caballo Bayo menu and see that as appetizers they charge $2 extra for 1/2 pound of Shrimp Tacos, not a single Taco. Third the fact that the waitress didn't offer to ask her manager or try to in any way fix the issue really upset me; I may not of made a big stink about this, but it did annoy me, enough so that I am very hesitant to go back. Finally the in the middle, recently Pizza Pan (website here) had a coupon for a $2 medium pizza on Fridays at the South Euclid and Warrensville Heights stores. A very good deal, especially as their medium is 12" and 8 cuts and I found the pizza to be very good. I was even more surprised when they told me to hold onto the coupon and that I could use it on subsequent Fridays, which I did. Then last week, when I called in my order, they informed me that there had been a mistake and that corporate had meant it to be a one week deal. While I thought this could have been handled better; with the simple solution being that they took the order and sold me the pizza, but took the coupon, I did understand and at least I knew up front what was going on and had been given a reasonable explanation. I may not have been 100% satisfied, but I did understand and appreciate their position; in addition the promotion had worked, in that I was reminded of the quality of their pizza and considering the size and the value of their pizza, I well order from them again. I know that service is not the most important factor, to me the taste and quality of the food, followed by the cost are more important; but service is up there and it is the least expensive thing to fix. The people are there already, you need to make sure that they know how to deal with people and that they have a clear message to deliver. In addition making sure that people have a good attitude makes a huge difference. One bad experience with service can really s0ur me on a restaurant, while good service will always bring me back. I will do another post with suggestions on what I think should be important to a server. Let me know what you think and some of your experiences, both good and bad.