We all know the saying about how the customer is always right.

But one Japanese restaurant, The Public Izakaya at Tanjong Pagar, has decided that that isn't always the case and pulls out receipts to clap back at a diner who left them a one-star review on Google.

Wake Up Singapore uploaded a post on Instagram yesterday (Dec 30), and it featured the dissatisfied diner's one-star Google review and the restaurant's response to it.

The diner wrote some two months ago: "Do not go unless you plan on waiting 1-hour for a skewer of vegetables on a weekday evening. It wasn't even full and I waited an hour for a mushroom and shitake skewer.

"The food was not worth the wait. Horrible."

After looking into the matter, the restaurant responded to the user with timestamps on Google, detailing exactly what the diner did and when they did so.

Based on the recordings found in their CCTV cameras, the customer's dining experience ended only 42 minutes after they first ordered.

The restaurant said that on some evenings the waiting period for skewers can be up to one and a half hours while the usual waiting period ranges from 30 minutes to an hour at least.

Hence, they were "happy" that they managed to serve the diner their skewers within just 20 minutes.

The restaurant added: "Not too stoked we got a 1-star review when you didn't even spend an hour in the premises. And the Yakitori chef who was 'grilled' over the incident ain't all smiles either."

Many netizens wholeheartedly supported the restaurant for standing their ground. This restaurant has a four-star Google review rating for its Tras Street outlet. 

On the other hand, there were some who disagree with the restaurant's response and felt they could have taken a different approach.

The management of Hachi Group Singapore, who runs The Public Izakaya in Singapore, told AsiaOne that they only engage their customers on social media when it's feasible to do so. 

"Off-premise customer engagement can be a very time-consuming and exhausting exercise for many reasons," said the group. 

"A number of poor reviews are unverified and suspected to be from competitors or people who have never even visited the restaurant before."

The group said they have always advocated customers to speak to the manager on duty during their visit should they encounter any issues or dissatisfaction. 

"There and then we should be able to provide some rectification or service recovery. Taking back the problem and then putting out a negative review is not the solution, it's an unresolved afterthought," the group said. 

In this particular incident, the group said there was enough information in the review to identify details of this customer's visit and that allowed them to look into the matter.

The group said they found conflicting accounts of the visit to that from the customer, and further check of the CCTV corroborated information provided by their employees.

It added that it is then their duty to clarify for the benefit of other customers and our employees.

"From some of the comments online, I believe many netizens are also from frontline or customer service roles and have found themselves in similar situations, but perhaps without enough information or data to present their case or correct a review," the group said.

"We knew we had enough facts to correctly address the review so we did it in the friendliest manner we could."

ALSO READ: 'Harassment, doxxing, name and shame': Orchard Central cafe gives 'scathing' responses to negative reviews

aishahm@asiaone.com

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