This is the letter sent to the Manavala Pizza Owner Mike, in response to the horrible customer service my mom and I received :
Dear Mike,
I hope this message finds you well, and that you are having a good day.
I am writing this letter to express to you how extremely disappointed I am in the way in which you treated my mom and I when we dined in at your establishment yesterday, on Friday December 7, 2018. I was so excited about bringing my mom to your business. I could not stop raving about the delicious food and great service that my boyfriend and I received, during the time that your daughter was in town for Thanksgiving, helping out.
Today was the complete opposite of that day. First off, it all started when my mom and I were not properly informed about the increase in price of your greek salad. The fact that it was a dollar difference was not the issue. The issue was the way in which you went about communicating the price increase to us. There is no logical reason why an owner should assume that every customer that walks through the door, is aware of price changes, that are not clearly displayed. So when your cashier just rang in 3.99, for an item that is displayed as 2.99 on all menus throughout the restaurant, without explaining why, it appeared as though the cashier himself was making a charge error that needed to be corrected.
When you came from the back to assist and a new customer call came in, you chose to insert yourself into my conversation mid-call, while I was speaking to the cashier, and then blaming the call interruption on my mom and I, once the call concluded.. that was not okay.
So at that point, after you proceeded to return to the prep area and roll dough, and the cashier finished ringing me up, I thought to myself.. maybe he's just having a bad day.. last time he was so nice..and I know that running a business can be stressful sometimes, so I will just hope for better next time, and leave it alone. Then suddenly, as my mom and I are leaving and getting into the car... the customer you were previously speaking to came outside and stated, "He wants to know why you didn't pay for your food", we were furious! We were already getting over the previous situation, now here we are being accused of not paying.. that was not okay. In all honesty, as a manager, you should have checked your receipts to see if we paid, before assuming that we did not. Suppose we did not return back inside to clear our name and have you check your receipts to prove that we paid? The next time I came for pizza, you would have already had your mind made up that we stole when that was clearly not the case. Furthermore, we would not have been given our pizza and utensils, sat down, and dined in for at least 20 minutes, without have paying first. That would be ridiculous.
I say all of this to say that the service my mom and I received today was extremely inappropriate and unacceptable. In a world where hatred and mistreatment seems to exceed kindness in the face of humanity..... the least one could expect to do, is find satisfaction and happiness in good food and service.
I really hope that as a Business Owner, and more so as a human, you are able to recognize the error on your end, as I have recognized the error on mine. The error on my end being, instead of remaining in your establishment in an attempt to still try and present my mom with good food and a pleasant dining experience, I should have just asked for a refund after the verbal salad dispute, and left... avoiding any further conflict.
If not anything else, you could have at least apologized for the accusation. Nevertheless, I wish you the best of luck with your business, and I hope that no one else experiences the treatment that my mom and I experienced from you today.
Sincerely,
Janae
**FYI: "California law prohibits advertising that is untrue or misleading."
"Under both federal and state law, an ad is unlawful if it tends to mislead or deceive, even if it doesn't actually fool anyone. If your ad is deceptive, you'll face legal problems whether you intended to mislead the customer or not. What counts is the overall impression created by the ad -- not the technical truthfulness of the individual parts.
Sources:
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/consumer-protection-laws-business-29641.html
https://consumerclassactionfirm.com/false-and-deceptive-advertising/ read more