A Case Study on a Customer Complaint

A Case Study on a Customer Complaint

The case study that I went with is Case 9-1 Olive Garden Restaurants Division. I chose this particular case because I believe that most people have related to this type of situation at one time or another. This case is about a dispute between the customer and an Olive Garden at which he recently dined. The mishap is something that should not ever occur at a large company such as Olive Garden or any service focused company for that matter.

In this case a customer named Martin A. Wallace, M.D. is writing a complaint letter to Mr. Ronald N. Magruder, president of the Olive Garden Restaurants Division. Dr. Wallace is explaining in his letter the poor customer service that was brought upon him and his family. He also is trying to have this problem resolved so it will not happen to future customers.

Dr. Wallace and his family arrived around 8:15 pm at the Olive Garden Restaurant at 6410 Grape Road in Mishawaka, Indiana. They were not greeted like most places do. Rather, they waited around for at least 10 minutes then decided to go to the bar area and ask a hostess to be seated. Dr. Wallace explains how the hostess in the bar area seemed unhappy to be doing this. The hostess led them to a table that was not good for Dr. Wallace’s father because he has a lower extremity amputation and is on crutches. Dr. Wallace then asks if they could be seated elsewhere and the hostess seats them at an unclean table with one lunch menu and the rest were supper menus with no kid menus for his two daughters.

Next, after the hostess seats Dr. Wallace and his family, the hostess leaves at once. Now Dr. Wallace is faced with having to find a waiter and they had to wait an additional 10 minutes for one to arrive. Once the waiter arrived they say that this isn’t their assigned area but they can take their order anyway. Their food finally arrived nearly twenty minutes later and it was cold. Also, Dr. Wallace had ordered a glass of wine...