I got a Facebook group invite from Adam this afternoon to join the group COCKROACH special at DESTINY TEA AND CAFE LOUNGE.There are a few things that I want to comment on about this situation so I'm going to section them, since I am a control freak.
Summary
The story, in short, is that a girl went to Destiny Tea and Cafe, the location at Silverstar and found two small cockroaches in her drink. The waitress told her the manager was not in and was only going to take off 13% off the bill (i.e., no tax). The customer felt that she should not be still charged her for the drink and when that didn't happen, she went around showing people the cockroach. She asked to talk to the manager to no avail and started a Facebook group. The next day, the manager got back to her and after finding out she was a student, 21 years old, and does not speak Mandarin/Cantonese, the manager refused to speak to her because she was "immature." The manager asked to speak to someone who does speak Chinese. When the girl got her friend to call back, the manager told the friend that she'd call him back in 10 minutes but never did. After the customer called back Destiny a few times, the manager threatened her with legal action if she does not take her Facebook group down.
The story has now been cross-posted at RFD, CLUBRSX, and even BlogTo. I decided not to post photos since I don't want to see cockroach pictures on my blog, but any of the links I provided in the post will give you plenty graphics.
The Crux of the Problem
I think for the most part, it's evident that the crux of the problem is not the fact that there are cockroaches in her drink. If this was the issue, she could have filed a formal complain rather than start a Facebook group. Plus, it is not like any of us never experienced having bugs in our food. Personally I've found bugs in my food at a number of restaurants but I never felt the need to escalate the situation. I call the server over, s/he sees the bug and s/he apologizes, takes the food off the bill and/or replaces it. Sometimes if the store has a good policy, it will compensate (with a coupon/new dish/give the entire meal for free, etc.). The problem began with the server not treating the issue properly because she felt that she did not have the authority. But of course it didn't help when the customer walked around showing ppl the cockroach. The customer was being a bitch but if she had just offered to take it off the bill, all of this might have been resolved. Nevertheless, the question is, was it fair for the customer to start the Facebook group at that point? Should she have waited to contact management first before escalating the situation publicly? I think so.
- From a pragmatic standpoint, the situation might have worked out better for her.
- From a fairness standpoint, the place should be given a chance to clean up their management. What happened did not deserve a publicity stunt.
- From a realistic standpoint, however, if i were the customer, i would not have wanted to go through the redtape to get to the management and starting a Facebook group would have been the easier solution.
Agism, Classism, Racism, and Culture
What made me feel really upset and decided to join this group was the way in which the manager did handle the situation. The fact that she asked for the customer's age and class and ethnicity and then deemed her unworthy of her attention. Of course, it is a possibility that the customer might have interpreted things wrongly and perhaps the original intention was not discrimination but I think it is very likely that it did happen. It is not unheard of for Asians to discriminate people based on age, class, and race, especially because the customer's name sounds brown/middle eastern. The only thing understandable about it is that it happens in their culture, but that does not justify the manager's action. (I have an urge to add that especially because she is in Canada, but I do not wish to discriminate cultures. Albeit her actions might have been a lot more understandable were she in Asia, it should still not be allowed to happen anywhere). What the manager did was flat out discriminating. Nothing justifies that.
Even if some of the discrimination issues were not true (I think the age part is for sure true). However, I feel that for the problem to have escalated to this level, management should apologize regardless.
The Escalation
It begins at the low level, the waitress was rude and did not know what to do. Blame it on the next level, the manager. She should have handled the situation better and then taught the employee what to do. But she didn't. Instead, she discriminated and pointed fingers. She sounds uneducated and rude. Discrimination aside, she threatened for legal action. Are you kidding? Well, I hope so, I hope she was just bluffing, though a very dumb bluff. Nevertheless, the question is, has this situation escalated to the upper managements at Destiny? Did the dumb manager contact someone who had more authority before she threatened about legal action? Because if she did, then the upper management needs some lessons in business management.
- First of all, whoever came up with the legal actions should know that for the company to sue for libel, as the plaintiff, the onus is on them in civil court, not beyond a reasonable doubt, but based on the balance of probabilities that the customer was lying. There is no way they can prove that, especially not with the graphic pictures. Unless they can find some proof for a motive for that girl to be lying, they are pretty screwed. The only they can possibility sue for was their act of discrimination, but I'm not really sure how they can accomplish. Most that can happen is the judge telling the defendent to take off the part about discrimination, but the cockroach part is already a bust on the company's rep.
- Secondly, as a business, why would you escalate something so small publically? Are you out of your mind? As a corporation that owns over 7 entities, each of them with several stores in various locations, do you really want the pictures of cockroaches in your food to to go even more public? Why don't you want to settle this privately, apologize to the girl and give her a coupon or something. It sounds like she just wants some justice, she doesn't even seem to care for compensation. By threatening legal action, this stuff is going to go on television and you are going to pay for a lot more than an apology and 15% off VIP card.
