I'd say let it go, if she's talked shit on Facebook and you've apologized then the damage is done. Customers never want to hear sorry, all they want is free shit while they tell you they'd like to hear sorry. Working in the food industry for over a decade has taught me that if a customer is pissed, the game is already over, because either you're going to bend over backwards to help them or they'll claim to never shop in your store again and then they come back a week later. Just make sure the mistake doesn't happen again and to make sure that employee handles their shit before they go on vacation regardless of how much they can't wait to get out of there.

And how would that work?

Forget it, and sleep at night. You did right.

I think you should just apologize for the mishap and move on to other business. Any attempt to give extra stuff will just be looked at as a bribe. Probably why the extra stuff offered was declined. Any retaliatory words or actions towards the winner, who is at no fault of their own in this matter, would just look bad upon you. Just apologize and move on. If the winner still continues with the malcontent behavior, repeat the apology and note that it isn't the first time for the apology.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I would do whatever it took to make her happy. You've already admitted it was a colossal **** up. Previous customer or not, a great opportunity got squandered because of an employee's mistake. I would explain the whole situation to her, and your cost just so she knows how hard you tried to make it right. I would also fire the employee over it. It may have been one mistake, but it was one that is costing you a lot of money. In bad pub as well as out of pocket expense to make that customer happy. You can't afford having those kind of liabilities around. Just my .02.

There is a company that advertises that. I think its more them checking sites like yelp and trying to claim that negative reviews are fake and having them taken down, though. I can't imagine they could do anything about something like this.

under normal work circumstances, I'd agree with floppy, but the wedding dynamic is one you can't **** with. live & learn.

I might ask the employee to fork over company damages, just to drive it home.

That would be a terrible idea, really.

Take the high road. Apologize and move on. This is not a normal customer transaction and should not be treated as such. And it's definitely not someone trying to get money back on a McDouble after eating it. This is someone who won a prize, claimed it, spent extra money in the store that they probably didn't have to, and told a final redemption would be in 2 weeks. 5 weeks from winning and winner still not able to claim prize because not of their own doing. Whether she paid for item or not is invalid. She was promised by said time, time was broken because of lack of attention to detail by staff and ownership. What the total costs to the store is not relevant. Winner does not need to be made to feel guilty by how much money you spent to fix a situation you are responsible for. Take the ill review lumps and try to learn from it.

You could use this service for dealing with customer complaint issues

NSFW
http://foaas.com/

Yep, it isn't worth the hassle. You could probably give her a thousand dollars cash and she still wouldn't be happy. Live and learn. You tried to rectify the situation, you did everything within your power to help remedy the issue. You didn't put blame on someone else, sometimes crap like this happens, and nothing you can do will make the customer happy. Just chalk it up as experience and tighten the straps up so something like this doesn't happen again.

No way, if he has one employee (IIRC he only has one) and he trusts them and she trusts her, he will lose their trust and maybe her employment if he asks her to pay for the costs. This type of situation is the cost of doing business. A business accepts responsibility for their employees actions, lets face it, mistakes happen and they suck. All you can do is try to fix the situation, educate those involved and try to prevent it from happening again. If she did the same thing over and over again, I would fire her if she continually did it, but that isn't the case here.

Women and their wedding bullshit is serious business for sure. My ex and her mother damn near drove me crazy with that shit, and it was more her mother.

Some customers will not be happy period. It isn't worth hemorrhaging out money and firing an employee over it. If the employee doesn't learn from the mistake, by all means fire her. He would be better suited to step the customer service of their shop up a notch and make sure all his current customers are 100% happy. 10 good reviews counteract the 1 negative review. The general public isn't completely stupid, they can siphon through reviews and understand there will usually be a couple negative reviews, as long as the good outweighs the bad, he will be fine.

EXACTLY.