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Bangsar Chilis is a great place when racists like Dave Anderson are not in charge. Anyone had a similar experience with this so called regional "manager"

i find these interesting:

www.marlerclark.com/news/chilis7.htm and www.marlerclark.com/news/chilis11.htm

andreas: I was incidentally referring to the BSC outlet :) But I haven't been there for months, so then again...

Here is my 2 cents worth of my thoughts. :oP

Kimberly and Andreas acted correctly by contacting the Chili's HQ directly about their food poisoning ordeal. If it is true that that restaurant causes food poisoning, elderly and children might be exposed to potential serious health problems. Nobody will want this situation to happen. However, based on my working experience in the US restaurant industry, restaurateurs with chains of franchises like Chili should be very serious about food poisoning. They are bound by the US food safety law no matter where they are. If they violate the food safety law, they can be liable to lawsuits. Lawsuits can lead to business closure and bankruptcy. Therefore, they should have a standard procedure in place by now to handle this kind of situation. These procedures should be written to adhere to the US law under the advice of their lawyers. All top executives should be drilled to these procedures. This might explain the reason why that they have the top executives to have direct contact with customers with the food poisoning information. The standard procedures are also to help them to find out more information about the case and to compensate customers if they can. Bear in mind that customers are not bound by laws to do anything but these restaurateurs are. These restaurateurs have to make sure that they handle the situation correctly and they will very likely need all the help from the customers concerned to assist them especially in their investigation. Without the investigation report, they cannot confirm that the food poisoning is from them and therefore, they cannot do anything else. Also, without the confirmation, no apology is due but however they do hope that they can get the help from the customers concerned to have the investigation started and completed.

This is what I think customers who have food poisoning should do. Keep good records. Write down what you have eaten before you experienced the symptoms. Also, write down what you have experienced due to the food poisoning. If possible, see a doctor and ask the doctor to give you a report of your case. Keep the medical receipts in case you can get reimbursements from the restaurateurs. Contact the restaurateur and also the health department. In US, the restaurateur and health department should get back to you right away and inform you what you need to do. In Malaysia, I guess the procedures are not most of the time straightly by the books. However, if the food poisoning is serious, the local newspaper will report it. I always believe everyone should contribute as much as they can but not to the extent of violating their privacy to resolve food poisoning cases for the safety of everyone who eats at that place.

Dear All,

Thank you for your comments. I will write to each of you individually, as it is my style - in an open manner. I am not hiding behind the blog, and I am happy that Chili's is communicating with me - that was my intention when I reached out to them.

What I find awkward is that it took them extremely long to get back to me, and that there is not a single word of emphathy in their mails! I think that this is the first that should be done, don't you think?

I think we are living in a world where customer satisfaction is of utmost importance to any business. Similar, the reaction of a company to incidences such as this. Companies that react too slow nowadays are pretty much left behind pretty quickly.

This is what I see as the real business reality, the new world, the new economy.

If a company cannot stand criticism or comments from visitors or users, than they shouldn't have a comment page on their main webpage or shouldn't provide an e-mail address there as well. A company should be happy when a customer is trying to talk to them, instead of just talking to friends. As such, we were not hiding, we were informing them.

I am not going down the intended flaming level of who is immature or who is more mature. This is not the sense of this blog, and really, I like the emotions that bubble up here, and the conflict that I see. Different opinions about the real business world is always something that propels the world forward.

I like Dennis comment that they try to establish what really happened. True enough that is a great reason - but it took them damn long to get to this stage. A real concern would have been shown if they react quickly to the incidence.

Just a reader: Yep - I can agree to your comment, but again, I contacted Chili's twice. I didn't hide my identity from them - why should I? I am looking for a conversation. Again, it is the way that Chili's reacted from the very first beginning that upset me.

Belacan: Thanks for your understanding. I believe that it is a test of a company's standing in the business world that is tested in situations like this. Are they professional or not. So far, I dont see that.

Elb: It appears that this is only the case with the Chili's in Bangsar Shopping Mall. There were a couple of comments in Kim's blog that pointed to this.

EF: Bad PR - I agree with you. It looks like this. And a strange approach to customer satisfation and the effort to improve.

Arbaiya - This might have been the case earlier in a different world. They are hoping that the wind is blowing over them and they can continue with business the usual way. May be the world is changing. Earlier it was said that one bad experience is conveyed 7 times and a good experience only three times. Nowadays and with blogs and other tools, well, things spread farther.

