Friday, November 9, 2007

where is customers' right

My friend and I experienced bad customer services in a cafe and a restaurant. I like the Merchant cafe anywhere in Perth as their coffee tastes pretty good and its interior design is unique. I liked the one in Kalamunda when I visited there first time and always told people it was really nice. Well there was an incident which changed the whole thing of it.. Recently, i went there again with my friend. When I entered the cafe I was holding a diet coke which I had been drinking. We placed the order and I asked them for some ice. Well, I guess they assumed that i was going to drink my 'warm' coke with 'free' ice!! So 'the owner looking' man brought to say I'm not supposed to bring drinks purchased outside then he left without giving us a chance to reply him. But well, I do drink black coffee with ice... like Starbucks Iced Coffee- American style and that's why I asked for ice.. "assuming what's in others' mind is DANGEROUS"!! Then again, it doesn't matter whether I drink coffee with it or with my warm coke which I bought even before i decided to come to the cafe, does it? When my friend in fact stood up, he insisted that we didn't respect his business. Errrr... is he talking about respect? where is the respect for customers then? He didn't apologize. My friend lodged an official complaint to their franchiser and she received apology. Hope the owner realized what is more 'value-added' service for their shop.

ok.. the second incident... Anne and I went to Chianti in West Perth before heading for the crappy musical (we didn't know at this point though). It looks so posh in such a location. Well, we ordered cocktails, two bottles of water then two entree size of fish chowder, a dessert and a salad. While we were enjoying freshly made cocktails the manager came to say we 'have to' order main meal on Sat!! what the..? Anne had a look at the menu to find out whether it was shown in the menu as we were not informed when ordering. There was nothing except 7.5% surcharge on Sat and Sun.. We were not happy and we decided to leave. When Anne paid for the bill, the owner went "Welcome to Perth"... it's a bit of story missing here but it was clear that his attitude wasn't professional... Anyway, I was thinking about section 728 in the Corporations Act 2001, of course this section is limited to prospectuses but I do believe there must be a similar legislation in Trading Practice Act (1974)to protect customers from this kind of unfair trading!! geee.. need a lawyer boyfriend!!!

That's what happened... but I must say I admire Anne's attitude and I wish I could do the same thing.

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