When is it appropriate for a customer to get up and leave?

Over the weekend my wife and I went out for a curry.  We actually went to a curry house that I have praised in the past on this very blog for their efforts in going the extra mile and generally achieving customer delight.  They achieve customer delight in a number of innovative ways such as finding out the birthdays and wedding anniversaries of their customers and then making a huge fuss of them when they come in.

My wife and I were looking forward to our meal and had organised a babysitter for a rare night out.

We arrived at the restaurant and the usual fuss was made and we were seated at our table.  The restaurant was clearly busy even for a Friday night.

We had only been sat down for around two minutes when a member of the waiting staff turned up at the table and asked if we were ready to order.  Seeing as we hadn’t been given the menu yet this was a little tricky so we asked the waiter for some menus.

The menus took around 5 minutes to arrive and we managed to collar the waiter to order a bottle of wine to kick things off.

We quickly decided on our food and waited patiently for the waiter to come back over and take our order.  After around 10 minutes we still had not had our order taken so we asked one of the waiters to take our order.  The waiter told us that he would send someone over.  We then watched a waiter taking the order of all the tables around us but still not coming to us.

Things started to get a little better when from nowhere some poppadoms were bought over about ten minutes after we ordered them.  I have never had a single complaint about this restaurant and have eaten there many times however, when the poppadoms arrived they were completely stale – the place was obviously having a bad night!

A further five minutes passed by and I asked another waiter to get our order and he once again said he would send someone over.

After half an hour of sitting and waiting to order, eating stale poppadoms and drinking our wine we mutually decided that enough was enough so we stood up to walk out of the restaurant.  This is not something people do easily as getting up and leaving the restaurant is generally awkward and to be avoided but in this case I felt we had no choice.

The restaurant charges a premium for its food and this is normally supported by exemplary service and a main meal will normally come in at around £16 a head which is expensive for a curry.  We were not prepared to pay a premium for excellent customer service and then not even have our order taken for half an hour.

Being an honourable type and also having previously enjoyed an excellent relationship with the staff and the management of the restaurant I was keen to do the right thing and rather than get up and walk out I went up to explain why we were leaving and offer to settle up for the third of a bottle of red we had drunk.

The manager cam over and explained how they were very busy and that they would have our food ready in five minutes.  The manager clearly needed to work on his listening skills as I had told him that we had not even had a chance to order so quite how he was going to produce our food in five minutes was beyond me.

Having made the gesture of offering to pay for the wine I was amazed when the manager asked us how much of the wine we had drunk and got out a calculator to work out what a third of the total price was.  He then asked me for £6 which was a third of the total cost for the bottle of £18.  Just to be clear I had been the model customer, I had demonstrated empathy and understanding of their situation and had not raised my voice or insulted anyone – I had just reached the end of my patience.

I gave the manager £10 and walked out of the restaurant feeling hungry and annoyed at the service.  Not to mention that it was now 9.30 and we were paying our sitter by the hour and had still not eaten.

The next day I had decided not to follow up or make a drama out of things but my Father who is a regular patron at the restaurant went in to complain (without my knowledge).

Apparently the manager was apologetic but also kept saying how busy they were.  They offered a free bottle of wine the next time we came in but my Father thought this should be extended to a meal for two which they eventually agreed to – albeit a little reluctantly!

We will have the meal but I will never quite look upon the place in the same way and I am certainly not prepared to pay their premium prices for curry.  Remember if you are going to pride yourself on service and charge a premium for delivery of this service then make sure you get it right, no matter how busy you are.  Also if you spot a customer service failure then listen properly to the customer, hold you hands up, respond fairly and make a gesture that is above and beyond the expectations of your customer.