What's happened to customer service?

Joined: 24 Dec 2002 Location: South Australia

Tuesday night, we went out with the Mrs' family for dinner. Her and i both ordered a Calzone. they both came out blacker than the heart of a paedophile, but the Bog sauce still had ice chunks in it.

Took it back up to the girl at the front counter who said
"is there something wrong with them"
"yep the sauce has ice in it, and the base is burnt" (i felt like saying "no i generally just carry my food around the resteraunt for kicks)
"i doubt there's ice in the sauce"
"what's this then" (picking up a chunk of ice)
"well then what do you want me to do about it".
"bring us two new ones thanks"
"oh, can't they just reheat it"
"ummm it's already burnt, and i wouldn't want it any drier"
"nah, that's the way they always come out"
"sorry, no it isn't, i've had the same meal 8 times in the last 6 months here, and they are normally golden brown, and much less crunchy"
"are you sure"
"very sure".

now granted the place we were at wasn't a $200 a meal joint, but it certainly wasn't bobs all you can cram into a bucket for $5 either

then last night, we had friends down that we hadn't seen in a while, so we went out to a different resteraunt.

The Mrs ordered a "tex-mex" which was a small (~100g) steak, and a big arse enchilada thing. she had the choice of chicken, or seafood in the enchilada. she orders chicken, because seafood gives her a rash.

The meals come out, she polishes off half the steak, then bites into the enchilada. it's seafood. sends it back, they take the whole plate, including her salad and the rest of the steak.

comes back 20 min later, the half eaten steak is cold, but the Mrs just wants to eat, so she cuts open the enchilada to check, and Lo and behold... IT"S SEAFOOD AGAIN.

calls the waitress over, who was brilliant i must say, just in a bad position. she said "i'd be hitting the roof right about now, i'll take it back to the kitchen, and get the manager to work something out for you".

manager came over... and said "i'm sorry... we tried to get your meal right twice, so there's not much else we can do (like my mrs was complaining that the steak wasn't the right shade of pink or something... not that her kitchen sent the wrong type of food out). she refused to send out a 3rd attempt at getting the right Enchillada out.

her best offer was to knock 25% off the meal. which sounded almost fair, until she explained it would only be off the cost of the Mrs' tex mex... nothing else. my mrs gets less than 1/2 a meal, and you still want to charge us 75% of the price???? the mrs got about 50 grams of steak, and a side of fries, and you want to charge us 20 bucks for that!!! she was like "well if your still hungry you can order desert... but we'll charge you full price for it" Rolling Eyes

THEN when we went to pay for the other meals, she wouldn't accept our "loyalty card", because apparently the system only allows one discount to be entered... so the 25% off my mrs meal came off instead of our 25% off from our loyalty card!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 4 of us spent over $140 dollars, the place sent out the wrong meal twice, and left one of our party eating just 1/2 a small steak and chips, and the best they could offer was 6 dollars off the total price???

i mean work it out. i'm sure your still making a hefty profit off the other 3 meals... and the fact we have a loyalty card means we've eaten there at least 5 times before... is absorbing the cost price of the meal you stuffed up worth losing at least 2 customers over, not to mention those that we speak to???

i must say, the waitress was awesome. far too good for management like that. she even offered to buy my Mrs desert out of her own pocket.

i don't understand why businesses think this is good practice? we've had places refuse to refund our money when we got a RAW chicken snitzel. we had to call the owner out and show him that the chicken wasn't just pink, it was 100% raw before they would give us a refund.

I appreciate good service. my family has used the same tire joint for 25 years, basically because they stayed back 20 minutes to fix a flat in dad's work van one arvo, before i was born. ever since then, they have had our business, even if we've seen a better price elsewhere, because we know that if we're running late, or if we have a problem with the product, or need something in a hurry, they will look after us, and we know they won't steer us wrong when giving us advice. costs em bugger all to be honest and helpful, and they have a huge, loyal customer base.

Joined: 20 Mar 2006 Location: Geelong

The state of customer service in this country is appauling.

I dont know how people still have jobs or businesses keep making money when they treat customers like crap.

I bang my head against the wall every time i hear my boss talk about KPI's and revenue targets from service work. Just once i would like to hear something about service levels, not money. (i understand a business needs to make money to survive, but if you have no customers you wont have any income either)

If i didnt treat my customers with respect, and do for them what they expect from our company, we woudnt have any customers left, much less the boss drive a nice new car, and have a palatial home.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:39 am

Yep customer service is crap in this country and I get really frustrated, but hey what can ya do. The only thing you can do is if your in a situation where you are the one, giving customer service ensure that at all times you personally do the right thing...

