Customer service at chinese restaurants

[doudesuka]

Where's the friendly service while you give them your money? We have had many experiences where we go to chinese restaurants and they have been lacking in customer service.
I am not trying to single out Chinese especially but, these are the places where the staff have a cool disposition.
Especially in America, they seem to aloof to their patrons.
I have had an experience where I had an asian friend who is from a S.E. Asian country and he told me that they don't cater to Americans wants but only have a stern business sense.
Now, I am not saying all Chinese restaurants are like this.
But, I have been to quite a dozen that seem to be unappreciative to the business of the people they criticize give them. It's actually quite disgusting if you think about it.

Even here in Japan it seems to be the same in some restaurants. Is it a cultural misunderstanding or are they what they give off in their mannerisms? I don't know.

My husband went to a neighborhood restaurant and was treated rudely by the waitress. She got his order wrong and when he tried to correct her, she told him he had to accept that.
I hope I did not ofend anyone. I just wanted to know if anyone had the same experience anywhere in any restaurant. It's really not just chinese. I guess these people were absent when learning good business sense or they just don't care!

[jeisan]

well then he shoulda hit them where it hurts the most and walked out not paying for anything. thats what i would have done. ive had very few experiences with poor customer care at chinese restraunts and ive eating at many. once at a buffet the hostess was condisending when we asked if they had beer she just got a perturbled look on her face and pointed to a drink list, which, i might add, didnt include beer. then my group was seated in a back room away from the rest of the people, when more than half of the tables were empty. i felt as if she was trying to hide us from the other customers, though im not really complaing about that we enjoyed having the room to ourselves. the only other thing i experience that annoys me is i always have to ask for chopsticks. everytime, without fail, i get a damn fork.

[Erik]

Most chinese resteraunts I goto in vancouver have terrible customer service. When it comes time to pay the bill... they get upset when I don't tip them after I felt the serive blew. one waitor asked why I didn't tip, I explained to him the service wasn't requiring a tip. He asked why? I said "you said nothing to me, only asked me once if I would like anything else with my meal, I called you over 3 times to order something else, and you avoided me after making eye contact with me and saw I was flagging you down, and you had almost no customers!" A tip is a reward for exceptional service. It is not a requirement like some places I've seen. I liked the idea of not tipping in japan. I get better service usually there, and I don't have to tip!

[doudesuka]

Yeah, your right! I asked him that question. He's a little more lenient than me. I would of told her that I am not paying for anything I didn't order. I would also tell her boss that because of her service. they lost my business. That happened while I was away in the states. He just informed me that we do not give them our business anymore. Your experience sounds like what he described to me. I have gotten rotten service at McDonald's too but in the U.S. I must say that McDonald's in America has gone down hill after being here. Everything here seems to be more professional in the way of a clean store and efficient service. Most of the time you get people who are into their job.
Just my opinion!

[Erik]

Is it just me, or does customer service in japan seem to be much better in japan compared to north america? I had a couple of japanese friends who do not know each other make this observation and tell me... I tend to agree.

[doudesuka]

Eric-　Nice post!　I totally agree with the tipping. It's a reward and not a requirement. What do they think Canada is? China where you are obligated or else. just joking!　With this kind of business sense or lack of, they give themselves a bad report with public. Don't they realize that's who supports their businesses. No friendly service,no customers,no profit, no business. move back to China.

[doudesuka]

No, I believe your right, Erik. Seems to me they are. It's different way of thinking or something.

Have you ever been cut off by the drive thru order taker when in the middle of an order? And when you want to finish your order, they get annoyed?

[jeisan]

well i goto buffets alot, since i can eat as much as i like of whatever dishes they have, and i dont have to tip since i serve myself, the only thing the waiter does is bring me iced tea and i dont think that counts for anything over than what they are already being paid.

[doudesuka]

What's the point of drive thru anymore? It takes longer to order from your car and get your goods than if you just run in and get it.
What do you think? Companies are cutting down on workers and over working the others. I can see it!

