May

When I saw the coupon for a free KFC meal, I knew that it was probably too good to be true. I knew that KFC would be drowned in a tsunami wave of people bearing coupons.

But, I thought I would try it anyway. So I printed 2 coupons (1 for Tim and 1 for me) from the official KFC website. I followed the rules.

Today, I gave Tim a coupon and asked him to stop by while he was out running errands. I figured we could split the meal for supper. When he arrived at KFC, there were several other customers there with coupons. The manager was rudely refusing to honor the coupons, insinuating that they were fakes.

At first, I just thought that our local KFC has an incompetent manager. But it turns out that the entire company is refusing to honor their own coupons. If customers want the free meal, they have to mail in the raincheck forms. In other words, customers will have to jump through hoops to get the company to honor its promise.

I understand that this was certainly a logistical nightmare for KFC. However, their marketers should have known that this would happen. Any time a restaurant offers free food, people will take advantage of it,  and an entire meal is just too much to pass up. I feel sorry for the employees working at the individual restaurants, but not for the people who planned this campaign. They didn’t do their homework. Someone should be fired.

The manager’s behavior today reinforced my existing conception that KFC has bad service. But now, I know that the company cannot be trusted to keep its promises. I rarely ate at KFC before, but I certainly have no intention of doing so now. I don’t do business with companies that lie to me.