Dazz

Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Location: Western Sydney

tj81 wrote:

The state of customer service in this country is appauling.

I had one of the General Manager tell me this exact line this morning. He is not in a good mood as he went to Fly to QLD yesterday, got to the Airport at 3pm for a 4pm Flight. He sat there and watched them change it to different times. Then at 530pm they cancelled it. So he went to the service desk to ask again when the next flight is. 7pm.

He told the to cussing

off, walked out rang the PA and told her to cancel the lot. This is a guy that flys multiple times a week with Qantas and has been in the service industry for 30 years.

Joined: 28 Nov 2002 Location: Melbourne

I was at Tulla the other week for a Virgin flight (which was brilliant by the way), we had no check-in so we were hardly there for more than 30 minutes before the flight.

In that time I heard Qantas cancel 4 flights. And that was at 6am on a Saturday morning!

Joined: 21 Jan 2004 Location: Brisbane South. QLD

As you all have said there are some shockers out there in regards to customer service/relations.

The big $$$ multi chain stores are the worst for it, thats why I try to stick with the smaller local businesses. Small hardware stores and things like that...granted I might pay $1 more for a pack of screws or something, but I know I am going to get personal service from a guy that knows what he is talking about...not some semi retired pensioner, or brainless pre pubescant kid who seen an add on TV and thought to themself "maybe I could get a job there and walk around all day".

Support the small guys so they dont get squeezed out by the big boys.

As for restaraunts...I have been dubious about the unknown quality and behind the scene actions ever since I watched Ramseys Kitchen Nightmares. No doubt there are places that bad in Aus, and I dont want to eat there. I think its scared me off eating out to be honest.

Leigh

Joined: 28 Nov 2002 Location: Melbourne

Mate if you spent any time in just about any kitchen in Australia you'd never eat out again! Laughing

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

tj81 wrote:

The state of customer service in this country is appauling.

Sad thing is people accept it and companies dont think they are doing any wrong
then when you do complain about shit service, nothing changes.
Its like lampoons vacation where he trades the car in, the manager yells at some pleb to make it appera as though hes mad, then once you walk away, they have a beer and backstab you.

G_loomis wrote:

Support the small guys so they dont get squeezed out by the big boys.
Leigh

sad thing is, i dont know any small hardwares round here.. Cronulla had a fantastic one in the main street for years - Gregs Hardware. tiny place, but had everything, quality service from people who knew, and didnt say
"i have one of those myself" but if they did say that, you knew they did cause unlike most kids that say it, they actually know how to turn it on....

Joined: 15 Nov 2002 Location: Driving my GU in Melbourne

I have never had bad service at Big Chain places like Bunnings ( the times I have had questions I have always asked the older blokes and they have always been fantastic) also at places like Target and Big W never had a drama. yet I have had some really bad examples at smaller run places. In the end arseholes can work anywhere and when you run into them there's not much else you can do other than not go back

Joined: 12 Jan 2004 Location: Maryborough

At work we find that service (in our case, truck breakdowns & repairs) is far worse when we need help in any of the major cities. Once you get outside Brisbane or Sydney most places are great to deal with.

Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Location: Brisbane

That restaurant needs a bit of this loony:

Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Location: Wheeling in my backyard

Quote:

What's happened to customer service?

Too many people shopping on price.

Service costs money, unfortunately not enough people to pay for it.

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:12 pm

Ben wrote:

Mate if you spent any time in just about any kitchen in Australia you'd never eat out again! Laughing

I'll back you up on that one. Worked in a kitchen of a large well known chain of swedish restaurant in WA and some of the stuff that goes on in the kitchen would put you off food let alone eating in a restaurant. Shocked

Bring on Ramsey he'll fix em cussing

Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Location: Western Australia

I'm not a fan of tipping but you've never seen service until you go to the USA, it just highlights how bad it is here. I was in the USA recently and even my kids were blown away by level of service and just how polite they are. Not sure why the care factor is so low here.

Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Location: Western Sydney

rustyvit wrote:

Not sure why the care factor is so low here.

Well it has been a while since we have had a recession. People feel very secure in there job, they know they will get another one. People just do not care, if they are getting paid to do a job good or not.

Some people just have no pride in there work. This you will never avoid.

