Writing a complaint letter

[Pebs]

I wrote a letter of complaint to a restaurant once. It was a very high end restaurant that we went to for our annual "treat ourselves on Christmas Eve" tradition.

We had reservations and were seated rather promptly. It took 20 minutes for someone to bring our menus. At that time we ordered a bottle of wine. The wine came in 10 minutes. The glasses 20 minutes later. It was after that when some finally took our orders. When I asked for sour cream with my baked potato, I watched a junior waiter take a used dish of it out of a bus pan and bring it over to our table. When we got the check, we had been charged for our wine plus the wine for the table across the room. This meal cost us over $400 for three adults and one 10 year old.

The next day I wrote the manager of this very exclusive hotel that the renouned restaurant was in about our experience. I layed it out as honestly and factually as possible including times and dates, and made it clear that the purpose of the letter was not to get anyone fired, get any money or cause them any problem. I was in the hospitality industry at the time and told him that if a customer had that kind of experience in an establishment that I managed, I would want to know so as to correct the problem.

I received a call in a couple of days later from the manager thanking me for my letter. He had in fact checked the dates and times and pulled the actual tickets and verified when our reservation was, when orders were placed and when the food actually arrived. He noted the errors in charges as well. He let me know that he had read my letter out loud at the staff meeting and assured me that our waiter had been dealt with. He not only reversed the charges for the entire bill, but insisted that the four of us return at our convenience for another meal entirely at their expense which I tried to decline but he would have none of it. We did in fact do that and had an absolutely fantastic experience.

I think there are people on the take that just complain to get freebees. I made sure the tone of my letter made it clear that I wasn't one of those people and I think that is why we got the response we did.

[mcohen]

mcohen, can you elaborate? What's the nature of your complaint?

Its nothing that bad, where I got sick or anything.

But, to answer your question, I've been on a quest to find a favorite brand for ice cream, as well as trying several different flavors. (Vanilla is my favorite, but I wanted to be open to new flavors). And, I bought several diffferent flavors from a particular expensive brand(avg. price for a pint costs about $8) thinking that with there would be some correlation between price and quality. I admit it, I fell victim to its marketing- small batches, artisinal, etc... Now, I didn't necessairly expect it to be OMG! the best ice cream I've ever had. But, then again, I wasn't expecting it to be the worst ice cream I've ever had which was what it turned out to be.

You put ice cream in front of me, and I've never refused it. But, this time, I couldn't finish it. One of the things was the texture of the ice cream. You know how ice cream is supposed to have that luxurious, creamy mouth feel. Well, this ice cream's texture was kind of rough like a cat's tongue- I think the ice cream was too old even though this brand touts that it makes their ice cream in small batches and I tried this ice cream before the best used by date.

[Dianabanana]

A couple of months ago I bought a rather pricey jar of Stonewall Kitchen sour cherry jam. It would have been delicious but for the fact that it was basically sour cherry jelly, having only about six cherries floating at the top of the jar. I e-mailed customer service and they very graciously sent me out a new jar of jam (not a coupon but an actual jar).

Then last month I bought a jar of Stonewall Kitchen lemon curd, which turned out to be utterly spoiled--horrid, stinky, rotten lemon cheese. I e-mailed them again with the details and told them that I didn't want them to think I was scamming them, so please don't send me a replacement, but do look into your quality control. They promptly replied with a very kind offer to send a new jar anyway, but to tell you the truth I'm off Stonewall Kitchen now so I declined. Their customer service is top notch, though.

Twenty-two years ago my now-husband and I were carrying a paper bag of Safeway groceries up to our apartment when the bag split and everything came crashing to the ground with a mighty smashing of glass bottles and spilling of liquids. This was in the days before automatic double bagging. He angrily dashed off a note to corporate headquarters. The next day we hear a knocking at the door and there stood the bag boy holding two full bags full of groceries, including fruit, vegetables, eggs, two steaks, and a personalized cake!

[aburas]

I found a fried bug on the bottom of a bag of Lay's potato chips. It was a big bag and we ate the whole thing except for the crumbs at the bottom...The bug was in the crumbs! I called their customer service number. They sent me a return envelope to send the bug and the bag to them...along with $25 gift certificate to Pizza Hut (I guess they own each other). After I returned the bag, they sent me coupons for 2 cases of Pepsi.

I went to the store and got the Pepsi. When I got home I realized that 6 of the cans had been punctured and all the cans were empty (the inside of the case was covered in dried Pepsi). I couldn't win!

[sygyzy]

I rarely send complaint letters but I did 3 a few weeks ago. Here's one (ignore the escape characters generated by their form):

Dear Marmalade,

I have dined at a few of your So. Cal locations and have always been a fan. When I found out you were opening one in Santa Barbara, I was very pleased. I have dined at the La Cumbre location a number of times now. Tonight I had dinner there. I ordered a half rack of baby back ribs. Now, I know Marmalade is not a BBQ restaurant, but even ribs that are not smoked can come out tasting good. The moment I touched the ribs, I knew things were not good.

The piece of meat was either room temperature or downright cold. Furthermore, the rack was made up of a large amount of fat and chewy tendons. Now, I know ribs have little turnover and I can\\\'t expect you to make a rack fresh for each order. But, if you are going to serve me microwaved or re-heated food, at least make it convincing. I want to be fooled into thinking you put some pride into my dish. I ended up finishing the dish because I don\\\'t like wasting food and I feel terrible sending stuff back. I would say without a doubt that it was the worst order of ribs I have ever eaten. Please remove this item from your menu!

Sincerely,

sygyzy

They sent me a $50 gift certificate which I shared with a friend this past Saturday.

Edited May 28, 2008 by sygyzy (log)