It feel great to be back home after a week stint at the states. Anyway was reading through the blogs and come across some folk who has a bad experience at Pitstop Cafe.
"Then after that, since we forever have no-sense-of-urgency, we turned up super late for dinner and got horribly lost on the way too. Dinner was at this place called Pitstop Cafe, which is quite lame actually. And the people there had the audacity to chase us out after we had the birthday cake." - details
Of course we don't feel good about such negative feedbacks but i guess sometime things like this just happens and I feel that it is good to share with you guys some thoughts as well as challenges that we face in the area of service.
You see the above scenario is quite a tricky issue. What happen is that this group was late by an hour of their allocated reservation. Normally if there is not much people then not much of an issue. For this case, there is a reservation by another group who turn up on time and was waiting the table. So either way, you are likely to piss off either side. It seem unfair to me to make a group wait too long especially if they turn up on time. Hence in this case i think that one side has to be the receiving end for "bad service" in exchange for good service to other side. Anyone has any good suggestions on handling such situations?
I have some thoughts on service. I think good service is like tango, it kinda of need 2 sides to make it happen. There was this incident on Christmas Eve which we were recognized for good service by DK. Someone even go to provide an academic explanation on how it is a marketing technique because it is easier to retain customer than getting new customer, etc.
Are we the ones that made it happen? I don't think so, we were able to provide good service because DK gave us a chance to do so. We made a mistake and we try to make up for it and DK was gracious to accept it and there you go, good service.
Maybe sometime we might appear abit attitude. Perhaps due to abit of rush or perhaps just tired out after a long day at the cafe. But believe me, don't judge by our appearance......
A squash mumu
Pity him, still sucking thumb at this age
Definitely a gold digger, not a saboteur
see so sweet! who called her evilyn huh?
we are really friendly folks. So do smile say hi to the crew on your next visit and you be surprise at the diffence you made. And don't be late for your reservations!
astroboy
Pitstop Cafe, love us and we love you even more
2007/04/24
Bad service equals good service?
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11 comments:
Most places reserves a table for 15minutes to 30minutes. Once the timing is pass, they will release that table for other customer.
Anyway, got to face it. It's impossible to please everyone in this world.
But hor... the words he use is rather strong leh. Did something else happen?
i think u guys did the right thing, but might have been better to explain to them why before you chased them out (i'm assuming you didn't).
nice post.
hmmm, i think we do explain to them, but i think they were at the cafe only to eat so perhaps they don't understand the need for us to do what we did. Or perhaps sometimes it is simply the exertion of "customer rights"?
Hi guys, I'm the author of that blog here.
Well, let me apologise for my harsh comments there. On hindsight, I have to admit that it was unfair of me to condense my whole experience into one sentence, without much of an explanation. Do allow me to clarify here please :)
After our dinner, we thought we could at least hang out a while more, as we had barely finished our cake. It was our friend's birthday, and we it would be great to have a nice place to sit down and catch up with one another. Hence, we weren't exactly pleased when we were informed last minute that we had to leave ASAP. No hard feelings though, we understand you guys have to do business.
And I guess we were in the wrong too, since we turned up late for the reservation in the first place. So, apologies for any inconveniences caused.
Anyway, the good service you guys provided shouldn't be held in abeyance, and I'm sorry if I failed to highlight them. We were generally satisfied with the prompt service and adequate attention that we received. Also, I personally enjoyed the steak that I had, which was done to perfection. :)
And about that "lame" comment, no offense guys. Just that the idea of playing board games elsewhere other that the comfort of my own home isn't very appealing -- but hey, that's just me. I do have to applaud your entrepreneurial spirits though!
Yeap, hope you guys aren't too sad over the comment I made. I didn't mean for it to come across so nastily. Cheerios :)
Hi Arthur,
greatly appreciate that you take your time to share your perspective on our blog. The whole entry was basically to share our experience with our readers as well as to see how we can do better in the future.
I think we should really try to give eariler notice. But sometime we did kinda of leave it till too late was also because the next groups might be late too and we thought that it will be good to at least let people stay till the next group arrive.
So thanks again and i think i learn alot from your reply!
hmm... looks like a win win for both side. Cheers!!
:)
yeah i like win win!!!
now if i could also win in my boardgames sessions... :)
The earth is not exactly round as well as it is tilted. Life is just like that and things will never be fair, especially when you are in the service industry. It is especially so when you have more of these "KIDS" that has yet to expose themselves to the real working world.
Looking on the bright side, it does give the cafe an experience in handling such a situation more tactfully. Sometimes it does take abit more human touch to move the unwilling crowd and not offend them at the same time.
My first visit to this cafe tonight is a quite unique one. The cafe is trying to craft the place into a Friendly cafe and it seems to be doing a good job. Too good a job maybe which now the cafe is to learn to let go of some negative comments.
Keep it up Pitstop cafe.
zen_dragon, thanks for your encouragment and i am glad that you have found the experience at Pitstop Cafe unique and enjoyable!
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