Alyssa Turner
Julianna Faircloth
Kyle Brown
James Hall
Group #11
The Complaint Letter
Gail and Harvey Pearson, along with her sister and brother-in-law made reservations for
7:00 PM at the Retreat House on October 11th. Immediately, they were given menus in addition
to the wine list, dinner rolls, and butter. While the service started out very nicely, it immediately
started to decline. It took fifteen minutes for the cocktail waitress to come to the table to take
their drink orders. When one of them did order a classic beverage that was not difficult to
understand, the waitress had a sarcastic reply suggesting that what she was asking for was absurd
and difficult. Then, the waiter, who was not very personable or memorable, came to inform the
group of the entrée specials for the evening. Another ten minutes pass, and their drinks have still
not arrive. At the time, while they were not ready to order their entrees, they wished to order
appetizers. However, the waiter replied that it everything had to be ordered at the same time.
This reply discouraged the group from even ordering appetizers, and they were forced to make a
hurried decision for their entrees. When Mrs. Pearson made her order, the server addressed her as
“young lady” and “dear”, which was very unprofessional in the setting of the restaurant. The
group then requested the salads be brought out twenty minutes after the order was made and also
asked if they could have more rolls. When these things were requested, the waiter’s assistant
replied in a very unprofessional manner and made the customers feel as though she was going
above and beyond in bringing them extra rolls. The salads arrived five minutes after they were
requested, however, it took another twenty five minutes for the entrees to come out During this
time, the customers had to constantly ask for their waters to be refilled and butter replacements
and other things that the waiter should recognize without the customer saying anything. The
food, on the other end of the spectrum, was superb, and it was shame that the poor quality in
service did not reflect the excellence of the food. In the end, the experience was very
unenjoyable as the customers felt like it was a job for the servers to take care of them instead of
being treated as guests. With such high expectations and eagerness from the group when they
entered the restaurant to their perception of it as they left, the quality reflected was extremely
poor, and their experience was shared with their friends, family, and coworkers.
A service recovery in the case of a situation such as this one is crucial to the wellbeing of
the business. It was in Gail Pearson’s hands to make a proper service recovery and she did not do
an adequate job what so ever. First off, she immediately took the defensive. The customer does
not want to hear excuses as to why the service was inadequate, even if it is something that
