Today is high school graduation day for our oldest son. Congratulations to him for making it as one of 30 “thirteen year” seniors in his class of 2008 (a 13-year senior has gone to the same school all 13 years: kindergarten through 12th grade). My dad flew out from Arizona to watch the graduation ceremony later this evening. Last night we went to our son’s restaurant of choice: Red Lobster. There were seven of us total and the bill after tip came to $340 USD.

For my son’s birthday in March we also went to Red Lobster. My wife and I went about six months ago on our own. When we got to the restaurant around 7:00pm, and keep in mind this was a Monday night which is typically the slowest night of the week, we were told our wait time would be “15 minutes.” We sat and watched people come right in and get seated ahead of us for 20 minutes before they finally sat us on the back side of the restaurant where we almost literally were alone in the complete side of the restaurant.

The first thing we did was wonder why we weren’t seated sooner when we were surrounded by empty tables? The waiter, Peter, proceeded to wait on us right away and he did a great job overall. I don’t blame him for anything that went wrong during our visit. He was actually the most positive part of the dining experience.

Two of the last three times we’ve dined at Red Lobster in the last year, including last night, I had to return my lobster to the kitchen to be recooked. The first time it happened, they brought me a brand new lobster tail and it was cooked great. Last night they did the same, but I was eating lobster while everybody else was eating dessert. The lobster that came back the second time in both cases was cooked properly.

Note to Red Lobster cooks: if the lobster is opaque, don’t send it to the table!

This morning I started thinking about the situation. Having come from the restaurant business, but admittedly being out of it for the last 15 years, I wondered why the manager never appeared in either case when food was returned to the kitchen. There’s an old saying about the fish stinking at the head. How appropriate.

The person waiting on us in both cases was apologetic for the restaurant, but we never had anybody else come out and say a word about having not being able to cook successfully an item on the menu that is in the title of your restaurant.

Customers who don’t voice their dissatisfaction
So the bill arrives.

No coupon off next visit, no discount of the price of the meal, nothing. It wasn’t just one Red Lobster location, it was two different ones. I think after last night’s dining experience, I won’t be going back any time soon.

How many of your customers never share their dissatisfaction with you? They pay their bill and go along with life and then one day they stop doing business with you.

There is probably a very small percentage of customers who have blogs rolling through Red Lobster’s doors, but I saw from a Yelp search that the local Red Lobster was given 2.5 out of 5 stars. Apparently we’re not alone. If a savvy PR rep or district manager reads this, you might want to print this out and deliver to your Federal Way and Silverdale location and revisit how to cook half the title of your restaurant.

Just before posting this I decided to dial the Federal Way store. I spoke to the kitchen manager Tim. Very nice guy and quite professional. He sounded disappointed that the manager on duty didn’t come out last night but indicated it was possible that Peter didn’t tell anybody that my order was messed up. He took my name and address and promised to send a gift card so we could have a better experience the next time out.

Maybe we will give them another chance after all. My question for readers is when you have a negative customer experience, do you tell the manager at that time or do you wait until the next few days? Or do you say nothing at all? How many things have to go wrong before you go that far?

Managers can’t improve things better if they don’t know, which is ultimately what prompted me to call the restaurant this morning.

Update 11:13am PST: Looks like Sterling wrote about an interesting restaurant experience too. Saw his post after writing mine. It had to be something in the weather yesterday that threw off the local restaurants.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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