It was a bad night at Red Box Greenbelt last Friday, December 10, 2010. My friends and I are not the type who gets easily annoyed over service fiascoes in establishments we go to. We do understand that there are queues, shortage of goods and manpower, and other common, related problems, and most of the time, we let these things slide. It's part of the business. However, we can only tolerate so much. We wouldn't have expected much, except that Redbox Greenbelt is supposedly a reputable company, and I do believe that we have every right to complain.
First, one of my friends made the reservation for a party of seven, two days prior via telephone. She asked if there's anything else that we needed to do to secure our reservation and Red Box Greenbelt said that there was none, and that we just needed to show up on that day on time. And so, we did. To our immense surprise, upon arrival, we were told that we didn’t have any reservations. NO RESERVATIONS? So ano yun? Multo yung nakausap namin? Ganun? Needless to say we were disappointed, but still calm enough to request priority for the next room available. Luckily a room freed up, so we were accommodated, but that was about to be the best thing we were going to get from them for the rest of the evening.
Our food and drinks came in late. We're not talking minutes here; we're talking HOURS. Dishes were served cold (one was supposed to be CRISPY calamares, not a seafood salad), and came after two HOURS of countless follow-ups. The drinks came after an hour and, to our extreme disappointment, the servers were very rude (Sila pa ang galit, were they kidding me?!). Imagine, we were already hungry and thirsty by then, plus we had to pay for a substandard, highly expensive food, at kami pa ang tinarayan? Wow. We were nothing but polite to them throughout the evening, and that was just plain mean of them.
Next, we asked for glasses of water. After waiting for an hour, and still without water, we finally had enough. We then asked for the bill. My friend asked them to take the calamares out of the bill (How could we pay for a stale food that could not be eaten anymore?) and to please give us the water that we requested 60 minutes prior. Wow, tinaasan pa kami ng kilay nung supervisor. He was the new guy, but the supervisor prior to him was the nice one. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get this new guy’s name, but we do remember his face.
When we asked why it took an hour to bring us the water, one of the servers even managed to deliver a sarcastic "May shortage ho ng tubig kasi." Really?! Were we rude to them? No. We merely asked. If one could not answer respectfully, it’s better if he just keep his mouth shut. Even the bill took 45 mins to get to us. I don't get the problem here. We could’ve just walked and sneaked out of the damn room if we were "sira ulo" (you know what I mean). I seriously don't get it.
It is not acceptable to say that the poor service was due to being undermanned, which is foreseeable given that this is a holiday season and it was a weekend at that. I also understand that they must have been all tired accommodating everyone. But hey, so were we from our own jobs. Everybody's tired, but that's work. Believe me when I say that there are a lot more clients worse and more discriminating than us, and if they at Red Box can't handle the pressure, then they should look for another job. And if one is in a service industry, no matter how tired he may be, there is no excuse and no excuse at all for being rude to his customers. We, the guests, were there (shelling out our hard-earned money) to have a good time. If we just wanted to stress ourselves the way Red Box Greenbelt did, then we ought to have just stayed at our respective offices, where, at least, we would get paid for our trouble.
In the future, if this is the type of service to expect from them, wow, then it is so not worth the money. No more repeats for us nor for our friends.
So far, this is the worst experience we’ve ever had from any establishment. We would have let it slide had the staff been gracious, understanding or a little bit apologetic. Red Box Greenbelt should address this concern. Pwede na malas lang kami at kami ang napagbuntungan ng galit ng mga servers at nagkataon na pangit lang yung service na nakuha namin. Totally understandable, but hey, we’re paying guests. We deserve to be treated decently, at the very least.
In all fairness, I would like to commend Ms. Monica, the supervisor at the time we got in. We spoke with her earlier that time, to air our complaints and she was very apologetic, accommodating and professional. I couldn't say the same about the others.
First, one of my friends made the reservation for a party of seven, two days prior via telephone. She asked if there's anything else that we needed to do to secure our reservation and Red Box Greenbelt said that there was none, and that we just needed to show up on that day on time. And so, we did. To our immense surprise, upon arrival, we were told that we didn’t have any reservations. NO RESERVATIONS? So ano yun? Multo yung nakausap namin? Ganun? Needless to say we were disappointed, but still calm enough to request priority for the next room available. Luckily a room freed up, so we were accommodated, but that was about to be the best thing we were going to get from them for the rest of the evening.
Our food and drinks came in late. We're not talking minutes here; we're talking HOURS. Dishes were served cold (one was supposed to be CRISPY calamares, not a seafood salad), and came after two HOURS of countless follow-ups. The drinks came after an hour and, to our extreme disappointment, the servers were very rude (Sila pa ang galit, were they kidding me?!). Imagine, we were already hungry and thirsty by then, plus we had to pay for a substandard, highly expensive food, at kami pa ang tinarayan? Wow. We were nothing but polite to them throughout the evening, and that was just plain mean of them.
Next, we asked for glasses of water. After waiting for an hour, and still without water, we finally had enough. We then asked for the bill. My friend asked them to take the calamares out of the bill (How could we pay for a stale food that could not be eaten anymore?) and to please give us the water that we requested 60 minutes prior. Wow, tinaasan pa kami ng kilay nung supervisor. He was the new guy, but the supervisor prior to him was the nice one. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get this new guy’s name, but we do remember his face.
When we asked why it took an hour to bring us the water, one of the servers even managed to deliver a sarcastic "May shortage ho ng tubig kasi." Really?! Were we rude to them? No. We merely asked. If one could not answer respectfully, it’s better if he just keep his mouth shut. Even the bill took 45 mins to get to us. I don't get the problem here. We could’ve just walked and sneaked out of the damn room if we were "sira ulo" (you know what I mean). I seriously don't get it.
It is not acceptable to say that the poor service was due to being undermanned, which is foreseeable given that this is a holiday season and it was a weekend at that. I also understand that they must have been all tired accommodating everyone. But hey, so were we from our own jobs. Everybody's tired, but that's work. Believe me when I say that there are a lot more clients worse and more discriminating than us, and if they at Red Box can't handle the pressure, then they should look for another job. And if one is in a service industry, no matter how tired he may be, there is no excuse and no excuse at all for being rude to his customers. We, the guests, were there (shelling out our hard-earned money) to have a good time. If we just wanted to stress ourselves the way Red Box Greenbelt did, then we ought to have just stayed at our respective offices, where, at least, we would get paid for our trouble.
In the future, if this is the type of service to expect from them, wow, then it is so not worth the money. No more repeats for us nor for our friends.
So far, this is the worst experience we’ve ever had from any establishment. We would have let it slide had the staff been gracious, understanding or a little bit apologetic. Red Box Greenbelt should address this concern. Pwede na malas lang kami at kami ang napagbuntungan ng galit ng mga servers at nagkataon na pangit lang yung service na nakuha namin. Totally understandable, but hey, we’re paying guests. We deserve to be treated decently, at the very least.
In all fairness, I would like to commend Ms. Monica, the supervisor at the time we got in. We spoke with her earlier that time, to air our complaints and she was very apologetic, accommodating and professional. I couldn't say the same about the others.
