Consumer Bullying

While searching for material for a recent assignment I ran across a story about Amy's Baking Company from Scottsdale, AZ. It was a typical story of a restaurant looking for assistance to become successful so an arrangement was made for the television show called Kitchen Nightmares and its star Chef Gordon Ramsey to come in and save the day. Usually the chef comes in and tastes the food which is terrible which leads him to modify the menu. He then does a walk through of the kitchen which is usually in unhealthy condition and needs a major cleaning or renovation. Then finally speaks with the staff to see if there are problems with the staff or management. After speaking with the owners there is typically a little resistance to reality and resistance to change but that is usually overcome. That is pretty much a typical episode. Then there was Amy's Baking Company.

As stated above Chef Ramsey tasted the food which needed improvement. Apparently whenever a customer was unsatisfied with the food the head chef and owner Amy's was never told. Her lack of knowledge of her customers real feelings led her to believe her food was nothing less than excellent. When a customer did complain, the manager Samy Bouzaglo husband of the head chef and co-owner, would berate the customers telling the customers they did not understand good food or did not know what they were talking about. There was one incident that was caught on film that seemed to almost escalate to physical assault instigated by the owners. On several occasions customers were told they did not know what they were talking about, they were bullied and told never to come back. Why would a customer come back if they were treated like that? I wouldn't.

Quite a bit of this bad behavior was caught on film and when Chef Ramsey attempted to sit down like an adult and speak with the owners about the issues Amy went crazy. She said she was being attacked by Chef Ramseys, the customers, Yelp, the bloggers and pretty much anyone who had a pulse. Chef realized this situation could not be helped and for the first time on air the episode completed without him helping the restaurant.

I don't always agree that the customer is ALWAYS right but since when is it ok to chase customers away that you have disappointed? Since when is it ok to berate customers and employees for giving feedback? Social Media is a way for a customer to connect and stay engaged with it's client base. In this case it seems like they use it as a tool to chase and berate anyone who does not agree with them. See the entire episode on YouTube here.