China one buffet

Contact Name and Title:***
Contact Phone: ***
Contact Email: ***
China One Buffet
638 Edelweiss Village Pkwy
Gaylord, MI49735
Tel : 989-730-3000

March 25th,2020

Revdex.com Serving Western Michigan
3330 Claystone Street SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546

Dear Madam/Sir,

RE:Case #*** : ***.

We have received your letter on March 23rd,2020 regarding Ms. complaint. Thank you for the opportunity for us to improve our service and a chance to clarify the incident. We take it very seriously and interview our staff to better understand the situation. Below is the information we got from our staff and the improvement in our plan.

1. Pricing

1.1Price:
Lunch is $7.25 and children lunch $3.65
Dinner is $9.59 and children dinner $4.65
During the wintertime when business is slow, we accept coupons for a discounted price. Other than that, we have been charging customers the price mentioned above for more than 6 years. .
1.2Billing:
The checks/bills are issued by the waitress/waiter. They manually write and calculate the total. Below is an example of what is written on a check/bill.

3 BF$23.07
2 DR $ 3.40
_________________________
TOTAL $26.47
Most of our waiters/waitresses have no problem doing it. However some new staff may make mistakes, which then our cashier will double check the amount when the customer makes a payment. Besides the mistake mentioned above, a price change may occur due to the time of dining, and/or sometimes as children of the party grow up, we charge them the full price (children price for 9 years old and under) which is also shown on the menu. Our wait staff also asks the parents how old their children are to verify so we can charge them the appropriate amount. We do not purposely charge our customers more. Mistakes happen which then we apologize and fix it for them.

2.Sign Notifying Customers about Lunch and Dinner

2.1Our prices and dining times are written on our menu and business cards located at the front counter. Lunch is served from 10:30am to 4:00pm. Dinner is served from 4:00pm to 10:00pm. On Sunday's, we charge the dinner price all day. We do not give every customer a menu because we try to be environmentally friendly. Upon request, customers can get a menu.

2.2Some customers call about the dining hours for lunch and dinner beforehand. We then provide the information mentioned above accordingly. Some customers will stop and ask the cashier before deciding to dine at our restaurant. Majority of our customers will just walk in and pay accordingly without question.

Our prices have been consistent that our customers are used to it. For example, some customers have even prepared exact change without looking at their bill. We have such a strong bond with many of our customers that the comfortable experiences make us overlook the problem that Ms. encountered.

The incident with Ms. happened on March 2nd,2020. The next day, we started verbally informing our customers who came in around 3:45pm about the difference between lunch and dinner. Which we have been doing since the incident. We will continue to do that and hope to eliminate unnecessary conflict. As per your request, we will also post signs on the buffet bar informing customers of when prices change. Hoping customers can read while they fill up their plates.

3.Clock and time of serving

3.1Ms. was right that our clock is a few minutes faster. We normally adjust our clock twice a year and we failed to notice the mistake. We will change and check frequently to avoid the mistake.
3.2We serve dinner at 4:00pm (except on sunday's) Some customers like our dinner and some like our lunch. Many of our customers are seniors from other towns and they will sometimes request us to start dinner earlier so that they are able to enjoy our dinner and get home early. It is hard for us to turn them down. We hope Ms. understands our situation and our customer group needs.

4.Conflict with cashier

We checked with the cashier and requested her to provide the situation that happened on that day. She sent us this below:

"After having their meal, the customer approached the cashier counter to pay her bill. She asked me why our restaurant keeps changing our prices. I could tell that she was not a regular customer as she was not familiar with our prices. I then explained our company policies to her, but she was persistent in saying that our food is no good, our establishment charged customers however we like, cheating all our customers. And she got cheated so many times. At this point of time, I was wondering why she still patronizes our eatery despite her claim that we always cheated her? I was actually dumbfounded by her words, and I could not speak any further because her voice drowned mine. She was blaring out her dissatisfaction in the silliest manner. Her claim was untrue, and I was deeply hurt by her insulting words. Since my professionalism and pride had been trampled, I told her not to patronize our eatery again. I was reluctant to face such an offensive customer anymore. We practice freedom of speech in the United States, but I am unable to accept such untrue accusations. Although I am only holding a minor position in this restaurant, I need to protect my profession and self esteem too. I refuse to serve such an irrespectful customer."

We not only value our customers but we also care about our staff. We have talked to our cashier and wanted her to improve her way of handling customers. We will check on her and hope to help her improve her skill of working.

5.Dinner or lunch; How much is the payment

According to our waitress. Ms. came in at around 3:50 at our time, with 2 teenage girls. Since they came in just before our dinner time, our waitress observed what they took. The two teenages didnt take shrimp, so the waitress charged two lunches on both of them. Ms. took a good amount of shrimp on her plate. Our waitress charged her dinner price. We can't tell how many she actually ate, and she said she ate only 3 shrimps and we asked for a dinner price for 3 shrimp. However, our waitress said there was more than that amount left on her plate when they cleaned the table. Our waitress issued her a check with 2 lunches and 1 dinner. 3BF total $25.55. In our view of the point, our waitress was doing it in the right way. Eventually from our credit card record, we charged Ms. $23.07 for 3 lunch buffet on that day. We didn't over charge our customers.

As we mentioned above, we had started informing customers who come in close to 4pm about the price difference. Signs will be posted at the buffet bars to remind them of the lunch and dinner differences. Hopefully this will help us to better inform our customers.

Our mission is to provide quality food, quality service and constantly improve our services to our valued customers with sincerity. If you need more information or suggestions , give us a call please.

Sincerely,

H*** Q
Manager

hello ,regarding of the ms. complaint, we did respond that we will post a sign on the buffet to remind our customer of changing buffet price for eating seafood, and also on 3/2/2020 ,we didn't charged you the dinner price after conflict, we charge your three with lunch price .thank you!