A few nights ago, on Monday, December 12, to be exact, while browsing Facebook, I came across a post about a customer who wrote a very emotional albeit funny “break-up” letter with her favorite fastfood restaurant, Chic-Boy. I was immediately drawn to it because Chic-boy has become my favorite resto, too. Anyway, the author of that post, Sigrid Andrea Bernardo, apparently a writer, director and actress, narrated what happened to her on November 21 at the Chic-Boy Timog branch.
After reading it, I immediately thought of the Cebu Lechon Liempo meal waiting for me on our dining table, courtesy of Daddy Bong. He knows how I so love Chic-Boy that a few nights even, he asked if I’d be ok with just eating at Chic-Boy whenever we’d go out on dates. I didn’t hesitate when I said yes because really, their Cebu Lechon Liempo is just to die for, IMO. I was seriously debating within if I would eat it knowing that my husband lovingly went out of his way to buy me that pasalubong. It was already nearing midnight, but before coming to my final decision, I decided to read what Chic-Boy in its FB fanpage, had to say. And what they said there stunned me. But instead of publicly telling them what I thought, I decided to write them a private message instead. Here’s what I wrote:
I decided to message you in private since I don’t want to be just another person who wants to be embroiled in a controversy.
I love Chicboy. I have loved it eversince I first tasted the lechon liempo and sisig meal in Cityplace Divisoria two weeks ago. Since then, I have declared I would patronize it whenever I see a branch nearby. And since then, my husband, knowing how I love it, has been bringing me pasalubong from chicboy. Last week, we ate at Chicboy central mall in Biñan. He asked me if he could bring to a chicboy everytime we would have a date and I happily said yes. Tonight when he came home, he had another pasalubong for me. From Chicboy. It is now waiting for me on the dining table.
I have to admit, when I read the post, I thought of throwing it away and told myself I would never eat there anymore, not so much my doubt on the food’s cleanliness and fitness for consumption as the way chicboy is handling the whole controversy. You guys should learn about crisis management. It was clear that the author of that post only wanted you to apologize but no one, according to her did so. In fact, you went the other way (around) and showed defiance. The author was clearly pissed because she went to the place to enjoy your food but instead she ate something you can’t deny wasn’t there in the same way you can’t prove it was placed there on purpose to discredit you.
Now you are even threatening to sue her for libel because you were emboldened by people who said they would support you. You havve the money and means and maybe even clout to wage war against her. You will probably win the lawsuit but I hope you will also be able to prove yourselves and all that you did not have a liability and that that girl was really just out to get you and she was indeed being paid by somebody to ruin your reputation because if you can’t, then you will be judged accordingly.
I hope you will really do everything to make sure that sanitation is of great importance, and most especially, that you value your customers. You are not perfect so I hope you also know that the author might just have been telling the truth and in so doing, simply wanted an apology which you denied (apparently.) After all, I am pretty sure you know these things sometimes really happen.
In the end, I will still eat my husband’s chicboy pasalubong to me this evening. Masarap naman talaga ang chicboy. But I also hope you will learn how to deal with problems like this properly. And blaming the customer is not one of them especially when there is another customer who experienced almost the same thing in another branch.
If you will ask me if I believe that girl and what she said she experienced, then yes, I believe she was saying the truth. But would I stop eating at chicboy? No. I will still patronize chicboy, but with the hope that it will learn to do things correctly. And I hope it will start by reaching out to the disgruntled customer and apologizing as you should have done in the first place.
More power to you and I hope this incident will only make your resolve to keep sanitation and cleanliness, as well as good customer service your top priorities at all times. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
After sending this message to the Chicboy FB Fanpage, I went to eat Daddy Bong’s Chicboy pasalubong. Later, I decided to check my FB and lo and behold! Chicboy responded to my message. In it, Chicboy wrote:
Hello Kaye, thank you for your message. The incident as she claimed happened Nov 21. It is our policy to first apologize for any untoward incident or inconvenience we have caused our customers. She said in her FB post that she even went back that same night to talk to the franchisee. If she was not able to talk to the franchisee, why didn’t she write a letter to the franchisee? Why didn’t she write a letter to the franchisor? Why didn’t she text or call our Hotline. The complaint number is printed on our receipt? We are wondering why it took her 3 weeks before she decided to write about it in FB?
