Helen and I dine out maybe more than we should - enough for it to be getting in the way of the diet 
One of our favourite eateries is wagamama in the Canberra Centre. It is generally very good Japanese noodle bar cuisine (in big Aussie-apetite portions!). The Duck Gyoza and the Chicken Katsu Curry are my personal favourites. But I don’t recommend them to anyone.
Why? Where they fall down is in their promotional marketing - specifically the frequent noodler card. It is promoted on every menu, and even has its own website - but ask them for the card at the checkout, and there are never any there. Not one. This is not a temporary thing - I’ve asked them for one probably once a week over the last two months. I must admit that I only ask them now just to hear the excuse de jour, rather like Monty Python’s Cheese Shop skit
It annoys me enough that I do not go out of my way to recommend their excellent food by word of mouth to anyone.
The moral of this story is this - if you are going to make the effort to promote a thing, provide it. It isn’t quaint, distinctive, or unusual, it is just plain annoying. This applies to any user experience - don’t infer an unkeepable promise, because once you lose people you lose them forever, and word-of-mouth marketing works both ways. For the wagamama chain, the answer is simple - provide the cards, or delete the references to them.
Cheers, Andrew
UPDATE: wagamama have offered to send me a card backdated with points earnt to date. Yay!
Postscript: to be fair, I’ve left a comment for the wagamama folks via http://www.wagamama.com.au/contact.php - they say at this page that they listen to their customers - we will see what happens next.
Cheers, Andrew
Wierd - I received an email (out of office autoreply) from wagamama acknowledging my comment as a complaint - which it was - but there was no complaint category in the http://www.wagamama.com.au/contact.php form - I chose droplist item “review”. I wonder who did the form coding for them?
As a fello patron I know how unfair it is!
Where are the frequent noodler cards gone!!!
M
I did have an email back yesterday - I think it was one of their webby folks (because he/she apologised for an access problem to the frequent noodler site. I replied and told them what my issue is, no re-response yet (to be fair it is a long weekend). I’ll follow up.