Friday, November 06, 2009

Crema Cafe Update How NOT to Handle a Customer Complaint

Update on A Less Than Satisfactory Experience

You might remember that on October 23rd 2009 we visited our Creama Cafe in West Perth which had been a favourite Friday lunch haunt until a less than impressive visit that day.

Today I received a call from Chad Zani who is the Bartercard Perth North owner.

The call started off with a request for a newsletter to be sent to him... and as we do many I asked him which one. After some "ducking and diving" [apologisies for the pun - it wasn't intentional], he informed me he was following up on a complaint from another Bartercard member who wasn't happy with something in a newsletter I had written.

With a little bit of deduction on my part I realised he was talking about our review of Crema Cafe who are also a Bartercard member.

So how is that... they lodge a complaint about me complaining about poor service to the people who are involved with the payment method I used to pay... I wonder would they have rang Visa or Mastercard if I had used those cards to pay??

There are two issues here:

1. as I didn't pay cash, I give up the right to complain?? Or would they suggest they were serving substandard fair to customers of Bartercard??

or

2. I am to be punished anyway they can find because I had the audacity to tell a few friends about a less than pleasant Friday lunch experience.

Question: How hard would it have been, when some one drew the article to their attention, for them to contact me and see how they could retrieve the situation??

My take on "complaining customers" is that they want to do business with you again, but were disappointed with the experience this time. Obviously the team at Crema Cafe see complaining customers as the enemy...

Side note: How many people see what I write?? My network across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube reaches, according to those who know, 25 million people. Obviously a few noticed the previous post on my Confessions of a Boy from Margaret River website]


Side note 2: I let Chad Zani know that I am a passionate supporter of Bartercard, having been a member of nearly 15 years, and the next time he rang me about a complaint from a fellow member, he should pay me the respect of being a member in good standing and not use "subterfuge' to find out what was the background of a complaint. Hopefully he got the message too that by paying with Bartercard I don't give up the right to get a decent meal.

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