This Caribou?s store manager called me after an incident that I made a customer service complaint about on the website. He apologized and said he?d like to mail me a $5 gift card and hoped I?d give them a second chance. This took place on June 15, 2011. No gift card ever arrived. On June 29, I stopped in, asked the barrista if the manager was there, she said no, I asked her to please mention that I was in (up until June 15, I was a regular customer and stopped by 2 or 3 times a week ? I?ve purchased nothing there since) and wondered why my gift card had not arrived. She said she would let him know. I then called and spoke to that manager on July 11 and he said they are mailed from corporate headquarters so he didn?t know why it never arrived. I stopped in again yesterday 7/14, but the manager was on vacation, so I asked the same barrista to have the district manager call me then. I told her, I really want to give Caribou the benefit of the doubt, that this is an oversight, but now it's a month later and I?m about to go post my review online and I?d like to know that the card has at least been mailed. She said she?d see him the next day and let him know. So no call, no card. What happened on June 15 was that the shop itself had cold air blasting from the vents and it was really cold so while I?m submitting an online form to let them know (this happened once last summer too), I am sitting about 6 feet away from the register and I notice the young man working the register acting differently toward female customers. It was funny, too, because he?s always been aloof and doesn?t say thank you to me or greet me when I come in, but I thought it was just him ? I hadn?t realized it was because I am female until I noticed him saying ?hello, howareya? to men as soon as they walked in the door but waiting for the women to come forward and say what they?d like without saying hi first. (Whenever I used to come in, I would say hi and literally wait three seconds for him to say hi back. *Then* I?d order.) So I thought maybe it?s just a coincidence and it?s only those few customers I?ve watched out of the corner of my eye while filling out this form about the air conditioning. So I watched, for forty minutes. Not only was he consistently friendly to male customers and consistently unfriendly to female customers, if the women ordered coffee (not a mocha or a latte but coffee that he would turn around and get for them), he would fill their cup and then hand it to them without saying a word. Not ?thank you,? not ?have a nice day,? nothing. It was amazing ? and if you guessed that every single one of the women said thank you to him, you guessed right. It was a fascinating study in human behavior. We are so trained to be polite and not one of them failed to be polite despite his rudeness. Interestingly, I had filled out three surveys in the past few months stating that while everything is tasting the same, customer service quality at the store is going down, and specif
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