LIVE TO EAT: "7 steps to try before resorting to a bad review on Yelp."

A satisfied customer (Catania 2016).

While staying in Porto in February, we enjoyed a wonderful meal at a family-operated eatery called Taberna Stº. António. It's near the university quarter, and seems to be successfully keeping both locals and tourists fed and satisfied.

Except an American who wrote a one-star review on social media. Now, it helps to know that just about every source of information about the Taberna Stº. António concurs that reservations are a good idea owing to the small size. There are only 10, maybe 12 tables, and for dinner service, the establishment is geared to turn them once, then clean up and go home.

We walked past at about 6:00 p.m., an hour before the restaurant begins evening seating, and thought it might be expeditious to make a reservation. It took all of a minute for the friendly bartender to record our names in the old-school notebook. It was a wonderful meal.

Another satisfied customer (Porto 2018) 

Accordingly, the reason for the one-star take-down from the clueless American, which occurred a few weeks before our excellent experience, was that he came to the Taberna Stº. António without a reservation, it was fully booked with no available tables, and so BOOM, a negative review: how dare they not have space to seat us?

How can you give a bad review to a place you haven't even entered? It still annoys me. Click through for the details of how better outcomes result from communication between real people.

7 steps to try before resorting to a bad review on Yelp, by Neil Swidey (Boston Globe Magazine)

We don’t always have to air our grievances about a business with the entire world before telling the business.

1. Be timely.
2. Be resourceful.
3. Be firm but respectful.
4. Be honest.
5. Be succinct.
6. Be clear that you are interested in having management restore your faith in the business.
7. Be generous with feedback.

Thanks for asking, Delta Air Lines. I'm happy to tell you how likely I am to recommend you to others.

Hello Roger,

We wanted to follow up on the opportunity to share your feedback regarding your experience on your flight from Atlanta (ATL) to Louisville (SDF) on February 22, 2018. We are committed to providing exceptional service on every flight and understand that we didn’t meet those expectations with a delayed arrival.

Please know that we are committed to providing exceptional service on every flight, and we appreciate hearing from valued customers like you. We ask that you share your thoughts regarding your recent flight experience by completing this short survey.

How likely are you to recommend Delta Air Lines to others?

Thanks for “reaching out” to me, Delta Air Lines.

On the evening of Thursday, February 22, we left Atlanta for Louisville roughly on time, to be informed by the captain that arrival at SDF might actually be a tad early.

This was welcome news. We’d already been awake for more than 20 hours since rising to depart Porto, Portugal for Amsterdam and Atlanta, and gratefully, we hit the runway in Louisville at 11:35 p.m., a full 20 minutes early.

Then we exited the plane – at 12:35 a.m., after waiting an entire hour for a gate to debark, which was explained to us by the captain as a case of other flights being diverted because of fog (with heavy rain predicted after midnight), and with one plane apparently sitting at our arrival gate with almost no workers present to move it out of the way.

He never explained why someone decided to park a plane at a gate where another flight would be due later that evening. If there is any justice in the world, it was an ex-employee.

We got to the car just as the rain started. The way back to New Albany took a bit; we were so long getting off the flight that the storm had moved in, and effective visibility on the interstate a few yards, with a speed of 35 mph.

A little after 1 a.m., we were home, where we rushed immediately upstairs to check on our elderly cat Hugo.

Wait – I forgot to mention that we’d been informed by the cat-sitter that our elderly cat Hugo didn’t look well, and the hour spent on the tarmac was vivid in my mind as we sadly found him lying dead. The circumstances strongly suggested that he passed after midnight. The faithful little guy tried to wait for us, but Delta had other ideas, so listen carefully, engorged multi-national corporation.

Neoliberalism and monopolies being what they are, and Louisville’s connections with Delta being pervasive, we have little realistic chance of boycotting Delta in the future. To claim such would be unrealistic, and I’m not in the mood to shake my fist at you.

Just know that I’ll never, ever forgive you for whatever staggering levels of incompetence led to a plane being parked where it shouldn’t have been, and for sitting on the ramp for a full hour, knowing our cat needed us, and being unable to get to him in time.

Fuck you, Delta Air Lines.

In the future, every time I authorize a payment for a flight, I’ll pause just for a second to honor Hugo’s memory, and I’ll look at the Delta logo, and I’ll repeat, perhaps as many as 16 times (his age): Fuck you, Delta Air Lines.

If it is humanly possible to “hate” a corporation, then be aware that I hate Delta Air Lines’ guts. Apart from that, the flight was just dandy.

Sincerely,

Roger

P.S. I see that there was no oval to be blacked in with my response to the question of whether I’d recommend Delta Air Lines to others.

The proper reply: I’d rather drink Miller Lite; if you know me, you know exactly what this implies: Fuck you, Delta Air Lines.