Sorry, those seats are reserved

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the unpleasant customer service incident I had in one of my favorite restaurants (“Sorry, that section is closed”), and I thought the incident was one-off.

Today, my colleague and I decided to lunch at the same restaurant. When we arrived, to our surprise, the restaurant was half-empty. We requested for a table with sofa seat and this was the response we got, “Sorry, those seats are reserved.”

“You mean all of them are reserved?” I could not believe it as it was already 12:30pm and there were easily 6 or 7 such tables still unoccupied.

“Oh, not really, a few are reserved, the rest we are reserving them for bigger group of customers as now is lunch time peak hour.”

“Ok, so where do you want us to sit?” I thought I should be nice.

The restaurant manager then pointed to a table right at the entrance of the restaurant and in the open space, where there was a stream of people walking pass non-stop.

“Not this one.” This time my colleague got impatient. I was equally upset too, so I suggested that we go somewhere else.

Seeing that we were about to leave, the restaurant manager changed his mind, “Ok, you can sit anywhere you want.”

We sat down, had our lunch. By the time we left an hour later, there were still many tables unoccupied as there were not too many customers walking in after us. It made me wonder if the drop in customers these days is due to the drop in customer service.

I have been patronizing this restaurant since it opened at the beginning of the year. As it provides good food, good service and is located near our workplace, my colleagues and I like to come here for lunch. After today’s incident, the 2nd one in two weeks, I decide to strike this restaurant off my favorite list. I am doubtful I will go back to this restaurant again, definitely not until it improves on its customer service.