Think about the best place you have ever eaten a meal. Now think about what made that experience truly great. That’s right: it is not all about the food.
Sure, amazing food should always be a top priority. But dining at a really good restaurant should provide many other things to make it worthwhile. There is more to a good restaurant than just great food and drink.
As a customer, it is all about the service you receive. Delivering great customer service must be the top priority after having an excellent product.
Having said that, and in light of cricket writer Peter Della Penna’s recent social media rant on South Africa and Johannesburg's ‘tour from hell’, we decided to look into restaurant customer service in South Africa versus other parts of the world.
After his three week visit in Johannesburg covering the USA at the Women’s U19 Cricket World Cup, the cricket journalist left an aggressive, lengthy review on Facebook about the city and SA. In one of his points, he pointed out that the restaurant or hospitality service in SA is worse than anywhere in the world.
IOL Lifestyle sat down with a few foodies to hear what they had to say about SA’s restaurant customer service.
Travel and food blogger Verushka Ramasami, aka Spice Goddess, said when dining at a restaurant, she looks out for attentive staff who know the menu and serve every single customer like ‘king’ and not forgetting good quality ingredients prepared well. Ramasami said her overall experience of SA restaurants has been like a bag of ‘Liquorice All Sorts’ , some amazing and some not great.
“The not-great ones actually put me off eating out and made me cook more at home. The amazing ones are places we return to all the time. I just wish in SA we paid more attention to customer experience and training of staff,” she said.
As a traveller, having to rate SA, amongst other places, Ramasami said: “This is all a tough one, but here goes in terms of restaurant customer service. I would rate Dubai on top of my list. The staff is incredible, and the restaurant experience is next level. I have eaten at fancy spots, local spots, and tiny holes-in-the-wall places. The food and service have always been incredible. Now to compare SA places, again, I have mixed feelings as many places start out with excellent food and service, and then as they grow, the food and service go downhill. To be fair, I would say our service in SA is average with a few gems of excellent service.”
Joanna Bridgett, a self-employed Virtual Assistant from Ireland who is currently in SA, said the food quality and value for money in SA can't be beaten. Bridgett said there is also so much to choose from in terms of food styles and great wines, and you can't beat a South African steak.
“I have worked in five-star hotels for the majority of my career, and I have a degree in International Hospitality Management, so customer service is very high up on the list of things that are important to me when I'm dining out. Good customer service to me means the waiter is friendly, attentive, and has good menu knowledge. A massive part of any dining experience is the waiter. They can make or break the entire dining experience. A waiter who shows their personality and enjoys their job makes all the difference.
Overall, I always love the food in SA. I am easygoing and love to try new things. SA restaurants are always excellent value for money and very enjoyable. The one thing I will say is, often, service can be quite slow. Once the order is taken, you could be waiting some time for the food to actually arrive. But the food is always worth the wait,’’ she said.
“I also think SA restaurants have it tough because of load shedding. If you dine out during load shedding, often, restaurants have to remove certain things from the menu because they do not have backup generators and then can't use some of their equipment - this is no fault of the restaurant, but it can make dining out tricky as your options become limited,” added Bridgett.
Compared to other parts of the world she has been to, she said: “It's always an enjoyable experience to eat out in this country! I would rate South African dining out a 10 out of 10”.
Chef and entrepreneur Miles Kubheka said SA has some of the best quality food and restaurants that provide value for money compared to the US and some parts of Europe that he has been to.
“To me, good customer service starts from the infrastructure and bathroom hygiene - things we can touch to the time taken for staff to attend to you and the communication between meals. Customer service in SA is not bad, but can be much better.
“My overall experience with SA restaurants has been great, but I do think it can improve. I would most definitely rate SA high if I had to compare it with other places I have been to, I would put them in the top five in terms of customer service or overall experience in terms of food, cleanliness, good value for money, and quality."