When the Customer Shows You a Red Card

When the customer shows you a red card

My Star Wars!

I have written only four reviews on Google. So I am no veteran of the star front, nor any marshal of Google Maps. But my four ratings share one characteristic: they are extreme. When I have really liked a place, I have given it five stars. When I have left dissatisfied, I have given it one.

Among my positive ratings is a modest byrek shop in Mbrostar, which has now become a pit stop whenever I pass that way. I also gave five stars to a simple, almost makeshift, place in Borsh. The beach was clean, the food was very good, and so was the service. I even mentioned by name the young waiter who served us.

I take pleasure in the fact that this positive rating has been seen by thousands of people. Perhaps someone stopped there because of those few lines. But I have also written two one-star reviews, both for luxury restaurants. One was for a restaurant in Durrës that used to be very good, where I waited almost an hour and where the quality of the food was disappointing. Even so, I rated the waiter’s behavior highly.

The other was even harsher, but fully deserved. I had been invited to a dinner with a group of foreigners at what is perhaps one of the most expensive venues in Tirana. The music was so loud that I could not hear the person sitting next to me. I asked several times for the volume to be lowered, just a little, but my requests had about as much effect as someone hoeing in the sea.

The review was very negative, but not blindly so. I gave the food a 4 out of 5, while I gave the service and atmosphere a 1. So the chef was declared innocent. The manager and the waiter were penalized. Nearly two thousand people have seen the review.

From the restaurant? No response, not a question, not an apology, not an attempt to understand what had happened. Not even the standard formula: “We are sorry that your experience did not meet expectations,” that sentence which artificial intelligence can now produce before the manager has even taken a sip of his morning coffee.

This strikes me especially today, when Albania has been caught up in what we might call a war of the stars. Following the public reactions of a handful of business owners to the protest and the protesters, an organized campaign of negative reviews has begun against a limited number of restaurants and hotels.

I understand the anger. I even sympathize with it. When a business owner decides to enter the public debate, to show contempt for or insult protesters, they cannot expect to calmly return behind the counter and say: politics is politics, business is business. Especially not in capitalism, where the customer is king, not a shooting target.

Yesterday, the director of the State Police said that the police would investigate the issue of reviews. In a country with problems of organized crime, wanted persons, drug trafficking, and corruption, the idea that the police would spring into action over restaurant stars is, at the very least, an interesting choice of priorities. Threaten the Prime Minister’s life on social media and nothing happens to you. Dare to give a restaurant one star and the police rise to their feet, led by the top official with two stars.

But precisely because the police reaction is disproportionate, we should not fall into the same trap of losing all sense of proportion.

A negative review from a customer who has been to the venue, paid the bill, and describes their experience is one thing, but a thousand negative reviews, coordinated by people who have never set foot in that business, are something else. In the first case, the customer speaks; in the second, the crowd speaks. And the crowd, even when its anger is justified, does not always have the right target.

If the war of the stars goes off the rails, the innocent may be burned along with the guilty. Behind a hotel there is not only the owner who made an IDIOTIC and arrogant statement. There are receptionists, waiters, chefs, cleaners, suppliers, and families who live on those wages. It is an entire chain.

This does not mean the customer should remain silent. On the contrary. The review is one of the most democratic instruments of modern capitalism. A single customer can tell thousands of people about their experience. They do not need television, a newspaper, a party, or, until yesterday, even permission from the police. My best experience with reviews is not connected to luxury restaurants. It is connected to the satisfaction that a positive rating for a modest business has been seen by thousands of potential customers.

The worst experience is not the poor food, nor the one-hour wait, nor the music that made you want to seek acoustic asylum. It is the silence. The indifference. The fact that a customer writes publicly about a bad experience, thousands of people read it, and the business has no interest at all in understanding what happened. I believe the owners who want to do politics by showing contempt for customers or protesters have received the message. The yellow card has been shown. But regardless of the yellow card, the game goes on; it is not a signal for everyone to run onto the field. Because when the crowd decides to dispense justice with stars, the only thing that ends up with five stars in the end is chaos.

By: Lutfi Dervishi