We are not threatening to sue her. We will sue her to find out the real story.
Thank you and Have a Merry Christmas too.
I thought the reply from Chicboy was not just defensive, it even reeked of arrogance, so I decided to reply to their message. I wrote:
If you will look at her post, she said that three weeks have passed without any word from you. I think she was clearly expecting an answer, a reaction from you which she did not get after complaining verbally that day, prompting her to post the incident on facebook. One thing I have learned from being a PR practitioner myself, is to always respond to a crisis the earliest possible time. You question her inability to file a formal complaint with your office yet you cannot say what you resolved to do after she verbally complained about her food. I think you should realize that not all customers would write letters of complaint, nor text or call your hotline to report what happened. You should realize that the easiest way for people to vent their frustrations is through social media. Never mind if it happened yesterday, a week before, three weeks even. Social networking sites have made it possible for things to go viral in just a few seconds. Yours is an example.
In any case, if you think she was amiss in doing what you thought was the correct thing to do, you were also amiss in that you let the problem sit there without realizing you were leaving it to hatch on its own. You were not proactive enough to solve the problem once it presented itself. Now, what you are doing is damage control, so to speak, by attacking back. You probably thought that girl would be content seething privately and was taken aback when you realized that like you, she wouldn’t take things sitting down. If, on the other hand, you will say you did not know about the problem until that post and the photos appeared on facebook, then the branch manager where the incident happened, has a lot of explaining to do, or else, you did not train your people to handle crises well enough, in which case, this proves to be a lesson difficult enough to learn from.
Also, you have been telling everyone that it is your policy to apologize the moment something goes wrong, yet nowhere in your page/profile does it say that the staff of the said branch clearly apologized for what happened. Saying it is one thing as opposed to actually doing it. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not antagonising you. I am just trying to give an alternative way of looking at things without being just overly critical. I really hope you will be able to get through this with everything still intact. And if you want to know, I enjoyed my chicboy dinner a while ago very much. As usual, the rice was cooked perfectly (believe me, mang inasal wouldn’t stand a chance! And I ate one just last Friday.) and the lechon was so tasty as usual.
Oh and if you want to know why I am suddenly very interested in this aside from the fact that I love Chicboy so much, it is because I am a customer myself who would maybe do the same if “properly” provoked. that is also why I explained to you how I see what happened.
After that, and until now, I never heard from Chic-boy. At the time, they hadn’t filed a case (tho I really don’t know if they have filed one already) against the author of the FB post, but they no longer responded to me. Maybe because they didn’t think I was worth responding to after all. Haha. Thing is, the way I see things, this is purely a PR crisis. Had they known how to respond properly to the customer, they might have kept this under wraps. I also found their accusation against the author absurd. Telling everybody that the customer might have been hired to do a demolition job against the restaurant, or simply was trying to get attention for herself was plain dumb and lame. Where else in the world is the customer always not right? In this country of course! and when you complain about bad service in whatever form, you get branded as publicity-hungry or a hired demolition expert, or worse, you get sued for trying to stand up for your rights.
Going into the F&B business is really not a walk in the park. However, more than that, I think we can all learn a thing or two about customer service with the story above. I hope all have learned their lesson well.
tulad mo, i will still love chic-boy. at miss ko ng kumain jaaaan! argh!
uwi na!!!!
naku, baka hanggang next year pa ako dito. naglalaway nga ako pag naaalala ko mga pagkain natin jan. huhu..
ang laki nga nung uod, mami kaye. at mukang malasa! lol!
tsk tsk tsk…kawawang caterpie. di man lang naranasang maging butterfree. hehe.
shocks, madalas pa naman kaming kumain ni dude diyan. kung totoo man o hindi, mahaba-habang paliwanagan ang kelanganng chic-boy management hinggil dito. and i don’t think ms. bernardo would pull up a prank like that just to gain public attention. or worse, attribute some advantage to chic-boy’s competitors.
