Customer Service: Kam Wah Trinidad Experience

Mid September, I took my partner to Kam Wah Chinese Restaurant for dinner as it was his birthday. The food was average but my, was the customer service jaw-dropping awful! I think customer service is easy but that night it was painful watching it unravel. It's times like those I wish I had a secret camera to show the world snippets of what I consider to be poor customer service.

As it was my partner's birthday, and I didn't want to be inconsiderate, I simply said "Let's talk about the experience tomorrow". At the end of the mind blowing evening, while he was bringing the car around to the curb, I stood on the sidewalk and wondered whether I was dreaming and needed a pinch to wake me up.

The following is a recap of the entire evening:

Kam Wah in Trinidad is branded as a fine dining Chinese restaurant, however the behaviors exhibited that night were not in alignment with fine dining standards.

I made the reservation 3 days in advance, and the person who took the reservation only took my first name, the time and no. of persons. The person spoke in a mundane voice and didn't request a surname or ask whether there was a special occasion being celebrated, or a telephone number, nothing! I think if they had included a couple of the above recommendations, that would've set the balls rolling for me.

By they not requesting a surname, suggested to me that there's only one 'James' in all of Trinidad going to eat there on that night so my surname was irrelevant; not taking my telephone number leads me to believe that if I didn't show up, they wouldn't care to call and follow up with my absence.

On the actual night, when we arrived the person who seated us was on her personal cell phone taking a personal call (based on the conversation overheard). She then proceeded to set the table with her other free-hand, without serviettes, whilst we were seated at the table (I think this was the highlight of the evening, which had us grimacing).

Following that, two different waitresses returned to our table on separate occasions to take our meal orders, and to offer us drinks. At fine dining restaurants, guests can feel hassled when wait staff return to their table too often and a different server appears each time, however I know this too well - this is due to a lack of coordination amongst the staff and no set process to take guest orders and execute the food.

My partner proceeded to ask the waitress who gave us the menu for a recommendation.  She said she'd be back but never returned, which indicates either she doesn't know the menu, or forgot to return to our table, but the point here being, the restaurant wasn't even busy.

When my appetizer arrived it was auctioned off to me, "Who's having the ....?" clearly there is no process to record which customer ordered which meal; then the other appetizer didn't arrive until the main meals were served; in addition, to top that off one of the main meals was served at room temperature.

Finally, the water on our table was not refilled, not once. We were finished eating for about 10 mins before anyone cleared our plates; whilst it was observed that other tables were being cleared where the customers had already left.

Is it that my standards are too high or has this restaurant simply lost the plot for fine dining restaurants and rewrote it poorly? They had many staff, standing around in gaggles, gossiping and talking on cell phones, but not one refilled my glass of water.

Anyway, I still called one of the family members who owns Kam Wah, he then gave me his email address to send my detailed experience. In the end of it all, I offered my services and up till now, I'm yet to receive a response such as, "thank you we will look into it", "I'm sorry about your experience" or "would you like to meet to discuss further?"

When one medium fails another prevails, I do hope my blogs meets them well!

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