Hotel owner’s Facebook brawl with customers
Doug Govan, owner of the Victory Hotel in Adelaide, showed he could give as he gets when he ripped into a customer who complained about the service on Facebook.
The result: a nasty online brawl.
It all started when Jodie Clarke took to the hotel’s Facebook page.
“You are rude, obnoxious and so unaccommodating,” she wrote. “We had a group booking of 17 people, yes 17 people, and every single one ... has walked away disgusted. And every single one of us will tell every person we know our story of your terrible service and unhelpful, rude staff. We will never be back.”
Her mate Emma-Jade Fowler chipped in: “Terrible customer service, you should be ashamed victory hotel [sic]!”
In response, Govan didn’t hold back.
“Terribly dim-witted Emma-Jade not-sure-what-my-first-name-should-be. Emma or Jade. Don’t get involved in something you don’t know anything about. Imagine one of your friends told you the sun wasn’t going to come up tomorrow.
“Would you agree just because they were a stupid, dim-witted friend? No, you wouldn’t. If one of your friends said I went to a restaurant with 17 people and they couldn’t find my booking? Yes. If you were a dim-witted, imbecile, yes, possibly.
“But if they told you the truth and said that they had screwed up their booking, maybe you wouldn’t be wasting your time writing this crap. But maybe you just love seeing your name on social media.”
In response to Clarke’s one-star review on TripAdvisor, he wrote: “You had your fun on Facebook and now you’re having some fun on Tripadvisor. How much fun can one person have?!?! Now let’s have a look at what really happened.
“A few weeks back you rang and made a booking for 2 people at 6.30pm on Saturday the 1st of April. Our courteous staff member read the booking back to you over the phone.
“At 6.30pm on Saturday the 1st of April you turned up with 17 people. Yes 17; not 2. We couldn’t accommodate you because we were full. Full except for the lovely table for 2 that you had booked. Can you imagine squeezing a 6,000kg African bush elephant into a Morris Minor? There ends the story.”
Quite a spray. As a result, Emma-Jade responded: “Wow I can’t believe a business would talk to people like this. Oh and by the way I was actually 1 of 17 people that were involved. You disgust me ... At the end of the day, this is bullying and it will be taken further. You should be ashamed of the way you have responded, it’s disgusting.”
In the end, the hotel posted the following on its Facebook page:
“The Victory Hotel management would like to convey their apologies for any offensive comments made on Facebook. The Victory Hotel remains passionate about service, the food, the wine, the staff, and the customers.
“Unfortunately in this case there has been a misunderstanding between customers and staff, perhaps out of proportion. We would like to sincerely apologise for any offence caused in this case. We are all free to voice our opinion, so you can post your feelings online if you wish and we will review all comments.”
It also provided a link to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website for anyone wishing to make a formal complaint.
by Leon Gettler, April 6th 2017