Bad Management
The fact that this situation as gone this far already shows that the management at the upper level needs to pay more attention to their stores. My family actually knows some upper management people/investors of Destiny. It is a Taiwanese company and most of their upper management is Taiwanese. I would like to imagine that at least one of them would deal with it before it blows up even further; however, it is not unlike the culture of the company to leave the little stuff for the little people (who may or may not be Taiwanese, this is not about our culture) until it gets to the point of no return. That, is the crux of Destiny's management problem. The company is highly unstructured. It is made up of a large number of investors who takes ownership over the stores in which they invested the most. It is a chained entity managed informally like a franchise. Each investor is only interested in their own store but if one store is managed badly, they all go down. Management structure aside, each of the investors still needs to train their staff, manage their staff, and learn that business begins at the customer service. Until then, there is only going to be more problems. It's like a dominoes effect, one person starts the trend, then they all do. Hopefully, Destiny will learn from this.
Posts
8 comments:
I'm amazed I sat here and read everything you just wrote :) I saw that group on facebook a number of times and didn't actually bother checking it out - now I finally get the story.
I think the crux of the problem is that Chinese people do not offer good service and this pervades all classes of business that I am aware. Chinese people are totally unaware of the "service" required in the "service industry". In addition to this, Chinese owners don't enter businesses for any reason other than investment so they have no interest in anything but the bottom line. Every aspect of the Chinese business model reglects the consumer and favors the till thus situations like this arise. The only difference between "high class" and "low class" Chinese establishments is just the facade. I believe that if this story is true then the person had every right to blow it up as much as possible. There is no excuse for roaches in food and there is no legal action that could prevent me from stating the truth. When you enter such an establishment, you are putting your health into their hands and it should not be compromised. Before the age of the internet, consumers did not have much power and stories like this would probably go unnoticed. Nowadays, we are able to single-handedly denounce large businesses. I support this 100% because it keeps everybody honest. Of course, as with all forms of media, people must practice skepticism before believing anything.
Jenny: Yeah, if it wasn't for adam sending me the site, i probably wouldn't have really cared either. it just surprised me that they hire such ignorant ppl to run the place. Between you and i, we know a lot of ppl who invest/manage/run bbtea shops and we know how much they _care_. i'm not surprised at the event which broke out, but at the fact that the manager decided to tell her she's not old enough or mature enough to be talking. ridiculous.
eldon: yeah, i know what you mean about skepticism. i pretty much believe the story though because we know what chinese places are like, how rude they are, and how demeaning they are to younger people. i have walked into a bbtea shop where the waitress came up to us at th edoor and said, we dont have space, and then just left and ignored us.
the irony is that when im in taiwan, there is rarely bad service. everyone is really nice and polite. when you walk into convenience stores, ppl greet you in and out. when you walk into elevators, ppl greet you in and out. customer service is not lacking in taiwan. i can't say the same for all the other chinese areas.
however, it is recognized that taiwanese cultures are more accepting to social hierarchies, while in canada it is not. somehow the canadian equalities philosophy is actually exploited when certain chinese norms are taken here, if you know what i mean.
that really needs to be fixed.
Wow I read through the whole thing. You make very excellent points and address both sides of the situation. The news has been spreading incredibly fast as I get links sent to me about this situation and fb invited to their group like many times. I'm just really curious how much this is gonna affect their business in the next couple weeks.
entitlement issues? i really should subscribe to your blog and keep up with your writing (that is if i can find a button to do so...)
Janice: Thank you! I am really flattered; however, i have to say that the more i think about it, the more i find more variables in the situation that i never addressed. i think one of the things is how ppl's attitude affect ppl's feelings and thus changing the course of the situation. like if the customer was being rude to the waitress, then i can see why the waitress did not want to help the customer out, although that still does not negate the responsibility of the management for taking care of the situation
Tina: yeah, but i think as paying customers, we are entitled to be respected. in terms of subscribing, there's a section on the side that says "submit to my ideology" and if you click on "Posts" button, there will be a dropdown menu that lets you select your options
I read through the entire page and agree to almost all of your statements- Destiny definitely has an attitude problem and needs to care more about PROPER customer service...
The only thing that I'm rather annoyed about is that now people think that all Asians are rude, racist, ageist and don't care about customers... While it's true for a lot of Asian restaurants, please don't say it in such a way that it sounds like ALL Asians are like that. *is Asian* :\
Hello
thank you for reading my post and i appreciate your comment.
im just trying to figure out the best way to address your issues...
i think due to the audience that i cater to for my blog, being mainly my friends who are also asian, like me, it's presumed that not ALL asians discriminate. however, from personal experience while i was in china and hk, they do. cultures such as korean, japan, and taiwan tend to have great customer service and i dont know what it's like in the southern part of asia.
of course, my post generalizes, i mentioned that it is not unheard of for asians to discriminate, and by asians i mean chinese people for the most part, and im sure i will be getting a comment in return saying that not all chinese peopel discriminate, but i dont think my post is claiming that either.
i think what i am trying to say is that i make the presumption people know i am generalizing when i generalize. just as when we say north american culture tend to behave in certain ways, there are always exceptions and sometimes these exceptions may be 49%
i stated a common characteristic stemming from a culture, of course it doesnt apply to the entire population of that culture, but from my experience, it applies to a lot of people in the culture. growing up in asia, i was taught certain values that a lot of asians who are born here don't necessarily understand, and this is what i am referring to.
respecting your elders is a value asians generally hold true and sometimes it leads to entitle of the elders and they believe that young people's opinion don't count. it happens, not everyone thinks like that, but i have met many who do.
im sorry if my post come across as sloppy and irresponsible for you, i think it's more or less an audience assumption.
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