I'm on the phone

To be honest, I think you could only describe it as a hole in the wall, as it was not much bigger than the space an ATM would take up.  Mind you, nothing wrong with having a small low rental site if you can get all the equipment in there!

I think my friends may have been recommending this operation to me having had a night out on the tiles and finding themselves in a desperate need for food as opposed to liquid nourishment, but anyway, this is not about the food on offer.

The experience was possibly up there with the worst examples of customer service I have ever come across.  I wandered up to the counter and waited.  There was a young man stood in the back area talking to someone on his mobile phone.  Having seen me he walked up to the till with his phone apparently glued to his ear and whilst having a conversation with his girlfriend, wife, mother, father, friend or whoever, he said two words – “yes mate”. I was very close to asking him if it was possible to serve me without his telephone friend being part of the process and then remembered that it might be safer for self-preservation’s sake not to.  I gave him my order and he popped it in a bag, passed it over and said two words “three ninety-five”.  I handed over the money he gave me the change and then walked to the back of the shop leaving me at the counter.  All the while, the phone was still stuck to his ear.

The sad thing is, the owner of this chain set it up from nothing and without doubt will have worked incredibly hard to get to where he is now.  Employing and allowing sub standard staff to serve paying members of the public could jeopardise his business.  The old saying that a customer having a bad experience will tell ten others is so true and these days, with social media so popular, that figure can easily be 100’s or even 1000’s.

Harris Restaurant Consultants offer training programs for the most simple of tasks right through to training for managers, general managers and chefs.  Owners should overlook good quality training at their peril!