I just wanted to give out a warning to anyone who is offered a goodwill gesture, or a return visit, in response to a complaint.
We had a complaint about a restaurant, a couple of months ago. The owner contacted us about it and eventually she spoke to my husband. She offered for us to return for a complimentary meal, so we arranged to go for my husband’s birthday. What we didn’t realise was that we didn’t get this in writing. However, she did say she would make sure she would be there on the day, so nothing would go wrong.
We arrived on time and it appeared that they were expecting us, so far so good. We didn’t order starters, we ordered a soft drink and a Mocktail and a main course each. One of the mains was on the set menu. so we had one dessert and one ice-cream, so we hardly broke the bank at a restaurant that sells £100 steaks. We asked for the owner, only to be told it was her day off, which seemed strange, but we didn’t worry.
We were brought a small cake saying Happy Birthday, so we knew they had the correct booking but when we mentioned to the waiter that we had a complimentary meal, he knew nothing about it. The acting manager came over after a while and said, you have complimentary drinks today, we said no a meal, he said I will throw in desserts and we said no and he added and 20% off the rest. I said we were told a complimentary meal and I scrolled through my many emails only to find she had never confirmed it in writing. He
eventually agreed to comp the meal and we left, leaving a tip for our server, who had been excellent.
This certainly left a bad taste and we won’t be back, as we were made to feel bad for something that we were promised, had we not been offered this we would never had returned.
Lesson learned!
