Customer Service makes or breaks restaurants
I get that times are hard for restaurants. It's one of the reasons I've tried to order delivery, tip servers out of work through an app, and generally look to support the industry. There are also good days and bad days for all of us. When our party arrived at Samurai's, a place we've frequented in the past, things started off well enough. Dinner was fine, the chef was entertaining, only a few minor hiccups and confusion on orders. Overall a good evening celebrating a family birthday.
And then...
We help the server identify who should be on which individual checks (something he asked us about at the beginning so not a surprise). Then he takes at least 20 minutes to split the check including the two times he came back demanding we tell him who ordered what - both as a group and individually. Literally pointing fingers.
Two sodas were apparently unaccounted for after he'd first requested our order info (he was our server as well, so this could have been avoided). Instead, it became THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. He said we ordered 7 sodas and he was only counting 5.
Leaves. Comes back. Questions. Comes back. Hands the checks out for each but now with 1/7 of 2 sodas on each small groups' tab and grumbling to himself.
It took me a second to take in the craziness - instead of leaving the two drinks off, he was adamantly recovering the $4.50, on a $450+ bill, that he would just decide to recoup it that way. What?!? It's not about the money. I'm confused about how it turned into being such a big deal to our server. Multiple times we answered his questions and restated that we'd all given him the right information - fully expecting them to see it as their mistake, or at the very least, not something they should burden a customer with.
Any other day, this might have seemed fine. Or maybe had he come and said something about it before doing it so we could understand. Or maybe not. I've run experience teams and am adamant about good customer service. At this point, I was confused about why he was charging us for something we didn't have and making us wait so long to take care of it.
I try to ask, he interrupts, I try to ask, he interrupts, I try to ask and point out the problem, he interrupts, I try to... he interrupts. Finally, I ask him to let me talk (takes 3 times to get him to do it).
I look around and simply ask - everyone that had a soda raise your hand. 5 people raised their hands. He points to each and counts off while yelling "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, SEE, 5!"
If you are confused and still reading, that's exactly what it felt like to us. We think he figured out he was wrong or really had miscounted. I'm not sure. He tries to get the checks so he can "re-run". I couldn't take it anymore and certainly couldn't wait another 20 minutes for this to end. We paid, including the full tip, and the drinks. I'm not even sure how many now. I stopped caring around his third rude interruption. Let me pay, and let me out.
It's not about the money. Had they handled it in a way that seemed like good customer service or care or mutual respect would have been fine. We won't be back. Too many great places need our support. read more