Bugs in food & related incident handling

Now I'm not squeamish about food, in fact I'm more into xenophilia than xenophobia when concerning food. I loved sushi, I don't mind encountering a completely foreign dish, I have even eaten the various tiny bugs sold in Thailand including the ants, and caterpillars, and grows to like grasshopper among others.

However I have a strong objection when foreign things are introduced to the meal I have, while it's certainly not the intended part of the dish. Like this tiny cockroach we encountered during dining in one of our favourite spot in Denpasar Junction, Bali.

We suspected it was one of those tiny species which only introduced to Indonesia in recent years; it is most likely the brown-banded cockroach, or its counterpart the German cockroach. Never got a chance to interview them, since usually they are either running away or flattened out.

Knock, knock, who's there?

Hey wait! You look familiar...
The picky eater discovered this, after I went through like 3/4 of out dish; which is the pangsit goreng (fried wonton). What's shown here is the almost emptied sweet and sour sauce.

Upon informed to the waiter, she looked shocked and becoming stiff; a sign that's no good-enough crisis handle management or training was in place. She however, was able to resist the temptation for a self defence arguments, and decided to took our bowl of sauce away into the kitchen to confirm our sighting.

(But first we took a snapshot of it for our own reference)

Shortly afterward, she returned from the kitchen and started to apologizing, with a promise that they would improve their service. Upon receiving further complaint from my wife, the picky eater, on how such thing could happen, she revealed that there are regular pest cleaning activity performed by one national vendor in Bali.

Well perhaps it's time for them to look for other provider.

Following are our notes of the incident-handling for restaurant services:
  1. There are different levels of misshapen possible to occur during the service of a restaurant, and business owners need to be prepared for preventive measures as well as crisis-handling
  2. If it can, it will; so when misshapen occurs, it's best to prepare in advance what sort of reactions staffs must perform to contain the damage
  3. Have the steps recorded into a SOP, print it, and have it placed nearby for quick access
  4. Self-defence would only make the matters worse
  5. Put the blame on the customers is a suicidal attempt 
  6. Most customers on most cases only wish they are:
    1. Heard
    2. Confirmed about their objections
    3. Offered a sincere apology
  7. Inclusion of bugs or other unwanted objects into customer's meal is a big incident, and it deals with not only customer feeling dissatisfied, but also disgusted, and sometimes even humiliated
  8. On such incidents the manager himself/herself would need to be presented to offer apology, since s/he is the responsible person for the whole operation of the restaurant, not the staff
  9. If you are thinking of retaining the customer, then damage containment alone is not enough; since that's only merely the first-aid kit. However it is usually how good the first aid was, that determines the rest of the story
  10. Beyond containment, do something that would make your customers feel appreciated, e.g.: waive their bill, offer vouchers, write an apology letter on the newspaper, whatever the customer (not you) would feel fit
  11. Handled, but disgruntled customers will think about some way to make them feel even
  12. Handled, and appreciated customers often are willing to forgive such incident, even they are no longer willing to be your customer afterward
As with us, I think we'll steer away from this place, until I no longer able to feel the sensation of those insects crawling behind my throat -- which in our mind is now closely associated with this chain of restaurant. (byms)


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