Left a medicore restaurant review. Restaurant wants me to email them to discuss....what?

[roses2]

I went to a restaurant a few weeks ago. It was just alright, not as wow as I was expecting from the 4.6* Google reviews. My food was wrong, they returned it then the new meal was under cooked. DS wanted to order ice cream and the guy was in a rush and told DS "I will order you vanilla" when DS wanted a few seconds to think about what flavour after the man told him what they had.

It was £140 for 4 of us (2 adults & 2 kids). Not high end but not cheap either.

So I left 3* on Google and the restaurant posted back "please email us back to discuss".

I'm not sure I have anything else to say. It was in a village we went to visit for a day so I won't be back.

Does anyone ever reply? What do they want to discuss that I didn't already write about objectively in my review?

I think I will email them at least to give training to their staff! If they don't reply I will add that to the review.

I don't want a refund. The poor hospitality sector are already battered.

@LanaDeIRabies did the company have the name of a world famous university?
@OP it sounds like they are going to be reasonable. Might be worth a phonecall, but I wouldn't be removing my review.

I see your review and raise you....left a review on Trip Advisor, restaurant in Southport, Merseyside. so did DH. Not great, but not terrible. My review was actually 1 star more than DH's. The owner of the restaurant actually range me at home to harangue me and left a very nasty message via Trip Advisor. Guess that;s why they had such good undeserved review, in threatening people to remove them. Despite him ringing me and being abusive, it turned out he was more concerned about DH's review. Always easier to shout at a woman Reported to Trip Advisor. Twice.

Trip advisor don't give a shit, so long as people are providing them with free reviews. Haven't left one since.

I’m not surprised you left a mediocre review.

I would have been very irritated about the ice-cream incident. Anyone, including a child, should be allowed to take a few moments to decide what flavour they want!! Completely unacceptable, especially when you’re paying £140.

I once went to a restaurant where one of our party was running slightly late, and the waiter told us we needed to ‘get a move on’ with our order! The whole experience was awful, and the restaurant didn’t survive much longer.

This seems a likly scenario.

Yes @GeorgeMichaelsCat , Duck and Waffle are awful. Had a poor experience and they never responded to my email....

The problem being that if every negative review is removed then the entire point of TripAdvisor and the like is negated.

I agree that reviews are for the benefit of prospective customers. I’m always fair for good and bad and avoid hyperbole. Hopefully business owners find feedback helpful too.

I once left a negative factual review of somewhere we’d previously been keen on, a national chain, and they got in touch privately apologising and thanking me for highlighting issues. They also gave me vouchers exceeding my spend to use ‘if I’d kindly give them another chance’ There were no strings.
I didn’t remove my original review, but did leave a new one of the free visit, not specifically saying it was complimentary but being honest that they had corrected problems after contacting me and being concerned that standards had slipped.

The only reason I didn’t say I returned by invitation was to deter any unscrupulous diners who might have tried to capitalise on their response.

I would email them OP, seeing as their contact was polite.

Sounds to me like a standard copy & paste response; if other less than stellar ones have the same reply you'll know for a certainty

Expand on your review with them by all means, but please don't alter it - as PPs have said, what's the point then in having them at all?

Glad it wasn't just me! They really acted like the were doing us a favour letting us eat there.

This happened to me I left a review all true on trip advisor was asked to email so I did and guess what no reply so not inclined to go back .

I am not a fan of writing hatchet job reviews online as a first port of call and will try and sort out whatever issues I have had with the manager first. Most of the time if they are any good will try and resolve the issue but if management don't give a shit I am happy to leave a review that reflects the service/food.

I complained directly to a restaurant because I asked for gluten free and she gave me the vegan menu....which isn't gluten free I pointed this out and she kept insisting it was fine for me because it was vegan I said no I need gluten free she said yes its vegan its fine for you no im intolerant to WHEAT and GLUTEN I'm not VEGAN no no no this is FINE FOR YOU ITS VEGAN.....manager please? Dude I'm not vegan I'm gluten intolerant fo you have food i can eat he just looked at me like 😶😶😶 🤔 😬 I was laughing but I said it's OK I will go elsewhere so we left I left a review the manager apologised saying my question caught him off guard and he had now given his staff more training I took the review down after about 6 months

I had this after leaving a negative review on a local
Pub grub place.

Toilets were flooded, no access to disabled toilet (I'm a wheelchair user) 90 minute wait for food and then served a vegetable patty that you could bounce a knife off.

