Thursday, March 21, 2013

Getting what you paid for

As I said, on the weekend I took my brother to the Airport so he can start the exciting life of living as an ex-pat over in Japan. To do this, I had to venture into the city of Sydney. I used to live there (like 13 years ago), and I'm not regretting my choice of moving.

Okay, so for the past year I've been living in a small country town and before that I was living on a coastal suburb where it was definitely a more laid-back and relaxed attitude, but my experience in Sydney over the weekend really made me glad to be living in the country.

One experience that I had, which made me think not only of the term 'customer service' but of any product including books, involved going to a cafe and ordering a simple fruit mocktail. My mother and I have a bad allergy to oranges and whenever we order we make sure we stick clear of every drink and food that mentions the word "orange", so Mum thought it would be safe to order a drink that listed "strawberry, apple juice and watermelon", but when she got the drink there was a definite strange taste to it. Yep, they had put orange juice in it.

So, yeah we got a replacement (which took 20 minutes because the manager placed us back in the cue rather than dealing with it straight away), and when we mentioned it to her at the checkout she says that she doesn't have to list everything she places in her items. Yeah, she also said some things that could probably get them closed down by the health inspector (I've been in hospitality for 14 years before becoming a teacher). This is the first place that I've come to that has just thrown a random fruit juice into a mocktail that lists all of their juices. But it did get me thinking, just how far can businesses go to deceive the customer? This isn't only in hospitality, but also with books where the back blurbs aren't exactly honest or promotions that don't reveal all the fine print (yeah, I've come across those as well where they want you're business but won't honour their deal).

To wrap up this cafe, apparently this mistake was all our (the customers) fault and the cafe did not have any part in deceiving or giving us the wrong product.

This leads to my question for the day: Have you ever come across a product or service where you didn't get exactly what you paid for?

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