Friday, September 14, 2012

A Customer Service Rant . . .

I have to say a lot of businesses must be improving because I haven't been able to rant so much about poor service lately.  That's a good thing for my nerves but not-so-much when I'm trying to think of something to write here.


The grandsons took us to Palasad in London for Grandparents' Day.  They had a Groupon for 2 games for 4 people including shoe rental and a large pizza at a very nice price.  We arrived at the Palasad closest to us which turned out to be closed for renovations so we had to head to the one furthest from home.  We found the second location with no problem.

We checked in and headed to Lane 8.  I was there as cheerleader and photographer.  After a bit the boys started grumbling because we still hadn't seen a server to place our lunch order so I headed to the bar to get some service.

Now at that bar stood 3 servers in a huddle with fancy phones out discussing how pissed off they were about something.  I finally got their attention and asked if one of them would take our order.  I was assured our server would be with us shortly.  Now keep in mind that the place was not very busy . . . which is probably why they were all huddled chatting instead of working.  Almost half an hour after our arrival our server finally appeared and we ordered drinks and gave her the coupon for our pizza.  Our drinks arrived fairly quickly and the server brought a menu so we could select our pizza and then she left.  Finally she came back and took our order.  I'm not sure why she just didn't stay in the first place since there were only a few choices to decide from.

Anyway, we ordered and the boys went on playing.  At some further point the server was back and gave us refills on our drinks.  Still no food.  Finally I went back up to the bar and requested the manager.  I asked if the reason we were receiving such lousy service was because we came in on a coupon or did they treat everyone this badly.  She went to the kitchen and came back with our order and pointed out that our pizza was ordered at 2:05.  I agreed with her and asked where it was considering how it wasn't busy and I knew for a fact it did not take nearly 30 minutes to cook a simple pizza.  And did she understand that it took 40 minutes before our order was even taken.  My biggest gripe was with the gaggle of servers that wouldn't provide service.  I informed her that the purpose of a coupon was to encourage new customers to try out a business or service.  I was less than impressed and their service and attitude was totally inappropriate and I would never be back.  I made sure she understood that I did not want any discounts or freebies or coupons since I would never be back to use them.  She did apologize.

A short time later (we were nearly finished the second game) our pizza finally arrived.  It was awful . . . when you picked up a slice everything slid off including the cheese . . .

Now before you start to think that our day was ruined, keep in mind we had our grandsons and we love spending time with them and the bowling part of our day was really fun.  We had the rails put up and every time someone bounced a ball off the rails and hit some pins we made horrible pun-ny jokes about how rail-y well they were playing.

Two-thumbs down to the staff at Palasad in north London, ON.

Two thumbs up for our goofy grandchildren.


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