This letter below was sent to the Brewery and a few weeks later I received an apology and a voucher. It was very nice of them to take their time to resolve the problem. [UPDATED 26 MAY 08] Complaint HEARD and RESOLVED! Dear Licensee On Monday the 21st April, our group of friends headed to the Margaret River Bootleg Brewery. With such rave reviews and testimonies we were looking forward to a lovely lunch together as a group. However due to some very poor customer service our experience was left with quite a sour note. Whilst waiting in the queue to order our meals, a gentleman (we later found out to be the manager) was heading to the kitchen with a plate. He dropped the plate sending a saucer of tomato sauce flying to floor. Consequently two of my friends and I had sauce splattered up onto our clothes. The lady at the counter pointed this out to him as he was cleaning up the mess. The manger replied indifferently “At least the saucer didn’t break”, all the while ignoring us. When asked to speak with the manager, he was anything but sympathetic. He initially refused to apologise for the incident, claiming that it was an accident, therefore he need not apologise. Following some heated words between himself and my friend (who received most of the sauce on his shirt), an insincerely apology was given, as if to brush us off. My friend then told the manager he would not pay for his meal as a result of the incident. The manager lacked diplomacy when responding to this idea; angrily stating we should eat elsewhere if we were trying to “scab a free meal”. Following some further heated words, complimentary drinks were delivered to the three of us who had sauce on our clothes. The group was shocked at the series of events that stemmed from such a trivial accident. As a result members of the group chose not to order. We believe that a simple sincere apology as soon as the accident happened would have been perfectly acceptable way to settle the incident. My friend agrees that he too would have been happy with a prompt sincere apology and some help to remove the sauce, rather than seeking to be compensation for a stained designer shirt. The situation we experienced does beg the question: Would the same turn of events have occurred if we were a group of older customers and not university students? I believe the manager would have reacted quite differently to the situation, had we have been older. I believe he simply could not be bothered to properly rectify the accident purely because we were younger customers. Having food being spilt on you is one of the worst possible incidents that can happen at a restaurant and to inadequately handle the situation is a sign of extremely poor customer service on his behalf. I’m sure you will agree that is not acceptable for customers to be treated with such disrespect and discrimination. It is also totally unacceptable for this type of behaviour to come from your most senior member of staff. Had the quality of customer service of the Brewery matched the quality of the meal, we may have returned in future visits to the region. The age-old hospitality saying goes: “If you like us, tell your friends; if you don’t, tell us”. However, instead we will be telling our friends, as well as you, of our experience.
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