[doudesuka]

Just give them a dime for the drink and if they refill it, give them another dime.

[Erik]

Originally posted by doudesuka
No, I believe your right, Erik. Seems to me they are. It's different way of thinking or something.

Have you ever been cut off by the drive thru order taker when in the middle of an order? And when you want to finish your order, they get annoyed?

Too often. I admit when I was doing customer service at Taco Bell in high school, I couldn't stand my cusomters. I had to work drive thru after the bars closed... I think taco bell was a magnet for retards or something. Anyhow, No matter how nice I was and professional I was with these people, 9 out of 10 would have to say something really stupid or try to vandalize something. I had a guy hold a shotgun up to the window once demanding to serve people faster... and we were serving as fast as we could with the limited amount of staff we had on for the night... instead of trying to reason with a drunk guy with a shotgun, first thing I said was "What can I get for you today?" I don't need a hole in my chest. =P

[jeisan]

i used to work at a place called taco casa back in high shcool. it was a mom and pop mexican fast food joint. we didnt get drunks in the drive thru often. usually it was stupid kids or stuck up rich people that pissed me off most. i usually took my revenge by spiking their food with jalapeno seeds, other times id end up telling them off, in which case they would say they knew the owner, so id tell them i did too. never got fired for it or anything, my manager usually laughed about it. my point of view from that end is customers shouldnt be rude to the people who are in charge of what they are about to eat.

[Erik]

Originally posted by jeisan
i used to work at a place called taco casa back in high shcool. it was a mom and pop mexican fast food joint. we didnt get drunks in the drive thru often. usually it was stupid kids or stuck up rich people that pissed me off most. i usually took my revenge by spiking their food with jalapeno seeds, other times id end up telling them off, in which case they would say they knew the owner, so id tell them i did too. never got fired for it or anything, my manager usually laughed about it. my point of view from that end is customers shouldnt be rude to the people who are in charge of what they are about to eat.

Well, I would almost never say anything back or spit in the food or whatever. I would do my job the way I suppose to and that's it. If the customer would say something bad, I would not acknowledge it and close the door on him or please drive thru. If they insisted on being *****s I would warn them a few times and then tell them I will call the police. Why? This was company policy. It was a gay and ****** job, but I tried to follow the company rules as best as possible as I knew that I was easily replaced and jobs were hard to come by for students.

Some of my co workers did not take it so easily and at times they would get into fist fights with the customers or vanalized the customers cars while the customer sat in the dining room eating. I worked there for 3 years and saw enough to make me glad that I am not in that spot in life anymore.

[jeisan]

i only messed with people insistant on being asses, i never did anything disgusting or criminal, people just got really spicey food, or sometimes none at all. being i was 17 i didnt really care if i lost the job, though i ended up staying 2 years. i just feel people need to be put in their place once in awhile. alot of my friends have worked in the food industry at one point or another and they all have horror stories about it. i cant imagine working at a restraunt again.

[Erik]

Hmm, I can't think of very many that have pleasent experiences for working fast food for 1 year or more. =) I can totally relate to what you say. =)

[maji]

hmmm i cant remember ever having a chinese restaurant bad service over here. of course that exists, like with any restaurant, but i cant remember to have ever thought "how rude" or something like that. they were always polite. maybe one reason for that is because i like to change restaurants a lot and thus have been just around 20 times in japanese restaurants. or maybe because most often the restaurants where i were at were at my home town which has about 80 to 90.000 people and in cities of that size one needs to take care to be polite because there aint that many restaurants of that type to choose from, and when one is treated bad it is having a bad reputation very fast. or maybe i was just lucky?

[kirei_na_me]

Yikes. Your experiences sound horrible. I can't believe the way you all were treated in those places. I definitely wouldn't give them my business anymore.

