UPDATE: I want to thank everyone for your comments and for sharing your stories and your support. I especially want to thank Charlotte Lundin, the STORE MANAGER for Rosati's who not only posted an incredibly kind and professional comment to the blog last night, but also tried to reach me at work last night, and called my house today. We had a lovely conversation and I am completely at ease about the whole situation now.
I told Charlotte I'm at home today studying for ACLS class tomorrow and she volunteered to send over dinner for us tonight so I don't have to cook. I'm looking forward to getting to taste the food, like I wanted to in the first place, and I cannot begin to express how much respect and appreciation I have for Charlotte as a person and as a manager. The owner of that franchise is a lucky man to have her heading up his restaurant. She is now very aware, from all of our comments, about the training that needs to take place on the evening shift and I have no doubt that the problems we've had will be taken care of. I'm not happy about "winning" per se and any negative actions that might come of this, because I would have much preferred the original problem to not have happened at all, but I am very pleased by the prospect of the improvements that I'm sure will happen and I was happy to be able to tell Charlotte how friendly and helpful both the driver and the cashier who took the order were to work with.
I'd like to ask everyone to give Rosati's another chance to show the "best side" of their service and product.
I'll photograph and review the food either later tonight or tomorrow after ACLS....
Thank you again to everyone!
Glenna
I review a lot of foods, products, and restaurants on this blog and I am always honest. Rosati's? I'll be honest on that one too. I've wanted to go there and have mentioned to Gene that I wanted to try it. I knew it was a chain store but I like the logo with the four old guys. The marketing appeals to me. Did I like the food? Have no idea.
Let me tell you my experience.
Last night several folks in our dept ordered (delivery) from Rosati's. We work nights so we're usually the last order in before closing time. Connie had just called everyone else's order in a few minutes before I came back to the tech room and found out they'd ordered. I called and added my pizza to the list. The gentleman on the phone was very nice and personable and verified which order my pizza went with.
All is well.
I went out on the floor to do more Asses & Treats and came back in. Connie said the delivery person was waiting for someone in the ER entrance and asked if I'd mind going to get it. No problem. I took our stack of cash down there, met the nice delivery girl and she gave me the total. It was a different figure from what I thought I remembered but, shrug, I hadn't been that involved with the whole thing and I figured "How do you divide $10 up between the 8 people who ordered?" Too much of a hassle and I really feel for people who work on tips. I figured "What the hell, we'll make her night" And gave her all the cash even though it made for a $25.00 tip. It never hurts to be generous, right?
I took the food upstairs and we divided everything out but my pizza wasn't there.
All is not well.
I was disappointed but it was almost 11pm at that point and I figured they were already closed....what could I do? Connie was ticked and called them anyway and it happened they were still there. She needed to go do something else (work must go on!) so she handed the phone to me to wait for the person she had explained the situation to to come back on the line. The same man I'd spoken with earlier came back on the line and said they were sorry, that when he'd added to the ticket the cooks didn't realize it wasn't simply a reprint of the ticket and didn't look at it. Hey, mistakes happen. I was by then out of the mood for pizza, I was busy, and I didn't want to have to walk all the way down to the ER again, only now from Peds, to get the pizza if I made them go ahead and make it. So I told the guy that I understood it was a mistake and I wasn't upset but that I'd appreciate it if someone could bring my money back by the ER and give it to the ER RT whom I would catch up with later. He said no problem, seemed sincerely concerned about the order not being right, and was very pleasant to deal with.
I hung up the phone and everyone talked about how much it sucked but, but again, I wasn't mad. I'm really not a loud bitchy customer. Mistakes do happen and as long as people are nice about it and admit it, like the guy on the phone, I"m pretty easy to deal with.
While we were talking, the phone rang again and I answered. The man introduced himself as the "Manager" of Roasati's and said that HE had been the one to pick up the reprinted ticket and didn't double check to see if there was anything added. Not only did he NOT apologizefor the mistake, his tone of voice implied that he was angry with me. He said that we hadn't been charged for my pizza so they weren't bringing any money back. I was in shock. I explained that I gave all the money we collected to the girl thinking that there had been a misunderstanding of the total but that of course I never dreamed that my pizza was left off the order. The leftover $25 tip included my $10 pizza.
I kid you not, the next words out of this MANAGER'S mouth were "It's not my fault you gave her a big tip, now is it? You weren't charged on that ticket and we're not bringing money back." That's it. That was the sum total of this man's customer service skills. I was like "Are you kidding me?" This entire conversation had no warmth, no concern, no attempt at customer service. He didn't even offer to send the pizza he never cooked instead of the money. Then he said that he GUESSED he could ask the driver when she came back if she wanted to bring my $10 back but he didn't think she would and he wasn't going to make her because it was MY fault I paid for food I didn't get.
Are you kidding me? Blaming the customer for your staff not filling the order correctly?
I was so angry I slammed the phone down. Not very nice of me but then I don't remember ever being treated so rudely by a restaurant manager. Ever. Everyone in the room was in shock. And pissed. The consensus was pretty much "I wouldn't take that crap! We won't be ordering from them again." (And we've since been informing other units in the hospital who also place orders with them.)
Here's something to think about. If I HAD told them to make the pizza and send it over....do you think the manager would have charged me AGAIN for it? I get the feeling he would have. I'm now very glad I didn't ask them to make it because I would have ended up paying over $25.00 for a $10 pizza by the time I paid for it twice and tipped the driver twice. Yeah, that's fair and good customer service on WHAT planet?
So, for those of you in the Springfield area who've been thinking about trying Rosati's, give them your money at your own risk. Apparently any mistake they make is your tough luck because you're not going to get customer service and they'll just blame you for their screw up.
That's what bugs me the most. Mistakes happen. People are human. All I expected was to be treated fairly and with a little generosity of spirit in the name of normal customer service. The first mistake was his--they didn't cook my food--that's a pretty big mistake. My mistake was at least on the side of decency--I was too generous to his employee. His second mistake was being snotty and hateful instead of turning that situation into a win-win for his restaurant by employing a little honesty and humility. All he had to do was be nice, apologize for the mix up and, if he didn't want to send cash back, he could have asked for my address and offered to send me a gift certificate just as a good faith gesture over the mixup. That's what a good manager would have done. No harm no foul. Restaurants have marketing budgets for just that EXACT situation. I would have walked away telling my friends "No big. Mistakes happen. Look how nice they were about it." But instead I feel personally insulted and ripped off.
I realize I'm only one person. I realize there are only about a dozen and a half RT's on night shift any given night. There are about 75 of you folks here in Springfield who read this blog and even if we ALL chose not to go there it wouldn't break their business but if you add our lack of enthusiasm with all of the other people this manager's abused, it's certainly not going to help them maintain a clientele. I'm not so egotistical as to think that this man was rude ONLY to me out of eveyone he deals with on a daily basis. The restaurant business is a hard business (I worked it for 15 years) and there are tons of problems, snafus, and complaints that happen all the time no matter how streamlined the operation. Thnk about it. If that man was so easily dismissive and snotty to ME, imagine how he acts with people who AREN'T as understanding and generous about his mistakes as I am.
Rosati's, I would have enjoyed tasting your food but it's not worth the heartburn from your night manager.