I wrote a recent post detailing the negative experience my partner, mother-in-law and I had at a Pizza Express, London restaurant.
Well, as I stated I sent a copy of my post to Pizza Express to at least give them the opportunity to comment. I received a reply from them asking if somebody could call me to talk about our negative experience! To which I agreed.
I received a telephone call from ‘Clive’, the Operations Manager for the area and I could tell he was genuinely not happy with our experience and asked if we would give Pizza Express the opportunity to show us how we should have been cared for!
I left it for a while and then made contact with Clive. My partner and I ended up visiting another London Pizza Express last Friday and joined the queue when we got there. It was a Friday night and busy. When we got to the front of the queue, the manager on duty asked if it was a ‘table for two’ we wanted (clearly, she did not know we had a table reserved c/o Clive). She was polite, friendly and gave us the warm welcome we did not get last time.
We then told her we had a reservation and gave our name, she then clicked (as in, these are the complainers I better look after them!) and took us upstairs to our table by the window, which was nice. She had acted genuinely with regards to her customer service to us (remember, she didn’t initially know who we were) and no doubt set a good example to the staff on duty.
We enjoyed our meal and drinks, and the service was good. I cannot remember her name, but there was one particular female member of waiting staff who was polite, efficient, friendly and so on – what you expect when you are paying for a meal and drinks. No one forces (I think!) people to work in restaurants, so they should enjoy it or do something else.
An hour and a half later after eating, drinking and chatting, we asked for the bill and the member of staff returned with a discount for us, which we didn’t expect. It was discounted by 100%, so we paid £0.00. We naturally left a large tip, as we had been given a complimentary meal and a tip-top service.
Now, you can say Pizza Express went ‘out there way’ to get it right and everything was ‘planned’ for the night, but it all couldn’t have been, like the manager’s greeting and the fact that the member of waiting staff who brought us the bill, had no idea that we had been in contact with Pizza Express prior, about our experience at the other restaurant.
So, having taken everything into consideration, Pizza Express has to be given 10 out of 10 for clear leadership and a genuine willingness to get things right a second time, when the standards they as a company set themselves are not met and which the paying customer expects. There are a lot of companies out there who wouldn’t care or would not have taken such action in resolving any complaints/negative feedback they may get!
It also is easy to complain, so it should be as easy to compliment! Well done Pizza Express and I’m sure we’ll be back to give you our ‘dough’ in the future.
This has been my ‘View from the Bottom’, Max.
Published by My Mum. Copyright © Kevin Maxwell Film, Media & Performance 2010.