I have never had a bad experience with a Chinese restaurant, though. Quite the contrary. We have about 4 Chinese restaurants we rotate going to quite often, and all of them are really nice. At one of them, they always give us extra stuff for free, like drinks, chicken wings, crab rangoons, etc. They even bought me nikuman from somewhere else a couple of times because they knew I liked it so much. Just the other day, my husband went to one of the other Chinese restaurants we go to, and when they didn't have the tofu to make his mapo tofu, they gave him his Mongolian beef for free, along with some free drinks.

So, I've never had any bad experience at Chinese places. I've had many bad experiences at other places, though. Plenty. I get so infuriated too, because I too used to work as a waitress and I put up with a lot of you-know-what. So many people just don't care about being courteous anymore. It's pathetic.

[Maciamo]

Originally posted by doudesuka
Where's the friendly service while you give them your money? We have had many experiences where we go to chinese restaurants and they have been lacking in customer service.

In Japan, I (and anybody) immediately know if the staff is Japanese or Chinese from the politeness and courtesy (and accent). I have studied 5 months in Tokyo in a class of where 90% of the students were Chinese (out of about 25 people). I have a few friends among them, but it's clear that they are more brusque, direct, noisy and much less careful about other people's feelings than Japanese, or even the average Westerners (some Germans can be tough too, from my Berlin experience).

Regarding politeness, service and care or others, Japanese and Chinese seem at the antipodes.

We also have to consider the fact that when we meet Chinese (in restaurants...) they are usually immigrants and might have known the tough communist days of Mao. The second or third generation Chinese I know are completely different.

So, Chinese are probably rough, but if they were born in China (and have fled), they probably have a history behind that.

In Europe, I've rarely had bad service in Chinese restaurants, but in some (cheap) places they were certainly a bit cold and not very interested (and as it seems didn't always speak well the language of the country they lived in).

[Maciamo]

Originally posted by maji
or maybe because most often the restaurants where i were at were at my home town which has about 80 to 90.000 people and in cities of that size one needs to take care to be polite because there aint that many restaurants of that type to choose from, and when one is treated bad it is having a bad reputation very fast.

There is truth in what you say. Small town must be much more careful about their clientele, whatever kind of restaurant it is. Now that I think of it, I've much often had to complain about service in big cities or very touristical/busy places than anywhere else.

[doudesuka]

I guess we must consider the background to an extent but it's valid after so much time. It's been the younger generation that has been the coolest. They just don't smile. Makes me lose my appetite for that place.

[doudesuka]

Kirei na me, you are lucky. I love ma podoufu. I like the szehuan
dishes of China.

I know there are some real *** customers. I used to work at a TCBY in Florida. There was this snotty girl my age that came in all the time. Her mother owned a store in the shopping complex.
She always treated me with disdain for some reason. Anyway, I couldn't take it anymore and told her off. I almost lost my job until a lady that knew her talked to my boss and and told her of this girl's disposition. My job was saved. This was an area of affluency. So, it goes both ways definitely.

[Erik]

probably does have something to do with big city vs small city as well. I goto a chinese resteraunt in my hometown of 45,000 people, no complaints. I goto the average chinese resteraunt in vancouver or san fransisco, toronto, or new york... I sometimes wonder if they have dartboards of customers in their back kitchens and they're all chanting "GWI-LO!" or however you spell it. hehe. I find when I goto the more up scale chinese resteraunt, service is much better... but I guess you get what you pay for.... same as if you goto mcdonalds vs some french specialty resteraunt where you wait 15m for your food to arrive.

[jspecdan]

hmm. when i've gone in a large group with other japanese, the chinese waiters were a little rude, but that's what i've been getting from them for years, so it doesn't really bother me.

[budd]

yah, i've had trouble with taiwanese
japanese
middle-eastern
and even some american
resturants' attitudes
but it's primarily because of who i am, nothing really one can do about it, it's their problem.

[Erik]

Where is the biggest chinatown in the world (besides chinese speaking countries!).

Is it yokohama? New York? San Fransisco? Vancouver? Toronto? Haha..yeah... right... =)