my sentiments, exactly. malay natin kung naging isang maganda siyang mariposa. ahahahaha!
naisip ko ngang kumain ulit sa chic-boy mamaya. ang sarap ng lechon liempo e. i am sure na meron naman talagang magandang explanation sa mga nangyari. it was really just how the company responded to a crisis such as this. unfortunately, sa palagay ko talaga, epic fail ang naging move nila to put the blame on the customer. nakakaturn off. galit ata sila sa mga taga-UP. loljoke!
chicboy. ive liked them since una ko sila matikman ten months ago. i like their bbq and gising gising. i hate their teriyaki. i love the cheap bottomless iced tea. haha.
i wont let one’s unfortunate experience with them stop me from enjoying my food. pero magpapalipas muna ako… sariwa pa sa ala-ala ko ang hitsura nun caterpillar.
haha imagine how I was feeling while eating my chicboy that night. pero more than the image, I was really disgusted with the way the management responded to it. Lalo when they started insisting that it was actually the customer’s fault for not reporting immediately by way of writing, texting or calling them. I mean, really now? how many customers would do that di ba? Mas understandable yung maghintay ang customer ng action from them especially since she complained verbally and it was actually a big incident that day for that branch. I would have expected them to reach out to the complaining customer and apologize immediately. Para sa akin, kung ako ang customer, palagay ko sa dami na ng ginawa ko nung araw na yun para ipaalam ang pagkainis ko sa resto, that should have already reached the management of the resto. Kaya lang, feeling ko rin, the upper management did not know about it until they read the post via FB.
Defensive! Sana may disclaimer din na yung reply sayo eh hindi yun ang position ng management ng Chicboy tungkol sa incident. Isolated case naman, o siguro nga dalawang beses nangyari pero ang masama kasi with social media, hindi lahat iisipin na hindi naman ganun lahat ng stores nila. Yung iba eh sadyang makitid lang ang utak na mabanggit pa lang ang salitang Chicboy ay uod na agad ang nagreregister sa mga utak nila.
Ayun nga, sa management nung store na yun, mag-apologize na lang kasi sila. Yun lang naman ang solusyon diyan. Hindi naman nila sinadyang mapunta yun dun. Spare na nila tayo sa trouble ng pag-intindi sa quality management system nila. Kung sisibakin nila yung assigned QC inspector sa commissary nila o ano. Kasi from farm to plate ang responsibility ng isang food company. Kahit pa during transpo yan na-adulterate, responsibility pa rin yan ng company.
Tama nga, kelangan nilang ayusin ang crisis management (customer complaints/product recall) nila. Sigurado ako na meron naman kasi requirement yun ng FDA. Ang kailangan nilang gawin, maicascade yun hanggang sa pinakailalim na part ng management. Nasa training talaga.
Ampf yung store manager. Kung yung staff niya failed to say sorry, dapat siya na ang nag-sorry.
actually I just assumed that whoever replied to me is the administrator of that account and I thought they were really manning FB kasi almost 12 midnight na yun when I sent that message and immediately got a reply. Kaso after I replied again na parang siguro medyo nagsesermon o naglelecture na ako about what they could have done and what they should do in the future, e di na ako sinagot. nabadtrip siguro saken. haha!
That’s my thought, too. Ako as a customer, have experienced so many booboos with different establishments. I always call their attention. I might or might not have called their hotlines or even wrote them but in fairness, all those establishments were profuse naman in their apologies and pag nagapologize, talagang tinatanggap ko at napapacify ako. iba kasi yung nagaapologize and humbly accept their mistakes because I also know for a fact that somehow sa food industry talagang nangyayari ang mga aksidente. e kaso ibang klase tong si chic-boy. talagang lumaban pa at nagakusa pa. ang ending tuloy, lalong lumaki ang issue. I found other complaints re that same resto here http://www.fashionpulis.com/2011/12/is-this-worm-in-ginisang-kangkong.html
Actually ang problem kasi sa ating mga pinoy, most of the time, when we encounter foreign matters in our food, we don’t complain. We just ask the servers to replace it with a clean one, and worse, we don’t tell the manager what happened. We need to do that as a practice because we have to make a stand for cleanliness because we pay for the food that we eat, and because it is our health on the line. Also, it would serve as a gauge for the owners of the food establishment on the effectiveness of their food handling practices. Tsaka para rin mawala na yung mentality na pag nagreklamo, pakawala ng kalaban. I mean, really? lahat ba ng mga nagrereklamong pinoy sa pagkain nila, binabayaran ng kalaban? di ba nakakabwisit talaga yung ganon.
