Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Service with a smile? That can wait.. Set the basics right first...

This post stems from what my mum told me about her recent experience in a 5 or perhaps 6 star hotel --Shangri-la Rasa Sentosa. Before she went for her friend's son's wedding dinner, we were thinking, Shangri-la leh... So famous.. So expensive.. Should be very good hor?? Nyeh..
It turned out otherwise =x

Many of the waiters employed by the hotel for wedding dinners are often just temporary staff, so people don't usually expect very good service from these unexperienced people.
So firstly, their standards are already lowered..

The waiter who served the table where my mum was seated was a young Chinese student.
Young+Student.. So people usually 'open one eye, close one eye' and are more forgiving when it comes to mistakes. But what my mum described was really REALLY HORRIBLE service! Unforgivable!!

There's this steamed fish dish and waiters are supposed to present the dish in front of diners to showcase the whole steamed fish before proceeding to cut them into several large pieces.
What that idiotic waiter did was to cut the fish up before serving to diners. Worse still, he didnt know how to cut it well. So imagine the shock when he put down the plate of mash-up of whatever-not, u cant tell what is it kind of dish in front of them.
If this had happened during a regular dining session, patrons would have rejected this dish outright and demand to see a presentable steamed whole fish to show its freshness. But this had happened during a wedding banquet, so no one made much noise, to give the hosts 'face'.

Prior to this, that waiter wanted to split the shark fin soup into small bowls before serving. But was stopped by someone more senior when he/she saw that he took a stack of bowls from the diners' tables to the kitchen. Laziness???? Then when he thought no one's watching, he sneaked back to the kitchen to cut up the fish in a horrible fashion.

My mum's friend, an english speaker, asked the Chinese waiter for a glass of warm water.
Arent sure whether he understood.. But if he didnt understand, he should have clarified with her or other guests who can help to translate.
Anyway, the glass of warm water failed to show up throughout the long dinner.
And did i mention, those 'lucky' others who had a glass of tea in front of them, had to refill the tea themselves.
WHAT CRAP SERVICE?!?

Once, that waiter collected all their used plates and when he came with the next dish, he didnt replace the plates. Baka! He didnt see that there wasn't any clean plates in front of the diners? He expect all the diners to sit in a circle to stare at one big plate of food is it? No common sense hur? Take away le then must replace ya... And he just stood at the side like a statue, beside the storetable packed with stacks of clean plates and utensils. (HOW IRONIC)

What's worse, the case of bad service isnt confined to my mum's table, but other tables where her other friends sat at that night.

Plates of peanuts usually adorn the tables for patrons to munch on while waiting for the dinner to start. But none were in sight. Many of them were really hungry as they set off from home early to arrive at the hotel in Sentosa. It's like the norm and basic courtesy as u know, wedding banquets don't usually (if not, never ever) start on time. So someone from my mum's table asked for one, that got many people from other tables asking how come their table so special? Hahahahah..

Another Chinese waiter was splitting the large plate of noodles into small bowls when a noodle strayed onto the table, he casually scooped the noodle up with his hand and put it back into the bowl nonchalently. Everyone at her table saw it and nobody wanted to touch that bowl of noodles.
Yucks! They have got no basic sense of hygiene! How can they be working in the F&B industry?
And why on earth did the permanent staff not teach them about basic hygienic practices & other essential service attributes and common practices? Bad service will leave many people disillusioned and this is detrimental to the hotel's image.

Oh another quip, there wasn't any feedback forms in sight. My mum said that all would turn up with negative feedbacks if there were any to be distributed that night.
Hmmm.. i guess the waiters had already trashed or burnt or chopped them into bits or tore them into a thousand pieces...

yunn. at 3:02 PM