Recently I had the poorest experience at LaRosa's ever, and here is the story!
From: Eric
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 10:29 AM
To: LaRosa's Customer Service
Subject: Online Feedback
Thank you for taking the time to 'contact us'. We want to help you with whatever comment or question you might have. Our goal is to respond to you within 24 hours. So that we may better help you, please provide us with the following information:
Daytime phone number (should we need to contact you): 513-xxx-xxxx or 513-xxx-xxxx
Phone number you gave us when you placed your order: 513-xxx-xxxx or 513-xxx-xxxx
Date of your visit or purchase: December 23, 2009, and February 2, 2010.
Pizzeria that served you: Harrison
Your online ordering username: N/A
Thanks again for your feedback! We will reply to you soon.
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To whom it may concern,
My name is Eric, and I live about 15 minutes away from the Harrison, Ohio location. In the last year I’ve been there three times because I like your product and normally the atmosphere I get at a LaRosa’s. The first instance I won’t mention much about because it has been so long I don’t remember what all happened to make me not want to go back for 6 to 7 months. I hate to be a customer that complains, but I am also the customer that will talk about a good experience. None of my experiences with this location has been positive.
My second trip to Harrison LaRosa’s was on December 23 with a friend that used to live in Cincinnati. LaRosa’s being a Cincinnati Tradition made it a place I wanted to take him, and his lady. So we came over about 6:30 or 7. They were busy as expected for dinner rush. The hostess told us it would be 15 minutes, 20 at most. So we waited, and it really took about 40 – 45 minutes. I know that is not in the control of the hostess so it did not bother us. Once we got sat it took our server 10 minutes to get over to offer us drink which would have been fine if we didn’t spend 40 minutes at the front door. When she came back she had our drinks mixed up, and had to go back to correct it. She came back to get our order with the correct drinks. Nothing about her was friendly or inviting like I’m used to at the White Oak, or Colerain LaRosa’s. We placed our orders for salads, meals, and was intending on getting desert. It took about 20-30 to get our meals delivered to our table. When the female server was delivering the dinners she realized she forgot our salads, and went back to get them. This was instead of asking if we wanted them, or offering to take them back. Since she didn’t give me any time to respond when she brought mine out I sent her back with it. As I do not want the salad when my burnt calzone is sitting at the table getting cold. The food was a little chilled already, not the piping hot that we would have gotten if it was delivered to my house. After our meals she came back and dropped off the checks, and finally offered us a refill on our empty drinks. She asked us to pay now so that she could go on break. I’m not sure if her manager or something was pressuring her to take her break or if she just needed to take one, but it’s not professional at all as a server to tell your table that. When she said that I ask her if we could order desert, which turned out to be a mistake as it was terrible. On my way out I said nothing as I hate to complain as I was a host, bartender, and server for many years as was my mother.
I did however call the next day, and talked with the lady that sat us. She said she was a manager and apologized time and time again. She explained that they were busy, and that she would have a talk with her waitress. She also offered to supply me with a credit for $30 to my cell phone number of 513-xxx-xxxx. I could careless about the credit as normally when I have such service I do not go back for a few months if ever. There are restaurants that I still do not go to because of poor service, and no response or correction.
So I made the mistake of going back a second time thinking that there would be no way we would receive such terrible service twice from the Harrison LaRosa’s. My lady and I went in for dinner on Tuesday, February 2. We went right in, and sat down since it was a little before the dinner rush. The reason we decided to give them a second chance is because I had the $30 credit. Once again we had to wait about 7-10 minutes to get our drinks. Once we placed our drink order a second waitress came by and asked us what we would like to drink. We responded that someone has already asked us for our drinks. When she brought back our drinks she was able to take our order, and get it correctly. The salad came before the meal with plenty of time to eat it. The meal came, and was terrific. It was warm, fresh, and smelled great. The bill came, and I gave the waitress my number so that she could pull up the credit, and apply it to our bill, and I could pay for the difference. That is when the manager Kevin Martin came over and asked me if the credit was under another number. I gave him the home number, and told him that the lady said she put it on the 513-xxx-xxxx. I was fine with providing this information to Kevin, but when he came back I quickly became embarrassed as he was interrogating me on his dinning room floor about who gave me the credit, when was it issues, why was it issued, and all the details he could get from me. By this time we were already at your location for an hour and a half. I was ready to go as we were done eating and our take out was only getting colder. I gave him my credit card and told him to just put it on there we have to go. He continued asking me questions about who told me they would give me the credit, and if I remember their name or my server’s name. I don’t remember their names I don’t even remember the server’s name from Tuesday, which I don’t even remember her introducing herself. This only created more irritation, and I told him I would call him once I got home to give him the date, and time the charge was ran. I have never been as embarrassed in a restaurant as Kevin did in front of his other customers.
Kevin told me that the General Manager or Owners would be calling me the next day. I never heard from anyone nor do I expect to.
I write to you because I know this isn’t the type of business you do. I have helped “Buddy” LaRosa in the past while working at Cincinnati Bell, and I know if he knew about this instance he wouldn’t be pleased. He has worked far too long to create a name, and business for issues like this to be occurring.
I live, work, and eat in Harrison. I rarely leave the area because I like it out here, and it’s a nice and growing area. LaRosa’s competition in the area is O’Charlies, and Cracker Barrel in my opinion for dine-in places. I have never received this service at those places. I don’t think I’ll drive by them to get to LaRosa’s again. As for pizza your competition is Little Caesar they have your prices beat with about the same quality.
I do apologize about the length of this email, but I felt it contains details that are important to the situation.
Thank you for your time,
Eric
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Dear Eric,
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. Hearing and acting on what our Guests tell us is the only way we can improve what we do. I am very sorry that you had such disappointing experiences with our Harrison Pizzeria. I am forwarding your comments on to the Operations Management Team for our Harrison location so your concerns can be addressed. You can expect to hear back from someone on their team within the next several business days for further follow up. If we can help you with anything else, please do not hesitate to let us know.
Thanks for the privilege of serving you,
Stacie
Guest Satisfaction Supervisor
LaRosa's, Inc.
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Stacie only took 10 minutes to respond to my email which was nice, and she forwarded over to a few others so that it could be handled. The response seemed kind of copy and pasted. Which I would expect is cause they get a lot of emails daily.
Following up this I did receive a call from Tim, General Manager of LaRosa's. He was a nice guy, and as expected threw money at the problem with apologizes. That is all you really can expect with a situation like this. I think it's how all problems are handled now a days. So now I have a $30 credit that I could careless about as I do not plan on going back for a while....If ever. Maybe this Cincinnati Tradition will become a pass time.
I think that the biggest disappointment here is that I used to go into LaRosa's after games, and stuff at school event. We were terrible customer (although I always tipped well) and we got better service. After games and stuff they would get slammed with tons of kids, and I received better service then. Now I care more about service, and being a server in the pass maybe my expectation are high but if I'm going tip then I want a few things for it.
Oh well, I hope your experiences are better with LaRosa's.
Cheers,
EricNCincy
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