They asked us to visit again so they could show us what they could do, got a free 2 course meal for 4 and a bottle of wine and in fairness it was lovely. And they didn't ask me to remove the previous review.

Actually, that put me off booking a property for an overnight stay. The owner wrote back to someone who had made some gentle criticism, all capital letters and no paragraph breaks. Now, if she had said: "sorry, I will be sure to fix this, etc. hope you will still be back again", I would have been suitably impressed. But I had no attention of staying at the same property with someone who seemed slightly unbalanced!

I recently ordered garlic bread (garlic bread!) in a restaurant and it was rank, greasy and chewy rubber bread with cheese that smelled like DH’s feet after he’s been wearing his trainers too long. Naturally enough when my plate was collected untouched they asked me if everything was ok so I told the about the garlic bread ( I don’t think I mentioned DH’s feet) and the waitress was so shocked she sent the manager over who was also shocked as in all the years he’s been running his restaurant, nobody has ever complained about it. I mean, I wasn’t that fussed tbh, but omg did they take it to heart.

They'll probably offer you a free meal or something. I would take it and give them a chance. Good customer service can really help solve a negative impression.

I was once in a large party of about 8 or so people at a very smart Michelin starred London restaurant. The whole thing was a disaster - everything was wrong, orders taken then told off, waited ages for everything etc. Wrote to complain. Was offered a complimentary re-do.

Second go was so amazing - they really went out of their way - free champagne etc etc and everyone who came back went back again to that restaurant and raved about it far and wide.

It was a very good example of how to turn a negative into a positive through good customer service.

The remedy was just so impressive.

from the wording of the review they might genuinely want to find out what you didn’t like about the male waiter’s service so that they can resolve this issue and stop it happening for future customers. I would email and follow up with them as a courtesy - it’s really hard in the restaurant business right now!

Yes I was recently getting some jewellery designed and thought I’d found the right jeweller but then saw her google reviews, every negative review received such a snappy long winded response that it was clear she was a complete nightmare. I found a different jeweller.

I left a bad review once for a restaurant as both the food and service was terrible. Food was wrong (missing about half of what it stated it came with), cold and another persons food was totally burnt (yet still cold) and when we pointed it out at the time they were very rude. The manager replied to my review with a rant and basically insulting me with things like, judging by your reviews of other places it shows what type of rubbish establishments you usually eat at and obviously are not used to good food!
Ummm, ok then. Just made himself look like a total idiot. Especially considering my other reviews were for a whole range of places.

I usually give a fair review of places.
But this one Chinese restaurant was awful.
It was Chinese New year and they moved our booking forward an hour,no problem.
Then we where sat right where the dragon passed.
Great, except the staff totally ignored us.
Asked for water got one glass.
Asked for the menu,the waitress cleaned the table beside us instead 🤣.

We left,got a takeaway on the way home
Left honest review and the manager got in contact and couldn't have been more apologetic.
Gave us some vouchers,we went again and it was fantastic.

Still left original post up but added the positive of a 2nd visit.

The most interesting thing to me here is learning that some people delete their emails. 😆 I don’t think I’ve ever deleted an email in my life.

I had a company go down the ‘not a customer’ route with Tripadvisor. They pulled the review so I sent them everything I had from order numbers to poor product photos and they did reinstate it.

@LanaDeIRabies I had the same with trustpilot but I was so so so annoyed with the company I'd bought from I went through a thoroughly invasive process with trustpilot where I had to send them the receipts for the purchase, proof of delivery (doorbell footage), I had to send the emails and photos I'd send to the company as well as screenshots of my 14 unanswered calls to the company - AND proof of ID and address.

But it was worth it because now not only is my review still on trustpilot it's now pinned to the top of this companies page with a great big "details vetted and confirmed by trustpilot as accurate" sticker on it.

Still didn't get my refund though. Gits.

Email and tell them what the issues are. You have nothing to lose by doing so. I had a friend who used to own a restaurant in a small town. If he got a bad review he would try and find out what the cause of it was to fix it. He found that people who were from the area did not tell him if there were issues as they liked him and knew all his staff so they did not want to give negative feedback.

@SpongeBobJudgeyPants no - Cambridge Satchels have always been brilliant (I've bought loads from them) and their CS is excellent. However that's the company who the one I reviewed implied that I owned! I wish 😂

The company in question was another UK satchel brand though. Not Zatchels, if that narrows it down!