pero seryoso, natuwa ako sa word na cascade. dito ko kasi madalas na naririnig sa trabaho yan e. corporate slave ka nga! hahaha!
Well, may ganyan talagang tao, sila na ang may kasalanan, sila pa ang mayabang.
honga. nayabangan nga ako sa sinabi nilang they are not threatening to sue her dahil they are really suing her to find out what happened. natawa ako. ano to, witchhunt? tsaka in order for libel to gain ground, malice should be established (or else I have already forgotten my Law of Mass media class lectures). ang hirap iestablish ng malice especially if it is against s a customer; a paying, frequent customer who suddenly experiences bad service and later, harassment, from the company she used to patronize.
Spoken like a true PR professional. I’ve never tasted Chicboy and, after seeing that viral post, I have even less motivation to do so. At tama ka, pasok sa banga, it is definitely a lesson in crisis [mis]management.
Granting that it’s only the admin handling the FB account, what I can think is the best response s/he could have given you is something like, “Thank you for your unbiased opinion. We will forward your message to our Corporate Communications team. Rest assured that we will handle the situation as best as could. Thank you for your continued support!” Davaaahhh???
The lack of response on your 2nd message goes to show that the company as a whole needs a lesson in customer service and crisis management. Mabilis lang sila mag-respond kung gusto nila ang naririnig nila. Kung ayaw nila ng opinyon ng tulad mong PR practitioner, intayin lang nilang may pumulot ng storyang ito na media practitioner tulad ko
Spoken like a true media practitioner.
Tama ka, I thought, after not getting a reply from them, na talagang kulang sa PR ang kumpanya nila. I think it’s also because we Filipinos have always let bad service off the hook easily. We are too timid to complain when complaints should be regarded as means to improve, especially if they are reasonable naman talaga.
Even the thought that they must be receiving hundreds of letters everyday about the issue is not an excuse not to respond to messages. When companies don’t answer, that only reinforces the belief that they don’t care about their customers.
I wrote about my exchange with Chic-boy here because I wanted this to be a lesson in handling PR issues and crisis management especially since more Filipinos have become more proactive and assertive about their rights, especially with the wake of social networking sites.
hindi pa ba napickup ng “kapatid” itong story na to? pakisabi nga sa T3. hahaha!
kung sa US ito nangyari, mayaman na si ate.
ang naiisip ko lang, napakalaki naman nung caterpie para hindi makita nung naghihiwa. tsk tsk.
I don’t know how they cook their food but it might be that they cook them by big batches, hence it wasn’t noticed at once. Thing is, might seem impossible, but it happened.
kung sa US nangyari ito, I am pretty sure that the owners would apologize right away, will offer a replacement and do something about it–totally different from how Chic-boy handled the situation. Or I may be wrong.
Thing is, the burden of proof should be on the establishment, and not on the customer. Dito lang naman sa pilipinas baligtad. burden of proof is on the aggrieved party, and you are also adjudged guilty until proven innocent.
“Why didn’t she write a letter to the franchisor? Why didn’t she text or call our Hotline. The complaint number is printed on our receipt? We are wondering why it took her 3 weeks before she decided to write about it in FB? ”
I’m never the sensitive guy, I always ‘try’ to see both sides of a story or an issue. But the way Chicboy handles their shit is absolute garbage.
I will never bring my family to Chic-boy any time soon. Period. I hope they get bought out by Jollibee.
