Bad Service Can Ruin Your Restaurant's Reputation

During the holidays I enjoyed the time off with some surf, sea and sand. As like most people on holiday, I love spending time with special people at wonderful restaurants. Most of the restaurants I went to knew what they were doing and their waitrons were on the ball. I commend such good customer service. However, there was this one restaurant that I went to that did not offer such a good customer experience. Bad service can give a restaurant a bad name.

Let me share my experience with you.
My companions and I decided to have breakfast at the beach. This particular restaurant is ideally situated on the beach, just a few metres from the sea so you can imagine the beautiful view we were looking forward to. While waiting in the queue to be seated, we were promptly informed that we needed to wait a bit. Once we were seated it took quite some time for our waitron to welcome us and provide us with the menus. When she did show up she advised that the restaurant is very busy and breakfast will take very long to serve. I thought it was good that she informed us of the wait but it felt like she was telling us not to bother with ordering at all. We didn't feel welcome at this point but we decided to continue with our order. At this point I want to mention that the restaurant had many open tables and it was not full to the point where every seat was taken. It was at a manageable capacity. When our breakfast arrived, the order was interpreted incorrectly and the eggs were under done so we returned it to be cooked properly. The waitron gave us a look that made us feel ungrateful and, quite frankly, uncomfortable. For two eggs to be cooked, it took another 20 minutes. In the meantime we asked for tomato sauce from our waitron but she had forgotten about it. So we asked another waitron to assist with the tomato sauce. During this time I ordered a coffee and my companions ordered refills for their coffee. We continued to ask our waitron for sugar and milk for our coffee but, again, she had forgotten about it so we asked another waitron to assist us.

Furthermore, the milk jug was dirty. Restaurants need to take pride in their catering equipment and ensure that it is always clean. My coffee only arrived with the breakfast and my companions' refills arrived after they had eaten their breakfast. In total we spent 3 hours at the restaurant for two breakfasts and three cups of coffee.

I am a person that is quite patient in a restaurant but when the waitron doesn't welcome you politely and makes you feel like it's a burden to have you at their restaurant that gives the restaurant a very bad image. Restaurant management needs to be aware of how their waitrons treat their customers, as it could mean the difference between returning customers or a bad reputation.

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 By Stana Peete


Article Source: Bad Service Can Ruin Your Restaurant's Reputation