11/04 was a friends birthday and we seven of us had planned to throw him a surprise by visiting ivy for some quick (very quick) deserts. We knew that deserts are quite readily available and we can certainly spend around 15 minutes so that other people waiting for dinner are not disappointed. Since they don't make prior reservations, we did wait for 15 odd minutes for our turn to come.
As soon as we settle down and order for deserts, the platter is made readily available. We just got to pick-n-choose. Wow! what an express service.
In another moment, one of the staff member appears and quotes "Sorry Sir, if you have come just for deserts, I have other customers lined up and I got to take care of them.
We politely say him that we are ... View Morequite settled and it won't take more than 15 minutes for us to wind it all. Since it was our friend's birthday, we positively assumed that he will heartily welcome our request.
On the contrary, his face turned pale and with one more Sorry he appeared to be disgusted with our request.
We had no choice but to leave the place.
We were pretty much disheartened with this attitude and treatment. As I mentioned earlier, the fact that we would not taken more than 15 minutes was quite evident and conveyed as well. Also, had it been our normal dinner order for seven of us, we would have taken atleast 5-8 minutes to decide on the cuisine and dish and the ordered food would have taken another 20 minutes to arrive.
I just have 2 questions -
1) From the Business point of view, wasn't it a logical decision for him to serve us the deserts and happily cash some business in 15 minutes?
2) From the Hospitality point of view (actually this should be the first question), wasn't it a natural choice for him to serve the customer and make him happy.
Customer is not asking anything for free. He is paying and expecting courtesy and service.
Although, I know IVY is a very popular and it won't matter to them if one set of customers are disheartened but there is a famous saying in the service industry which should be comprehened in it's correct sense i feel - "If you don't take care of your customer, somebody else will."
I have not intentions to be a spoilsport. I would want to recommend this as a key learning, if that matters a little.
In anycase, thank you for investing your time in reading this.View Less