The owner of Pasta J is spot on. The vast majority of
Singaporeans have woefully little empathy and sympathy for SME
restaurant owners (and in general, all SME business owners), and
don't care that unlike MNCs, SMEs are struggling to survive just to
fatten the coffers of REITS and greedy landlords. I've reproduced
one part of Pasta J owner's post, click on the link to read the
full post.
Guys, in the nearly four years I have been operating Pasta J, we
have had the privilege of serving many, many great customers.
But there are those who have really made life hard for us too
unfortunately. These customers make us feel taken advantage of,
abused and disrespected.
Some of these cases I will mention later but I would like to
frame it as some learning points on how to be a fair to businesses.
As will be listed below, each and every point is a result of actual
experiences.
Again, the following points are the hard truths of running a
very high cost business like a restaurant.
I have been putting off writing about this but recently things
have been really bad.I am far from the only restaurant owner facing
this but I guess, we all try not to rock the boat.
1. Waiver of Corkage: We pay rent, renovations, furniture, staff
and amenities and utilities to earn a living (I have also
continually reinvested to make improvements). Why should we then
let customers bring their own wines, provide expensive, easily
breakable wine glasses and serve them their wine for free?
Who will pay if the wine glass breaks? Why should we be paying
staff to serve that for free? There is a cost for everything and we
pay for it. And this being Singapore, we pay a lot for it.
I have had customers get indignant for charging corkage. I am
afraid I don't get it.
2. No Shows: A reservation is a commitment taken too lightly by
some. Often, the no shows don't even pick up the phone when we
contact them to see if they're coming.
We lose customers this way because we either have to put others
outdoors (often disliked) or we have to turn them away.
How would customers like it if we don't honour their
reservation?
For big reservations, we make special arrangements like getting
more staff, preparing ingredients and if they don't show, we feel
kinda of let down.
3. Having less guests than reserved: This happens for too often
than I can tell you. Again, we lose customers this way and it
really hurts when the customer treats it like nothing. I have lost
many,many customers this way.
2 such cases are particularly bad. 1 was a reservation for 22pax
by a group of army personnel in 30mins. We hustled. At the end,
only 7 turned up and the entire group of 7 acted as if nothing
happened and didn't tell us the rest were not turning up despite
seeing all the other tables joined to theirs with the menus laid
out.
Wow.
The 2nd was recent. Despite telling the customer that we will be
making special arrangements to cater for his reservation for 24pax,
he had 8 less turn up, didn't bother telling me until I asked upon
which he admitted to reserving for more just in case.
Well, I certainly felt stupid to cancel my own lunch off and for
calling back another staff who was also off.
No apologies for both and other other cases.
4. Late arrival n/or partially very late arrivals: This happens
all the time for big groups. Sometimes, the entire party can be
seated only 1.5 hours later. We will then have hold empty seats for
that long.
5. Changing the recipe: The way I see it, you come to a
restaurant to enjoy the restaurant's dishes, not to enjoy your own
recipe, which logically, you would have to cook yourself. Why
insist on changing it? Especially to remove the main ingredient? We
have even been asked to remove the clams from Clammy Addiction!
6. We have been trying to educate customers that it is wrong to
add cheese to every pasta or other dishes. We work very hard to
craft and produce our dishes, so forgive us pls if we refuse.
From experience, adding cheese to everything is a practice
allowed and done mainly at places where the food is bland and the
standards are low. We believe our customers know better because
logically, cheese doesn't go with everything.
7. Ordering too little and Non - Eaters: going to a restaurant
should be an experience and restaurant owners like myself put in a
lot of resources to make it a good experience. It hurts us when
customers make use of us for meetings, to hang out or just to
socialise without being fair to us.
We had cases where customers come in and order just for a
fraction of their group size and then have friends join them and
worse still expect us to serve everyone. I have even had 8pax come
in and ordering 3 main courses and that's it. Then they ask for
sharing plates for everyone.
Some think that since we are not full anyway, they are actually
doing us a favour by filling up the seats. I have had this said to
me to my face. But when we allow it once when we are not busy, can
we refuse when it is busy?
Frankly, we don't mind occasionally serving such customers but
it has been happening too often. Case in point above.
8. Not complaining then giving a bad review: Actually, we are
grateful for opportunities to improve but I believe your dining
experience is more important than a opportunity to give a bad
review.
It is probably more of a Singaporean thing to not confront
issues head-on but this doesn't help the customers. If we were
wrong, I insist on making up for it and you would then still have a
great experience. If you complain only after, nothing can be done
about your time with us.
9. Hogging tables: On busy times, we need to be able to turn the
tables because that is mainly when we can make money and make up
for slower times.
Other customers also want a chance to dine too.
It is really not right to expect to have the table to yourself
for the whole meal service. There is no such thing as unlimited
service.
10. Don't abuse the staff: I have found that when I am not
around, my staff sometimes get bullied. Someone criticised us for
not asking for the doneness of our pork chops and when told that
pork chops don't come in doneness, he got angry and then picked on
something else. At the end, he threw his receipt into our menu
basket in front of our staff in a fit of anger. Don't do
that......
11. Pls take care when using our amenities: For example, pls
don't mark our sofa or let your children damage anything. We had a
case just now but the customer was very responsible to inform us
and offered to do something about it. I really appreciated that and
thanked him for it. Just please do try to prevent it in future.
Again, I hope everyone reading this understands that I am not
trying to be personal. What I have written about is what we have
been facing since the beginning and I have put off publicising
it.
They're only basic considerations, basic manners and only what
is fair.
Everything costs us and restaurants are famously a high cost
operation. We are not a cafe. Our main business is selling food,
not just coffee, desserts or soft drinks. The bulk of our business
is done during peak hours, they are thus very precious.
On the whole, we have been blessed with a growing business and
probably more than our fair share of great customers.
Basically, we hope to keep it simple. We want to serve food,
really good food and provide great service to customers who will be
fair to us because after all, we are running a business.
Hope you all understand.
http://mothership.sg/2017/07/restauranteurs-essay-response-to-a-1-star-review-makes-us-all-self-conscious-customers/
