Shorty's

Very Bad Service

Some companies go a great distance to maintain excellent customer satisfaction and those companies know how to form a loyal customer base. However, others fall short of that. This past week I used Shorty’s The Urban Market to cater part of my Christmas party. I had very poor communication throughout my experience with Jonathan, the General Manager and Director of Catering. I had to call twice after my initial conversation with him just to get the pricing and menu. When I picked up the food it was not ready and the staff did not even know about my order, this was 30 minutes prior to the start of the party. One of the staff members ensured me that things would be taken care of and he would make sure I got a gift card. When the food was finally delivered, shortly after the start of the party, I asked about the gift card and the delivery person had no clue what I was talking about. Being in the hotel industry for nearly 12 years I know that this situation could have easily been fixed. I have been a fan of Shorty’s since they first opened.
Any manager with the slightest experience in service recovery would have proactively given me a call the first thing the next day to ask how the food was and to at minimum apologize for the situation. That never occurred, in fact, Jonathan never even acknowledged the problem until I sent him an email yesterday afternoon.
This was his response:
Jason
Thank you for using Shorty's and your email is being taken very seriously. As a small company we have seen allot of change in the way we do business, and we learn everyday another way to try and make it better. We am sorry that you experienced untimely service, in which I am working on getting all the information so we can fix this problem before it happens again. Here at Shorty's there has been a bit of turnover with our staff and communication as you stated needs to be of the utmost priority. However I do appreciate your lecture and the negative comments that you so precisely indicated on your email to us. The gentleman's name is Brian, he misunderstood the directions that were given to him and didn't have the food ready on time. I must say for this isolated occasion with your order that I am glad that it was not ready at 5:15. If it was ready then the food would have been way over cooked and sitting in a hot box for way to long, which I am sure your familiar with this being in the hotel business. We made a mistake and tried to make it right the best way possible, you received your order a little late, we are sorry for that. Our company has been victim to a security issue with our website and emails, which has prevented us from knowing whether or not our emails have been sent or received. It was my decision to not give you the gift card or a discount and there will be no compensation due to you, I feel we made a mistake and tried to fix it the best way possible. Being in the business I am sure that you understand that not everything goes off as planned and all you can do is learn from it and be better in the future. From light of your lecture on how Shorty's failed you I hope you have a very Merry Christmas.

It’s clear that Jonathan could use some advice in customer service from his neighboring competition downtown. As a result that will be my last visit to Shorty’s.