Two Feedbacks Gone Down The Drain

Asking for feedbacks has become an important trend in the wellness, hospitality and service sector as a whole. Through feedbacks, companies endeavour to improve their offerings to maintain and improve their reputation.

Being very fortunate to have tried a lot of food of a variety of cuisines in my city, I make it a point to give an honest feedback to hotels and restaurants that ask for it. However, I never ever had to give a negative or sour feedback before.

And when I happened to give two in a row, I was shocked to see the way managements respond to our feedbacks in our country, India. At first, I thought feedbacks were asked just for the sake of it. I thought they were ways the company/brand was trying to show customers their opinion matters and unsurprisingly, in majority of places, this is exactly what it is. A feedback form is typically a paper placed for show.

But, exercising our right is an important duty of a citizen and a customer. So, I make it a point to give feedbacks and never wondered where my words would go or would they matter. Here's two incidences : -

A) Nawab Pan Asia, Pune
The attendant was really helpful and helped me pick a starter for myself. He helped my parents pick the right dish in the right amount. And we were set. The restaurant was moderately crowded. The service at first was great. Food was rushing in hot. Water was poured regularly. He was paying close attention to us. Asking us if we liked the food etc.

He wasn't a Maharashtrian. He was probably a North Indian (no offense or praise). We were shortly done with our main course and waiting for the dessert menu. We waited a good 15 minutes patiently but he was too busy. I really don't blame him. Then, we waved a few times and he came another 10 minutes later. We asked for the dessert. And then had to wait another 15 minutes for the bill and this was annoying.

The restaurant was busy. People were waiting. We were wanting to leave. All set to settle the bill and leave. However, we were kept waiting, for no good reason. And finally, came the bill and the feedback form. As usual, my parents settled the bill and I took charge of the feedback form.

I marked the food and ambience as a 4/5 each. I was considering the Service Section before giving it a review. I marked Attendant Helpfulness a 4/5 for his excellent suggestions. However, I marked Attentiveness a 3/5 and justified it with a comment. "Slightly slow and delayed service over the end." and gave it in.

We were almost out the door and about to call the elevator until our attendant for the night came running to me and said, "Sir, ye kya likha hai aapne? Sir, main aapko full attention diya na. Sir, sab food hot leka aaya na mai. Repeat chahiye kya poocha. Sir maine kidhar neglect kiya. " and I calmly told him that we were waiting for a real long time post our main course for some water, our bill and even merely ordering a desert.

However, he insisted I change the feedback. I was taken aback. I wasn't used to changing a feedback. I didn't want to do it because I was highly truthful. I don't know why, but I grabbed the pen and slashed the comment and rated him 5/5 and he said "Thank you Sir!" and left into the hustling restaurant.

B) Sigree, Global Grill, Pune - by Speciality Restaurants India
We regularly visit this place and have never been disappointed with food and service. However, the last visit, was rather unpleasant.

Sigree, during evenings, has a starter on table buffet system. I opted for the Non-Veg buffet while my parents chose Veg. We walked and started with soups and the starters started shortly. Food was great and I was starving. We were supposed to be served 5 Types Of Starters each. So, I was expecting 5 Non-Veg starters.

When we entered the restaurant at 7:30 PM, the place had just 10 odd people out of a maximum of 60 guests in the indoor space. We expected fast and courteous service that day but we were wrong to expect so.

The starters started coming but the first morsel of Chicken Tikka I had was cold. As cold as Tandoor Grilled Chicken could get if kept in a cold room for an hour. I was disappointed, yet I asked for a new lot. The mutton starter was piping hot and tasty. Prawns came in a few minutes later only to be untouched by me since they were very cold to eat again. Despite these initial setbacks, we ate 4 starters each. My parents were expecting a vegetable while I was expecting Fish. We waited for a while and my eyes were eying every dish that was coming out of the live grill which I could see through the glass.

I was still waiting for Fish. Not every starter came back to me again. Theoretically, the starters are supposed to keep on coming till you ask them to stop. However, nobody was really attentive towards our table as a lot of new guests quickly poured in and the restaurant was half full in the next 30 minutes.

We shifted gears to the main course and I don't do Mains a lot. So, I had the Fish when it came. It was really nice. Now, I had to wait for the other starters to show up again. Our attendant was prompt to ask for a repeat for a few starters but not uniformly. But, the starters as a whole just wouldn't showup.

I kept asking for them and got to a stage where I thought we deserved some more attention. We topped ourselves with desserts. Lots of sweet and sour things. Can't remember what. And asked for the bill.

And, in came another feedback form which I took charge off. Rated the food quality as 3/5 and specified (food was cold on a lot of occasions today). Rated service as 3/5 and specified (cold starters and lack of attention). Rated the ambience as a 4/5 as usual and submitted it. However, this time, we actually got to saw the advent of our feedback. My feedback was being read by the attendant whilst he was carrying it to the manager. Then, a colleague read it. Then, the manager read it too.

And history nearly repeated itself. The attendant came to talk to me and reiterated that he was serving us with attention. He highlighted that he was asking me for repeats. He seemed really alarmed by my feedback and strongly insisted he was serving us well. He asked me to CHANGE my feedback. And, I thought of the consequences of doing that. Did it matter to me? No. But maybe he would love out on some spare bonus that would change his week. So, I altered the feedback. Yes. I was made to alter the feedback and it was back to the managers desk.

We were waiting for our change and my parents were silent at first. Then, father said, "Guess there's no way you can tell them the truth without them coming and hiding it." and on hearing that, I asked another attendant to call the manager on duty for a small chat.

A fat man came and stood besides me. And I told him what had just happened. In the end, I just asked him "Why do you ask us for feedback if you're going to make us manipulate it? I don't think it is right that I change my honest opinion about today's dinner so that a fellow colleague in your restaurant doesn't get a hit on his salary. " and all the fat manager did was  say, "Customer is most important to us sir. Extremely sorry for this event. Your feedback is very valuable to us. " and I was like "WHAT EVEN!"

In the end, he showed off his management training by saying, "I take this opportunity to introduce our new menu. Sir, do come in afternoon also since we have our new food menu. Do visit again."

So, the manager diffused the situation by diverting it and showing off his management skills. The conclusion I drew is some places, institutions, would never change. It is the attitude of people that needs to change for improvement in lots of sectors like wellness and hospitality.

People need to develop the habit of accepting criticism and working to improvise on that fronts. I wonder why feedbacks aren't read by the manager at the end of a particular session to assess performance of attendants. Maybe a little anonymity shall help them judge performance better.

Cheers.