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How not to do customer care

Yesterday's Evening Standard carried a prominent story about a coffee bar in Westfield Stratford City and a rude cashier, who typed F***ers all come at once on a woman's till receipt and declined to apologise.

The upset customer complained about the Grind Coffee Bar to Westfield staff three times but was "fobbed off at every turn", Naomi Bloomer told the paper.

Eventually, Dave Dickinson, owner of theNew Zealand run bar apologised. He said: "We strive for super-friendly antipodean customer service. So we apologise to the one person that didn't experience this."

There are two things of interest here.

Firstly, Dave Dickinson should know that for every one person that complains there are plenty who simply walk away and never return.

Secondly, on Twitter no-one has got outraged. The Camden Coffee House wrote a tweet of support and Grind replied to say it hoped that one story doesn't undo four years of hard work. Anne Cupcake said that the complaining girl seemed prudish and the story was a non-story

Really? Perhaps Grind understands the attitude of its 2,675 Twitter followers better than you and I do, never having been there.

Grind claims to serve "great coffee, delicious homemade baking and gourmet breakfasts, with friendly customer service. In Putney SW15, Battersea SW11 & Westfield E20."

What is its definition of friendly? On its web page it writes: "Your first time? Its a bit annoying when you find somewhere that’s serving great coffee, and ignorant old you walks up to the bar, and you’re made to feel like you don’t have a clue what your talking about. Well the fact is, you probably don’t, but theres no need to rub it in….Just ask questions! I can’t speak for anyone else…but we’ll be gentle, we won’t bite… Promise!"

But sometimes their cashiers do bite. What would you do?


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