Kapai Salads
180 Lambton Quay, Wellington Central, Wellington City, Wellington
Physical address
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A successful hospitality business relies not only on a good product, but good service. Unfortunately Kapai has let itself down twice on the service front. While service standards can slip from time to time (but arguably in the hospitality they should never slip), the measure of a company is how it responds to adverse customer feedback. I had a bad experience in the Lambton Quay branch of Kapai two weeks ago. Here is the email I sent to Kapai: "Unfortunately, I have some customer feedback that I wish to relay. We were eating in at your Lambton Quay store today. The soup had far too much ginger in it, so we had taken a bottle of water with us. One of the staff basically snatched the bottle off our table, saying (verbatim) 'this water is for all to enjoy'. I have no problem with the actual message (although there was nothing to indicate that the water had to remain by the counter), but I do have a problem with how it was communicated to us. Her tone was very abrasive, angry and rude. We were both taken aback by the way she spoke to us. I don't recall ever been spoken to by someone in the hospitality industry like this. I did confront the staff member, and was rather surprised to learn that she was the manager. She did apologise for her tone. However, the apology was pretty much undone when I asked for the contact details of the person she reports to. She appeared to be reluctant to give it and gave the impression that I was an inconvenience by asking. She pretty much threw the Kapai business card across the counter at me and told me to visit the website (by the way, the URL on the business card no longer works). She did not apologise for the soup, which I had told her was virtually inedible. I think your manager has done a great disservice to your company, and her behaviour has certainly tarnished Kapai's reputation for me. As a customer, I expect to be treated politely and with respect. There is plenty of competition in Wellington, and if staff are going to be rude I will go elsewhere. I think the manager of Lambton Quay would benefit from some customer relations training so that she can more appropriately interact with her customers in the future." A company that is concerned about its customers and its reputation would respond to feedback, even if it is a token acknowledgement of receiving the email and no further action is taken. In the fortnight since I emailed, Kapai has not seen fit to respond. Kapai, you have had the opportunity to redeem yourself but have failed. There is too much competition in Wellington to put up with terrible and rude service. I won't be returning.