Who's Your Gladys

Tuesday, May 05th, 2009 | Author: Lori

A few months ago, I wrote on this blog about an experience that I had with a local restaurant. Â (You can read it here.) Â The young women who were serving as “hostesses” were less than polite to my husband and I on our first visit, when they informed us that we would have been advised to make an advance reservation. Â There was some regrettable sarcasm (on their part) and we left without having dinner.

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I made a considered decision to share the blog entry with the restaurant manager with a quick email directing them to the blog. Â As a manager, I’m always interested in how our frontline employees treat our customers and in their place, I’d want to know if my staff had behaved badly. Â I was also intrigued to see if anyone would respond to my email and if they did, what they would say. Â I sent a polite email to the “info@” email and left it at that. Â A few days later, I was more than pleasantly surprised when I received the following correspondence:

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Dear Ms. Vest,

I would first and foremost like to apologize to you for how you were treated in our establishment.Â As an operating partner in south-east Michigan, I realize I need all the business I can get.Â I would also like to thank you for your email, as well as your detailed explanation on your web-site.Â The feedback will help to eliminate issues such as the one you folks had to endureÂ on Saturday night.Â It seems as soon as you think you have trained someone properly, they may always surprise you by comments such as the one made last Saturday.Â Â

We would be honored to have the two of you dine at our establishment when ever you can make it out, and if you would like to call ahead, you are welcome to and speak directly to me.Â Otherwise, I would encourage the two of you to try walking in on a Saturday so you may see that was not our norm last week.

Thank you again for your time and feedback, It helps in more ways than you know.

Sincerely,

General Manager

I loved how Mr. Manager directly addressed the complaint, apologized and invited us back. Â It was perfect. Â I can assure you we will give it another try and I’ll let you know what happens.

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What do you think? Â If a customer has a complaint, do you thank them for it? Â Do you really want to hear about their experiences so you can be realistic about your level of customer service? Â How would you respond to a complaint like the one I sent to this restaurant manager?