I like Jack In The Box fast food restaurants. I think their food is good. The places are kept clean. They really do a good job with keeping their restrooms clean -- in fact they are the best of any fast food restaurant restrooms and even better than many white table cloth restaurants' restrooms. I like the service, and never had a rude employee give me grief or a hard time.

I'm a big fan of their Teriyaki chicken bowls, some of their breakfast sandwiches and I just think they make a great grilled cheese sandwich.

Jack has a current marketing plan that has their drive-thru window servers ask you after your meal is delivered, "how was my service?" I have a couple of complaints about this.

1. Don't ask me questions after I have my food and drink and I'm ready to drive away. If I'm using a drive-thru it's a pretty good indication that I don't have time for chit-chat. Besides, there may be another customer behind me in the drive-thru lane who really doesn't care about our conversation.

2. Instead of asking me "how was my service," why don't the drive-thru servers simply say, "thank you, we appreciate your business." Honestly, if they thanked me it would mean more to me as a customer than having some employee ask me "how was my service?"

I know that businesses are always asking for feedback to improve what they do. But when it comes to customer service, remember that telling your customers that you appreciate them and thanking them goes a long way.

And it's not just Jack In The Box that makes this mistake.

It seems the casino companies, especially Caesars does this too. Every time I visit a Caesars casino -- whether it is in Las Vegas or Harrah's Rincon in San Diego -- I get an email from the company. Instead of a "thank you" from Caesars, it's a survey asking me to tell them what was good and bad about my visit.

Surveys are good, but a thank you would do more to bring me back and make me feel like I am appreciated. A survey makes me feel like I was part of a test or focus group. Heck, I want to feel like a valued customer.

We don't say "thank you" enough anymore. Customers should say "thank you" to service providers, and service providers should say thank you to their customers. Employers should say thank you to employees, and employees should say thank you to their bosses.

Saying thank you is a sign of appreciation. When you feel appreciated you tend to repeat what you did. It works for patrons as it does for service providers.

Companies should start training their employees and managers to say thank you. It could start a new trend.