I think, or so, I am hoping, that Chicboy has learned from this incident. They should know that more Pinoy customers are more discerning, and that more, now, won’t mind paying more for much better service.
haha! natawa talaga ako sa last sentence mo. Let’s see what the former owners of Mang Inasal would say to this.
Another mystery that might never be solved! Hehe. If you ask me, the safest time to eat at Chicboy (or any other food establishment) is after a controversy like this, because that’s the time that they tighten all the security to make sure it doesn’t happen (again, if the caterpillar is real). Maybe we’re asking the wrong question which is “What’s in it for the girl?” Maybe we’re overlooking the poor caterpillar! LOL.
IKR? I also thought about that kaya keri, sige pa rin ang kain sa chicboy. haha! wala naman nagbago, gusto ko pa rin ang food nila, ayoko lang ng style nila sa pagsagot sa mga reklamo. napaka-jurassic!
poor caterpillar, indeed.
I’m more of a Mang Inasal girl pero I agree, bad move on Chicboy’s part. Isang beses lang ako kumain dun pero malamang sa malamang di na mauulit yun not just because of the sanitation issue but because of their arrogance as well. Dami-daming masarap na kainan sa Maynila ano!
truleh. at shempre when it comes to discovering great places to try in Manila, ikaw yata ang isa sa mga authorities dito. haha!
hello, kaye…
sa experience ko, bibihira ang times na pag nag-complain ka sa food establishments ay aasikasuhin ka at pakikinggan. mas madalas yong they’ll treat you as nang-aabala lang ng business. yown… :c
merry christmas to you and your family!
hello ate san.
just last night, we ate at Shakey’s SM Sta rosa and we all agreed that the batter for the calamari was too salty. I called the attention of the waiter and told him of our observation. Instead of replacing it, they asked if we just wanted to cancel the order. Nasayangan naman ako so we just told him we would accept it since obviously ay di nila papalitan yun and we also thought that they had one batter for a big batch,. ibig sabihin pag pinapalitan namin, chances are, ganun din ang lasa
happy new year to everyone. kelan magiging ok ang site mo?
I used to own a food business and having a forein object to the customer’s plate is really hard to avoid. It happens from time to time. I remember one time the customer had hair in her food. Apparently, the hair strand appears to be dyed and resembles the hair color of another customer who sit at the table next to the complaining customer. I had no choice but to appologize and replace the customer’s food.
In Chicboy’s case, they failed to address the issue properly and correctly. At that point where the customer complained, they should have just shut their mouth, appologized and replaced the customer’s food. Their managers and staff badly needs crisis management training. Sama mo na proper training sa customer service.
Pano na lang kung maulit to sa chicboy? Then may magreklamo? Well matatakot na siguro magreklamo kasi pag nag reklamo ka eh ikaw pa ang madedemanda. Kung ganon lang din eh di na ako kakain sa chicboy kasi baka mademanda pa ako. hehe!
Sayang sila. Magaling lang sa operations pero pag dating sa customer service bagsak sila. That was even proven Chicboy’s reply to the bloggers FB pm.
I agree, it’s really hard to avoid foreign objects from being mixed with food but I commend you for doing what was right. You might have had to replace the customer’s food and incur losses but for sure, you earned his/her respect. That’s how every food establishment should respond to issues like what you experienced. contrary to Chicboy’s belief’, most customers are not out to just destroy you. Customers just want to eat and enjoy the food they paid for. anong masama dun, di ba?
ang bully nga ng chicboy eh. when I PM’d them, I felt as if they were condemning me as well. And when they did not reply anymore to me, feeling ko mayabang nga itong mga ito considering that the rule of thumb for crises like this is to respond the soonest especially to bad publicity. In any case, pasalamat sila masarap yun food nila. haha!
tama nga si Lio mukang juicy ung worm ..hehehhe
di ko pa na try kumain sa chicboy but I hear good feedback sa mga customers nila. Until mabalitaan ko tong incident n to..
poor worm.. pati ang kanyang bangkay ay sumikat pa sa cyber world.. hehehe
haha ayoko matikman ang worm!
pero masarap ang food nila, at least the ones i have tasted.