Legal Seafoods Boston ? Issue A Warrant For Bad Service And Idiotic Thinking
I?ve eaten at Legal Seafood hundreds of times. I like legal?s. I like the entire story they tell and their great tagline ?if it isn?t fresh it isn?t legal. Good stuff. They’ve had some good branding and leadership.?
?So I had a $100 Maine Lobster for dinner this evening. The food was good as usual. The service was good as well. So why the heck am I writing this blog article? ??Because Legal Seafood and Roger Berkowitz, President/CEO have implemented a new policy that is ridiculous. Not only is it ridiculous but it?s totally focused on Legal Seafood and not on the customer.
Here it is:?
We enjoy our great meal and ask for the check. The waiter comes over with a portable credit card machine and hands it to me. I say, what?s this for? He says you need to go ahead and run your card through. I say, huh? What? Me? Why??
Oh he says, it?s our new policy. It?s saves time. Who?s time? Not mine. When I go out to a nice restaurant the only, I repeat, only job I have is to hand you my credit card. It?s not my job to actually run it through your system. ?
Now it is he says. Okay (sigh) how do I do it. Oh just read the instructions. Oh I say, great?instructions.
??
- Is this your credit card? Yes/No (who the heck?s credit card would it be? I?m the one freaking ringing it in?). I select Yes.
- Are you sure this is your credit card? What???? Are you kidding me! I select Yes.
- Choose your gratuity: 10%, 15%, 20%…What if I want to leave 18.5%.
- Are you sure you want to leave ______%, Ah yea, I just selected it.
- Is this total correct? God I hope so but who knows it?s the first time I?ve ever seen anything like this and I?ve had 4 Crown and Coke?s. So much pressure?
What is Legal Seafood thinking? What?s next, do I have to cook my own food? Get my own drinks? Who made this decision to make the customer ring in their own bill? How is this a benefit to the customer? Why do you require the customer to do anything??
Re-think this move. Be thankful that customers give you their patronage. Don?t make them do anything but hand the credit card over to your smiling wait staff. I?m going to give you the benefit of the doubt but if you require me to do anything other than hand over my card you will lose me forever.?
Here?s some info on this brainless, intrusive rollout:?
For Legal Sea Foods, pay-at-table service is “a controlled rollout” rather than a test, said Ken Chaisson, vice president of information technology (the genius)?for the 33-unit, Boston-based casual seafood chain.?
Chaisson declined to quantify how much pay-at-table is speeding up service, citing the brief history of the terminals–just 60 days in one restaurant, even less in the other two. “We would hope to shave double digits of time from table turns,” he said. “Our restaurants run waits at lunch and dinner.”?
Wow Chaisson, Have you thought about the branding repercussions of this. Instead of saving you time how about the customer experience? It?s not about you, it?s about us!?
More on the branding blunder from Legal Seafood:?
One near-200-unit, casual-dining chain earlier this year halted a test of pay-at-table service, indicating that guests found the process, particularly the tipping aspects, “intrusive.” One official of that chain speculated that some guests might have been uncomfortable because they believed their tipping practices were somehow spotlighted, or “less anonymous,” using pay-at-table devices than when leaving cash or scribbling in the tip amount on a credit card slip left in the check folder.? Sometimes you just scratch your head??
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November 19th, 2007 at 2:20 am
As someone who works intricately with the restaurant industry, perhaps my view points will be a little bias.
However, the idea of having the option to pay at the table isn’t a bad one in itself. What if I just don’t want to hand my card over to some teen-aged kid to handle? What if I don’t want to let go of my corporate AmEx? I think that is the demographic this technology aims to please. I’ve done business many times with individuals who didn’t like handing their card over, and instead used cash.
Similarly, I refuse to valet my car unless I feel it’s absolutely necessary. I’ve heard of one too many stories of associates whose cars were taken for joy rides when left with a valet.
A little stereotypical? Sure. However the idea of going out for dinner is meant to make the guest comfortable. If the restaurant deems comfort is achieved by not having credit cards handed over to their wait staff, they are going to try whatever is available to them.
Perhaps the problem is within the way the technology is set up, and not in the idea.
November 19th, 2007 at 9:44 am
If the restaurant was say Friday’s or Applebee’s maybe this works. But at a nicer type restaurant I’m pretty confident in saying that customers are use to paying by credit card. My perception and my guests was that we thought it was a cheap, tacky tactic for them. What restaurants NEED to understand is that it’s not about them.
If Legal Seafoods ever hands me another one of those machines I can guarantee one thing. It will be the last time I eat at Legal Seafoods. I wonder is Abe and Louies or Captial Grill implementing this intrusive tacttic?
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Hey fruit cake – would you rather run the card or have the waiter steal your card info (manually or with a hand held reader)? Wake up you precious piece of shit.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:37 am
Fruit cake huh? I’ve been called a lot worse so I’ll run with it. In all my years of dinning I’ve never had a wait person steal anything. At a higher end restaurant this is ridiculous and it cheapens the experience.
And you’re right about one thing. I am a precious piece of ______!
December 6th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
what are the brand repercussions from spelling it “branding reprocussions” in this post?
December 7th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Well I guess if I were a writer they’d be pretty severe…but alas I can’t spell worth a dime! Or it’s a typo, or I was was drinking at the time or I didn’t have enough coffee….who knows, but thanks for pointing it out.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I experienced this for the first time today while dining with a friend of mine, we both work in a fine dining establishment in Boston. While it seemed classless at first, I wouldn’t trust some of my coworkers with my credit card. While there are some obvious quirks that need to be worked out, like the tip percentage (I’d love for there to be a 50% option) a savings cost for the restaurant will help keep consumer cost low. Food costs are through the roof and I’m in favor of smart ideas like this one that will keep costs down.