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I agree, USA usually is excellent on customer service in the restaurant industry especially.
Quite different than Costa Rica, where:
- Literally any place I go, on any day, never have at least one item on their menu I try and order. Yesterday at lunch, the typical place I went to were somehow out of chicken (a very typical meal here). The day before, Outback Steakhouse was out of steak!
- Nine times out of ten they get something in your order wrong (even if you confirm it with them and speak Spanish). The other time, they won't have an item but instead of letting you know about it, they simply pick something on their own to replace it with (that really pisses me off when I don't like what they replace it with).
- When your glass is empty, they either won't come around for ages or they come and quickly take your empty glass away, before you even get the chance to ask them for a refill / another drink.
- If you let them know they made a mistake on your order, they get very upset and give you attitude like "what, so you didn't order it but you don't want it and I have to go change it?"
- Getting the bill takes longer than the entire meal did. Most times, other customer's items or extra items are thrown on for fun and you have to send them back to correct it, taking even longer.
- If you complain about the service or a wrong meal, you'll simply be told if you don't like it, don't come back. The thought of compensation or the meal being free, even in cases where you find bugs, pieces of glass or rubber bands! in your food is ridiculous, you crazy gringo.
I think a major aspect of the poor service is the fact the tip is included on the bill. Many places likely don't even give it to their staff and those who do, well if they give you poor service, you can't choose not to tip them, you pay the same as if they gave you great service (though for the few who actually do give me good service, I always give them an extra tip on top of the bill).
When I'm in the USA, I do find that at places where I have Latin servers (say Miami), service is very bad compared to any other race. Perhaps, then, it is a cultural thing and not specifically Costa Rica.
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Skype variuscr - Email varius AT gmail
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