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View Review for Long Bar Steakhouse, Raffles Hotel Singapore |
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| Rude Insulting Restaurant Managers - a Disappointment by J Chang |
If you want to be insulted, go to the long bar steakhouse in Raffles Hotel. The customer service is extremely condescending and rude, especially when you go with friends or business associates.
Having booked in advance for a table for 7 adults and 2 babies, and informing Reservations that we would like to use the 50%-off-total-bill voucher issued by Feed At Raffles card and American Express Centurion card, we went along for lunch today.
Alarm bells should have started ringing when we were pressurized by the Chinese manager to order 4 bottles of mineral water at $15 per bottle. Fortunately we were all driving and so we could more easily decline his constant persuasions to order wine. We did each end up ordering about 2 to 3 side orders as he indicated very convincingly that each side order was small and would not even be sufficient for one person. The side orders ranged in price from about $10 to $20 each.
We waited about an hour for our food to arrive, and it turned out that the main courses were of very large portions and each side order was more than sufficient to share among 2-3 people and as a result, we had over ordered.
When we called for the bill and presented our Amex Centurion card, Feed At Raffles card and 50%-off voucher, we were told very categorically by this same Chinese manager that we were not allowed to use the voucher as we had not informed the restaurant at the time of booking. We said we had indeed done so, only to be told in an accusing way that we had not. When we maintained that we had done so, he sent along his German manager who also told us categorically, in a raised voice, that we could not use the voucher as we had not informed the restaurant at the time of booking.
It was a very embarrassing situation as the managers were clearly saying we were lying and were actually arguing in raised voices with us. I reminded the German manager that Reservations were already wrong in giving us a table for 9 adults and 2 babies (when the reservation was for 7 adults and 2 babies) and so it’s not difficult to imagine that they could also have forgotten to indicate our desire to use the voucher issued by the hotel and Amex. The manager shook his head and said very rudely that we were wrong.
This stand off continued for a further 15 minutes and had this been a business meeting, the level of embarrassment would have been far worse as already, other customers in the restaurant were staring. The only way we were able to stand our ground was to call Amex Centurion on our handphone and have their customer service personnel speak with the German manager.
Subsequently, the manager handed us back our phone without a word and walked off. Fortunately the Amex Centurion person was still on the line and explained that the restaurant would honour the voucher. We were then sullenly presented with a revised bill and upon payment, we left the restaurant. There were no apologies or even words of reconciliation which I found extremely appalling.
It also leaves me to wonder if in fact the Feed At Raffles offers are genuine offers or not. If restaurant reservations had indeed not forgotten to note down our desire to use the voucher, would our food portions have been smaller (since we were only paying 50% of the price) or would our food quality have been inferior to what we were served?
I am entirely disgusted with the customer service at the Long Bar Steakhouse, especially when this sort of insulting and condescending behaviour is that of the managers – what kind of example does this present to the other staff? The pressure to order more and also to order high margin items (like $15 mineral water) also makes the dining experience very unpleasant.
In addition, it makes us wonder if in fact management has trained restaurant managers to behave in this way, and it makes us very disappointed with a supposedly grand establishment like the Raffles Hotel. Who knows if the other restaurants in the hotel also have such terrible customer service? Well, I’m not about to spend money in the other hotel restaurants to find out.
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