My wife treated some of her contractors to dinner a couple of nights ago. They all went to a renovated restaurant a few miles outside town where my wife had been a week or so earlier for a birthday meal with friends.
The table was booked for 8pm and they turned up shortly after 7.30 so they could chat in the bar and relax a little before sitting down to eat. Laura went to order the drinks. The barman apologised and told her that it was his first night and that he was finding his way around. Laura sympathised and gave her order. The guy did his best but it was soon clear that not only was this his first night at this bar but it was his first night in any bar. He couldn’t tell wine glasses from tumblers and a house wine from a vintage bottle.
What made Laura frustrated above all else was that there was another barman there who was perhaps meant to be overseeing the new guy’s work but who offered no help at all. When the new barman had wandered off in yet another futile attempt to select the right glass or bottle, Laura approached the other barman and suggested that 20 minutes was a long time to wait for a simple round of drinks for seven people. This is the conversation they had:
Barman: He explained it was his first night.
Laura: I know and I’m trying to avoid making him feel self-conscious but 20 minutes is too long.
Barman: You’re just going to have to put up with it.
That’s it. No offer to help. Laura then told him she had a table booked for 8pm and asked if he could tell the woman at the desk they were here but running late in the bar. She received a grunt in response and the man walked off.
It took another 15 minutes to get their drinks, by which time they had no time to drink them so picked everything up and walked through to the restaurant. More great service. The woman told them she had let their table go because they were late (it was 8.20 and obviously the barman had not passed on the message). Laura stood her ground and the woman told them to return to the bar and she’d call them. A table was finishing up. ‘How long?’ asked Laura. ‘No more than 10 minutes,’ replied the woman.
It was a further hour before they were finally seated. Had the restaurant been in town or had their been somewhere to go close by they would have left but everyone had come by cab and there is nothing along that stretch of road but fields. The food was good (which is one of the reasons Laura had wanted to return) but the whole experience was ruined before anything reached their mouths.
Laura is going to write a letter to the manager of the restaurant, of course, and to the owners. She has since discovered that it (The Arkle Manor) is owned by Landmark Leisure – part of M&B. What’s more important is that Laura’s bad experience became the bad experience of six others that night and that the aggressive and dismissive attitude of one barman and the confrontation attitude of the woman on the desk means that the Arkle Manor will live in their minds for a long time. None of them will return and all of them will relate the experience to their friends, family, and colleagues. Leaving an untrained barman to cope alone (and none of the blame is his) has become an expensive mistake.
Perhaps Laura should have raised merry hell at the time and demanded to speak to the manager. But why should she have to? How would that have improved the mood of the evening? I wonder if the chef knows the excellent food is being undermined by a front of house who obviously couldn’t care.
And the salient point of this little rant? If you provide no easy way for customers to describe their experiences in a forum connected to your enterprise (ie a comments section on your web page), they will resort to whatever uncontrolled medium is available. Word spreads, monitoring and responding to comments becomes difficult, and one customer’s bad night becomes a growing stain on your reputation. Perhaps not tonight or next week but once it’s on the web, it stays there and can come back to bite you on the medium rare rump steak at any time.
