Let's say you just had dinner in a nice restaurant, but when you looked over the check you noticed you weren't charged for one of the items you ordered. The food was excellent, the restaurant experience was great and there were no problems whatsoever with your service.
Would you say anything to the waiter or waitress? Be honest now... what would you do?
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16 comments:
Honestly? I wouldn't say anything. But if it had been great food and great service then I would be leaving a generous tip anyway, and I would most likely return to the restaurant (and therefore give them lots more of my money) in the future, so they can think of it as a long-term customer-satisfaction investment, if they realise their mistake :)
Would and have.
Have been in that position. Pointed out the discrepancy.
Honesty is always the best policy.
Tell the waitress. Without any judgement on the perceived quality of the restaurant, at IHOP for a concrete example, if you tell the manager then the waitress is charged for the error... Here in the US even at very high brow restaurants the wait staff are not paid well & tips run the gammut so I'm not comfortable with not supporting them adequately - tipping well on the full amount.
Same as NMPatricia - would and have.
I went back into Whole Foods once because I realized they charged me $2.99 per pound (grapes price) for my cherries instead of $5.99 per pound. They thought I was crazy. I'm honest to a fault about that kind of stuff, though. Not sure why.
Always point out the error...anything less is stealing. And we certainly do not want the wait staff to pay...
I know this because I've done it--I tell them about the error.
I've had it happen several times, and always pointed it out. Only once was I really tempted not to--when Wal-Mart Pharmacy only charged me $4 for a $40 Rx. I overcame the temptation, showed it to them, then waited patiently while they explained that it was because of their discount. I still suspect that it was a mistake, but I'm not going to keep arguing if they insist it's right! ;)
Same thing I've done in the past: Point out the error and pay the bill in full. Just like I would expect them to correct the bill if I was over charged.
I had this happen last week at Wal Mart in the self check out. I was buying some apples and entered the code. It gave me a ridiculously low price and told me to ask for assistance. So I did. The clerk told me it was okay, but I asked again. Again she told me it was okay. So I got apples for a dime each.
Probably would tell them, but with kids, we rarely look that closely anymore. The only time I really would look closely is if we go out with friends, each pay our own part, and we come up short or over.
This weekend we were buying a crib at Target and the ladies checking us out couldn't find the barcode for the mattress. One of them said "oh, I think it's included!" I said "oh no, trust me, that would be nice, but it's not included. Keep looking."
Grocery store is different though. I rarely noticed those errors until I get home, so I leave it. Those are almost ALWAYS in the store's favor.
Always report to the server at restaurants. Other stores, will report on next visit, usually a computer error.
This has never happened to me. If it did, though, I would point out the error.
Otherwise (as others have noted) the server is probably the one taking the hit ... and regardless of who made the error, I still got the food/drink, right? So not paying for it would be, IMO, theft.
If something rings up for a lower price than expected, I definitely won't say anything--if the computer is programmed to a price, I consider that the price.
If something is just flat left-off, I may or may not say anything given the situation. I used to be honest-to-a-fault with it, but after several experiences of people getting frustrated/huffy with me for taking up time fixing the error took or acting like I was an idiot for pointing it out, I've kind of given up.
If it's a tipping situation, I'll often leave a generous enough tip to cover it.
In a restaurant, the waiter or waitress may have left it off on purpose hoping for a larger tip...I'd say the experience would be situational.
I return to customer service in stores all the time when I see they inadvertently left something off; however, as I said in a restaurant, it depends on the whole scenario .
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