Bad Customer services response or stupid customer?
taliesin
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Just come across this from back April '14
http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Longton-mum-humiliated-restaurant-owner-s/story-21002760-detail/story.html
Basically a lady orders food, it arrives too hot and so she takes to TripAdvisor to leave a fairly positive review and a slight moan regarding the too hot food. In response the restaurant manager mocks her grammar. Lady then runs to local rag to complain/get 5 minutes of fame.
http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Longton-mum-humiliated-restaurant-owner-s/story-21002760-detail/story.html
Basically a lady orders food, it arrives too hot and so she takes to TripAdvisor to leave a fairly positive review and a slight moan regarding the too hot food. In response the restaurant manager mocks her grammar. Lady then runs to local rag to complain/get 5 minutes of fame.
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Comments
Bit of both.
Just looked at them on TA and they do, broadly speaking, get very good reviews. But personally, I wouldn't go to a restaurant where I know that they treat their customers in such a rude and cavalier way.
And, again personally, I wouldn't have posed for that ridiculous picture in the local paper. Having said that, going to the paper got the restaurant a lot more bad publicity than they bargained for. So maybe she got what she wanted.
However, the response from the restaurant was rude and unnecessary whatever they thought about the grammar. They could have responded in a much more professional manner and avoided the adverse publicity they are now getting from the sad faced family...
In the Westbury Tavern case - and I never go to restaurants, but can comment from my own point of view - the lady was positive about everything, apart from the temperature of the food. I would consider being too hot, as being preferable to being too cold. Reading the review, she was describing her experience as it happened. She did manage to get two lots of free chips out of it, so her complaint loses a little credibility. The only problem was the response of the owner. Despite personal circumstances, when you are a public service provider, customer service should be regarded by the owner as being paramount to the success of the business. she ought not to have questioned the review - the lady is entitled to her opinion - and to sarcastically post her own comments, making fun of the lady's grammar, or misuse of, was plain insulting and, quite frankly, she deserves to lose custom. Had she took on board what the review claimed, and not reacted in such a nasty manner, the reviewer would not now be saying she will not recommend the place to anyone. The owner has attracted negative publicity for her business which is, undoubtedly, counter productive to the future operation of a thriving business.
The business owner was definitely in the wrong to mock the grammar, as it paints her in an unprofessional light and does not do her any favours.
So a bit of both in my opinion - bad customer service and stupid customer.
The proprietor wouldn't have given a shite about her grammar if she'd given a fabulous review. Whatever her spelling is like, she paid good money to that restaurant, and on that basis she deserves from them at least a basic modicum of respect.
And a review can be expected to include all points, good and bad. The woman did say some nice things. The only thing she criticised was the extreme heat of the dish.
I have given many reviews on TA where I have given them 5 stars but still mentioned things that amount to very little to me, but might be very important to somebody else who might read it and be thinking of booking.
I actually think the review was fairly balanced.
She did. And they didn't.
I agree
Complaining about food being too hot? Well, I'd never do something like that and I'd think of someone who does that as bickering. But whatever the reaction of the tavern staff, they seem to have pissed the lady off and that's not what a good restaurant staff does. They need to know how to deal with bickering people and if they don't know, than yes, they are not professional.
As for the lady's review on tripadvisor website. Based on what I've seen on the news article, it looks quite abiding by grammar rules, probably more than this very post I am writing. She's made only a few grammar mistakes and after all, she's not writing a Ph.D. thesis or anything. It's a review on a website.
Now, the final stupid move by the tavern owner: She replies to a review that already looks like written by a bickering woman about a trivial issue. The reply was shocking indeed, I don't know why Kirtsy Parker chose to remove it. It's much more effective than her own review. Now, do you want to go a restaurant where the owner thinks she is entitled and the customers are fools. I don't.