WORST WORST Customer Service EVER

Item: Hard Rock Cafe Johannesburg
Rating: 1
Author: mahlangus M

Worst worst Customer Service ever!!!! My girlfriend and I went to your establishment last night to enjoy local comedians on stage. This was the first time we were coming to your establishment so we were looking forward to it. It's sad though,how the evening ended up being the worst restaurant experience for us ever!! It all started after I had sat down, the waiter (Chima) came to take my order. Chima made Jo'burg taxi drivers Customer service seem 5 star compared to his. He didn't give me the courtesy of greeting me and just stood there looking at me. After about a minute of us looking at each other,he finally said what can I get you. I ordered my drink and he left. After my drink and our food was brought to us, Chima was harder to find than a unicorn. We went more than 90 minuted without him coming to check on us. We had to ask other waiters to get us a glass of water. I sat there for over an hour with an empty glass, wanted to order another drink buy Chima was nowhere to be seen. My girlfriend didn't eat her burger and it sat there exposed cause we couldn't find Chima to come and put it in a take away bag for us. The sad thing is,the other patrons on our table had a different waiter and he was constantly checking up on them and their beer glasses were always full. Our space looked filthy cause our unicorn was nowhere to be found. The night got worse when he finally showed up and we asked for our bill. The bill came but was missing our drinks which we had to add manually. That was the last straw and I did something that I have never done- I didn't tip! In my whole life, I'm 32 and go out more than 3 times a month, I have never not tipped a waiter. I tip a minimum of 10% for just a waiter doing the bare minimum....so for me not to tip showed that Chima was way below average. Things went more worse when we had to pay our bill,the speed point was brought to us and we swiped our card. Apparently the battery died and the machine was unable to print a receipt. Chima asked us to check if we had received a notification from our bank and we told him no. He asked if he can go to his manager to get the receipt reprinted and we said it's cool. Maybe 30 seconds after he had left the notification came through. We waited over 30 min before he came back and he told us the transaction was rejected. We made him aware that on our side it said the money was paid,can he please get a manager whom we can talk to and see if we can sort this out. And that's when Charlene came. Charlene who I would say is cut from the same cloth as Penny Sparrow. She came to our table with Chima and didn't acknowledge our presence at all. Didn't look at us nor greet us. She proceeded to talk to Chima in front of us about us for a little over 10 min. Saying things like ' this was rejected, you must tell THEM to pay again'. She eventually looked at us,and instead of greeting us and apologising for the inconvenience we have experienced due to your machine, she says ' Guys, this was rejected and you must pay again'. I told her that we haven't received a reversal notification from our bank so we're uncomfortable paying again cause we feared lying double. She told us,in the rudest and condescending way ever that Hard Rock Cafe was not going anywhere so even if we double pay, we can always come back to claim a refund. It was clear that she was insinuating that we were looking at running away from paying our bill while we had been so patient and understanding and waited for almost an hour to get this sorted. When I tried to tell her that I stay 70km away from Sandton and coming here to get a refund would really inconvenience me, she stopped mid sentence and told Chima to go fetch Noble to come deal with THEM. I guess the black manager would be able to deal with the blacks who were looking at skipping their bill Noble came and what a breath of fresh air he was. He acknowledged our presence, listened to why had happened and then turned to us and greeted us and apologised for the inconvenience we had experienced. I was so grateful that we finally had someone who understand customer service and I told him that what he had just done Charlene failed to do. And that is when she stood up,threw a tantrum at us, told Noble 'You can deal with THEM' and walked away. I just remember thinking I had to be on candid camera caused there's no way a 'manager' can be this rude to a customer Noble continued to deal with us professionally and explain that the transaction didn't go through. And we told him we would be comfortable if we also got a notification from our bank reversing the transaction. At this point Chima threw a tantrum,spoke to me a client like he was speaking to his sibling and we were arguing about who's turn it is to wash the dishes. When I made him aware that he should talk to me with respect, he proceeded to tell me he is 37 years old and won't have a young guy like me question him and even point out his weaknesses and lack of customer service. Noble tried very hard to calm him down, but he didn't, Noble asked him to apologise for being so rude to a customer but he downright refused and decided to walk away. When he left that's when I felt respected again. That's when I felt like a customer who was being treated the way a customer should be,a customer who paid to get in and paid to come enjoy your food-professionally and courteously. Noble did a stellar job at apologising yet again for behavior which he called 'Non Hard Rock Cafe' and we proceeded to deal with the matter at hand. While we were discussing possible ways of handling the speed point problem,we received a notification confirming the reversal. We then paid again and everything was sorted. Noble should be used as a benchmark for Customer Service. After the service from Chima and Charlene, we doubt we will ever come back to your establishment and we will discourage any of our friends, family and colleagues to support your establishment. We are even thinking of going on HelloPeter to warn other prospective customers from not coming. The only person who made us think twice about this was Noble. He made us see that the behavior of the two C's was not a reflection of your entire establishment. I hope that this matter will be taken seriously and this rude and unacceptable behavior by them won't be left undealt with

Helpful (0)

Replies (0)