Good Customer Service is Expected

Our church held our anniversary banquet at the Beach Hotel on 09Nov2019 and it was a big disappointment. We had several problems with set-up and the food. Following is an email I sent to inform them of our poor service. As you will see, the response from the hotel basically told us the customer that we were liars. I have worked in customer service for over 15 years and as I told the venue manager the first step to good customer service is a sincere apology. The responses did not reflect that at all. Please review. I am addressing this email based on our earlier conversation about the banquet. From the time that I entered the hotel, it was a disappointment. 1. The room was not set-up for us. It was after 7pm before it was done. According to staff, the venue was not set up as yet when you arrived after 5pm, but was set up before your guests arrived at 6pm. 2. I had to inform the staff concerning the table at the entrance. This was not in the function sheet, which I work according to and was communicated verbally, but unfortunately was am oversight, however staff did assist with your request when asked. 3. The head table did not have glasses. We had to ask and did not receive them until well after we had started eating. As per the staff, all the glasses were set up and on the table before your guests arrived at 18h00. 4. Once the contract was made, my wife and I both informed you concerning no tomatoes due to my severe allergic reaction to them. When the food was brought out, everything had tomatoes on it. The night manager was called, and he ask me to pick my food from the menu. I picked my food and they served me, but I was not able to have seconds or eat anymore if I wanted. But I do commend him for making a plan. Apologies, but the manager on duty did make a plan and would gladly have offered you a second helping on request. 5. We had to ask for the roast beef to be brought out. For all functions meats are only brought out on request from the guest when they are ready to dish mains, as if we leave it out on the warmer it will be dried out. 6. The rice and the spinach were off. The Crest restaurant which was full on Saturday evening also served the same rice and spinach that was served at your function, and not 1 complaint. 7. Finally, 4 people got sick. One person got sick and left before the banquet was over. I was informed on Sunday about the other 3 people. They all either ate the rice, spinach or both. As per the above

Although the venue manager tried to apologize after I mentioned there was no apology given, I still requested that the only thing we wanted was the staff to tell the truth and offer a formal apology to the church for making the customer out to be liars. The venue manager also indicated that the 4 people who got sick might have eaten something earlier that caused them to be sick. We found that 3 more people also got sick and they too had also eaten both the rice and the spinach. To this day, the church still has not received that formal apology which is what led me to write this review. If this happened to us and it was not addressed properly, it will happen again to someone else.