There is much more to say, but well!

When a restaurant finds out that it may have a potential case of food poisoning, the first thing that they do is try to contact the customers who have been affected and try to find out the details. The type of information that they'll need is a history of food eaten before and after the restaurant visit, and whether the customer have been to a hospital or a doctor after the incident. They'll want to know what are the symptoms and the times that the customers had experienced these symptoms.

I'm not sure how restaurants handle it in Malaysia, but in the U.S., the restaurant would fill out a report for each of the affected customers and notify the Health Department and followup on the investigation.

It is in the interest of the restaurant to know what went wrong. If the restaurant is responsible for the food poisoning, they want to prevent the occurance from happening again.

I have agree with Noel that perhaps the relevant people are trying to put this issue to rest since their reputation is at stake (or someone's arse is!)

But on the blogger's end...she might feel that it's a rather a dubious move in obtaining her number and subject her to prank calls and such.

To be fair to both...if you had raised a complaint and someone is sincerely trying to listen....please provide a CONVENIENT way of communicating and not hide behind the "privacy" (whatever!) issues (like...I'm only contactable by this...and this...and such) Sometimes....to mitigate matters.....stuff are best discussed over the phone or in person. So...if you don't want to be called....ask for their number and call them. If genuine enough...ask them to call you back. Remember...this is Malaysia...not US or whatosever...so you can kiss your whatsoever "Standard Operating Procedures" goodbye.

Put yourself in other people's shoes for once.

You have every right to assert your "Consumer Rights"....but then...there's always the thin fine line between being difficult and being righteous for a "worthy" cause.

hi noel. i am not sure about kim and andreas but as for me, i dun reveal my hp or home number to anyone, even to my bankers (but exceptions to my lawyers lar). it's something called privacy.

i honestly don't believe that andreas and kim have been hiding behind their blog and emails. they have signed off as themselves (real names).

and are you in business too? well, i think you would agree with me that i didn't find this customer service saga as exemplary. i would have thot that there are standard procedures already operating efficiently, effectively and economically to deal with recurring customer grievances (and it will not involve the COO himself). someone would have already been in-charge of these matters. he/she would have attended to so many feedback that he can blab out all the std client-friendly-pacifying replies and authorised to certain permitted actions in writing. in fact, all such customer service matters should be in writing but since i am not an ADULT in a REAL business world, you can tell me off that that's not the way to do business lar.

gosh, did i just write that? man, becoming like Jeff Ooi's blog. chill bro ;)

noel: i think you're jumping to conclusion too fast there. are you saying emails are of less effective as compared to telephone calls? what about customers who are not comfortable speaking on the phone or do not have the luxury to do so? as a service sector, they ought to know how to reach out to different customers with different means of communication. i am prepared to meet up with any rep from chilis say they find that necessary, i don't think that even remotely constitutes to hiding. because of people like you, corporations sweep things under the carpet and other people continued to be short-changed.

dear blogger,

whats wrong with you? You sent chilis a complaint, and theyre attending to it. And yet, you want to play little blogger games?

This is the real world. The business world, where ADULTS live. When you're older, perhaps then, you would realise that REAL people solve issues face-to-face or just pick up the damn phone and get it over with.

You had all the guts to complain and bitch about chilis to the whole blogging world. I had no idea you were cowardly enough to hide behind your emails and the cover of your blog.

Here they are, trying frantically to contact you and clarify the issue, and perhaps even apologise, but you on the other hand, are playing hide n seek mouse games with them. Are you just enjoying the attention youre getting in the blogging world?
To your peers you may look cool.. to working adults, you are childish.

SHAME ON YOU.
Believe me, you have no idea HOW IMMATURE you look to the people and professionals that work for the franchiser and HQ in US. Now they know that youre just a lil punk with a blog and a big mouth.
Dont screw it up la. Just call them and get over with it, and deal it like an adult.

I've been to Uncle Chili's quite a number of times over the years (almost always the Bangsar outlet), but I've never had any bad experiences (except for the longgggg queues for tables) with them.

Is Chilli's trying to turn the table around?

Trying to say it's the consumer's fault they have bad cuisine experience?

What's up with you people in Chilli's man?

i had the same experience at a local restaurant here too. i wrote to the local paper and they published it but the restaurant did not reply..bad PR? i dun think so..its more like..since i'm wrong, i'll shut up