Olive Garden Restaurant

The Case I chose to analyze is Case 9-1: Olive Garden Restaurants Division. I chose this case because I can personally relate to it. Within this case it points out a lot of activities that occur in our daily lives. This case stood out more than any other case for several reasons. I felt like I was a part of this issue at the restaurant.

This case was about a family that visited an Olive Garden Restaurant one afternoon; and did not get the services expected. This was a family that normally visits the restaurants but this visit was far from a normal visit. The family received very poor service on this visit that changed their entire outlook on the restaurant. Their experienced resulted in writing a letter to the president of Olive Garden.

The customer visited the restaurant on a Tuesday night hoping to have a nice family meal. Unfortunately it was a night that the customer never expected. From the time they walked into the restaurant until the time they left, was their worst experience ever. They was not greeted at the door to be seated was the first issue they experienced. One member of the family was an amputee; which means he had difficulty with walking. The customers' at first wasn't giving the option for a table to accommodate the amputee customer. It was after they explained how much difficulty he had with walking to the table that was appointed to them when they were directed to a more convenient table, but it was not clean. Their issues continued throughout the visit.

After the customers were finally seated it took a very long time for someone to take their orders. When their orders were taking it took a tremendously long time to get their food. Once they received their food; it was extremely cold. The customer was fed up at this point and

requested a manager and change of food. The waiter exchanged her food and then disappeared and they never saw him again.

As the customer was departing she wanted to speak with the manager to discuss their experience that evening. The customer explained everything that happened; only to find that the manager was very offensive about the situation. The manager was more concerned about getting the customer out the restaurant and if she was trying to get a free meal or not instead of looking into her situation and pleasing the customer. The manager was very rude and in my eyes disrespectful to the customer.

As I reviewed this case I noticed several critical business and communication issues. The main issue in this case was overall providing poor service to the customer. Not only did just a regular worker mistreat the customer; but the manager did as well. There was no empathy shown at all to the customers. The hostess wasn't concerned about the amputee customer or providing a decent table for the family. I feel that if I was the hostess for this family I would have shown great concerns to make sure that the family was comfortable. The workers were very unprofessional throughout the visit.

When the customer approached the customer he was very defensive and confrontational.