Recently we have had the opportunity to experience the will to give (or not give) feedback directly on the go. A couple of days ago we visited a small grill house, the type that in our country are mostly selling sandwiches or Souvlaki with Gyros. The place changed setup and owners recently, so we thought of giving it a go. My wife’s focus was on the Pork steak; a large size cut, typically ordered from men. My wife, however, has placed a lot of faith in it, and she got it anyway. Leaving aside the fact that it took them a lot of time to prepare it (more than normal), when it came my wife cut it on near the edge and found out that it was not properly grilled, as we found blood. I remind you that this is pork that we are talking about, not beef. She was starving and now she was furious as well. She went inside, and she informed the waitress that the had to grill it more. They took it back and after 5 minutes they brought it back. The steak was grilled some more, and they had to cut it at several points across the length to be sure that there was no point with blood. The steak was nothing special, so the hype was not satisfied. However, this was not the point.

Two weeks earlier than that, my wife had visited along with her colleagues a very fancy steakhouse in the area, serving premium cuts and special grilled dishes. They got several dishes, most of them to share. One of them was…you guessed it; the same type of pork steak. The colleagues cut it in portions as the lunch was progressing. The unlucky last ones however, found out that the steak was not properly grilled; they found blood in some parts. They complained however? No, not at all. They left the piece on the plate, and they paid a fat check along with it.

Conclusion:

In both of the cases, the issue is the same: food not properly cooked. The clients are not the exactly the same. In the first case there is a family, whick creates an environment where you can be yourself; in the other case you have to avoid comments and judgement.  The first place is a lower cost option, you can easily look superior; in the latter it is a fancy place. However in such settings I have seen the most extreme feedbacks (especially from entitled clients – money allows you to be vulgar against service providers). So we see that a) the feedback could have saved the service and perhaps future orders b) not all clients feel comfortable to give direct feedback perhaps due to peer pressure c) being fancier, doesn’t mean that you create the room for comments, unless the client is trained already to do that properly.