Last Friday, my colleagues and I decided to take our regular TGIF to very popular Karaoke bar in Victoria Island Lagos. We had called a day before to make reservation, and the number we called was the number on their website. We were told to go and check the reservation procedure on line, make a deposit and call back to confirm. I was a bit irked, but went ahead and made the deposit.
We called the same number and the guy on the other end politely told us that he had seen the deposit, but we should call some landline he gave us to make the reservation.
Ok, if you dont make reservations, why is your number the one on the website (he sounded like the boss/owner)
I told him if your number is there, then I should not be made to call anyone, he should do it.
But knowing how crazy fridays can be, and knowing how much crazier services can be in Nigeria, I decided to save my colleagues and I the drama and call the landline he gave. I was assured by some idiot called Mike that the reservation was confirmed for 7pm.
At 6:30, I called to say we are on our way, and the person on the other end said no problem.
We got there and voila, we did not have reservation!
They gave us a table for 8 instead of 12, they scurried about cluelessly looking for seats to add, asking already seated customers to please excuse us to get more seats!
This was a reservation made the day before and confirmed! Nobody was apologising of course.
The daft, pot bellied manager was busy ass kissing some big client, and only made attempt to attend to me when he saw I was going to make trouble for him.
We managed to have a good time, with me still seething cos it looked like I failed in organising the outing.
Time to pay the bill, (of course I had already decided that I was not paying any stupid service charge as we got Zilch, and no tip for anybody either) the waiter gives me the bill, and I tell him we already made a deposit, so would need to deduct that and give him the balance, he said he was not aware, and I should go discuss with his manager!
How is it my business, I told him to do his frigging job and go confirm with his manager, not asking me to do his job. He confirmed, we paid and I remembered again this morning when someone told me about @service_talks on twitter, so I decided to rant and complain.
I wish you could publish names of companies, it will be good for these no good places to be afraid and train their staff members on customer service.
P.S did i mention it took them almost an hour to actually start serving us?
Contributor: Damilola Akingbade
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