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

rustyvit wrote:

Not sure why the care factor is so low here.

did you miss this bit

sierrajim wrote:

Too many people shopping on price.
Service costs money, unfortunately not enough people to pay for it

Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Location: Wangaratta

bad_religion_au wrote:

Tuesday night, we went out with the Mrs' family for dinner. Her and i both ordered a Calzone. they both came out blacker than the heart of a paedophile, but the Bog sauce still had ice chunks in it.

Took it back up to the girl at the front counter who said
"is there something wrong with them"
"yep the sauce has ice in it, and the base is burnt" (i felt like saying "no i generally just carry my food around the resteraunt for kicks)
"i doubt there's ice in the sauce"
"what's this then" (picking up a chunk of ice)
"well then what do you want me to do about it".
"bring us two new ones thanks"
"oh, can't they just reheat it"
"ummm it's already burnt, and i wouldn't want it any drier"
"nah, that's the way they always come out"
"sorry, no it isn't, i've had the same meal 8 times in the last 6 months here, and they are normally golden brown, and much less crunchy"
"are you sure"
"very sure".

now granted the place we were at wasn't a $200 a meal joint, but it certainly wasn't bobs all you can cram into a bucket for $5 either

then last night, we had friends down that we hadn't seen in a while, so we went out to a different resteraunt.

The Mrs ordered a "tex-mex" which was a small (~100g) steak, and a big arse enchilada thing. she had the choice of chicken, or seafood in the enchilada. she orders chicken, because seafood gives her a rash.

The meals come out, she polishes off half the steak, then bites into the enchilada. it's seafood. sends it back, they take the whole plate, including her salad and the rest of the steak.

comes back 20 min later, the half eaten steak is cold, but the Mrs just wants to eat, so she cuts open the enchilada to check, and Lo and behold... IT"S SEAFOOD AGAIN.

calls the waitress over, who was brilliant i must say, just in a bad position. she said "i'd be hitting the roof right about now, i'll take it back to the kitchen, and get the manager to work something out for you".

manager came over... and said "i'm sorry... we tried to get your meal right twice, so there's not much else we can do (like my mrs was complaining that the steak wasn't the right shade of pink or something... not that her kitchen sent the wrong type of food out). she refused to send out a 3rd attempt at getting the right Enchillada out.

her best offer was to knock 25% off the meal. which sounded almost fair, until she explained it would only be off the cost of the Mrs' tex mex... nothing else. my mrs gets less than 1/2 a meal, and you still want to charge us 75% of the price???? the mrs got about 50 grams of steak, and a side of fries, and you want to charge us 20 bucks for that!!! she was like "well if your still hungry you can order desert... but we'll charge you full price for it" Rolling Eyes

THEN when we went to pay for the other meals, she wouldn't accept our "loyalty card", because apparently the system only allows one discount to be entered... so the 25% off my mrs meal came off instead of our 25% off from our loyalty card!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 4 of us spent over $140 dollars, the place sent out the wrong meal twice, and left one of our party eating just 1/2 a small steak and chips, and the best they could offer was 6 dollars off the total price???

i mean work it out. i'm sure your still making a hefty profit off the other 3 meals... and the fact we have a loyalty card means we've eaten there at least 5 times before... is absorbing the cost price of the meal you stuffed up worth losing at least 2 customers over, not to mention those that we speak to???

i must say, the waitress was awesome. far too good for management like that. she even offered to buy my Mrs desert out of her own pocket.

i don't understand why businesses think this is good practice? we've had places refuse to refund our money when we got a RAW chicken snitzel. we had to call the owner out and show him that the chicken wasn't just pink, it was 100% raw before they would give us a refund.
.

You were well within your rights to not pay for your other halves dinner, it was not the product advertised. You returned the meal to the kitchen as soon as you realised that there was an error. (you cant eat 3/4's of it and refuse to pay .. unless there is a good reson to do so .. like you found a used bandaid under your spud)

Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Location: Found

bogged wrote:

rustyvit wrote:

Not sure why the care factor is so low here.

did you miss this bit

sierrajim wrote:

Too many people shopping on price.
Service costs money, unfortunately not enough people to pay for it

Tips people Tips, if these service people think they will get a tip for giving good service, it might change their attitudes. I make a point to reward good service with a reasonably good tip and bad service with nothing... It seems to be a missing feature in restraunts these days.

Somebody mentioned that in the states you get much better service, I think its because tipping for a good meal is more ingrained into society there.

Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Location: Western Australia

bogged wrote:

rustyvit wrote:

Not sure why the care factor is so low here.

did you miss this bit

sierrajim wrote:

Too many people shopping on price.
Service costs money, unfortunately not enough people to pay for it

Service doesn't cost money, it only takes the person that is being paid to serve or provide a service to do it properly, its as easy as treating people the way you want to be treated.

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

rustyvit wrote:

Service doesn't cost money, .

so isnt tipping paying them money? Costing for service?
Next time your in USA, try NOT tipping someone, see what happens. I saw it first hand when I lived there.

Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Location: Western Sydney

Froon wrote:

Tips people Tips, if these service people think they will get a tip for giving good service, it might change their attitudes. I make a point to reward good service with a reasonably good tip and bad service with nothing... It seems to be a missing feature in restraunts these days.

Somebody mentioned that in the states you get much better service, I think its because tipping for a good meal is more ingrained into society there.

Tips are not part of Australia. People get paid to provide a service they need to provide it, or they are not completing the job they are being paid to do. Simple as that.

Joined: 15 Nov 2002 Location: Driving my GU in Melbourne

tipping in America is actually how they make their money. The actual wage theyget is terrible and tipping makes up the difference.

Some people understand giving good service is not that hard and they make a good living, others don't and they end getting fired alot and don't last long in industries that rely on customer service.

Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Location: Wheeling in my backyard

rustyvit wrote:

bogged wrote:

rustyvit wrote:

Not sure why the care factor is so low here.

did you miss this bit

sierrajim wrote:

Too many people shopping on price.
Service costs money, unfortunately not enough people to pay for it

Service doesn't cost money, it only takes the person that is being paid to serve or provide a service to do it properly, its as easy as treating people the way you want to be treated.

Training costs money, staff rewards cost money, service takes time, time costs money as well.

Many businesses run with minimal staff, not too many staff want to work overtime without pay, they have to do the minimum to get by. Along with that most of the young noobs have no work ethic.

Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Location: Melbourne

Rather than venting on a forum you can always do something about it. Take this example that I looked at a couple of years back in a post graduate marketing subject.

http://www.hyperorg.com/misc/DoubleTreeShow_files/frame.html

The powerpoint presentation was originally only sent to the hotel manager and the desk clerk and a couple of others, but soon spread like wild fire over the net.

Customers have the power to make or break any business and are very much an integral part of any service encounter and dissatisfaction can have serious ramifications.

Joined: 18 Nov 2006 Location: Boganville

You can pay your employees how ever much you want, its all about company attitude,

if the CEOs treat the bottom of the barrel coal face emplyees well, then generally you will get a good service (about 80% of the time)

And what is the deal with being stingy with sauce, in NZ they offered my Ketchup with my chups all the damn time, for free.

Joined: 11 Sep 2007 Location: Western Australia

sierrajim wrote:

Quote:

Along with that most of the young noobs have no work ethic.

There is the core of the problem, solve one solve the other.

Joined: 20 Oct 2002 Location: Greenbank

Froon wrote:

Somebody mentioned that in the states you get much better service, I think its because tipping for a good meal is more ingrained into society there.

In the us the minimum wage is something like $2 and hour Flat Rate no overtime rates. Most wait staff are on minimum wage. They rely on good customer service to live. Im fairly sure most end up making good money out of it. Generally its expected you pay a tip of 10% of the cost of your meal. But most will pay more for good service. I cant remember getting poor service at any restaurant while in Vegas in 2006. And all the food we ate was generally top quality and very well priced compared to Aus Restaurant prices.

Joined: 27 Nov 2002 Location: Lost in Melbourne.

I've always thought a happy worker is a good worker..

shame most companies dont see it that way

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Location: Townsville

Seriously dude, you need to stop going into society with how much you bitch about it The Finger

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 7:48 pm

guys, you all need to learn to complain! Even if the "kid" serving you was only slightly rude. I used to watch my crew at hungry's and pick them up on bad attitudes, bad service or anything that made me and them look bad, then punish them with extra duties.

Kids these days really think they can get away with anything.

I'm one of those customers. If more people complained, imagine what would happen to service in this country?

Bad religion, i don't know who said it but they were right to say you didn't have to pay at all for your other halfs meal. It also wouldn't hurt to write a letter to head office, complaining of the service, and commending the girl who helped you.

By the way, compliments go a long way for younger kids. Eg, call the manager over if the kid is good. You'll put the kid on a high for the rest of their shift, and be more likely to be good in future.