About a month ago, I received an email from one of my clients asking whether I have checked our yelp’s reviews lately. She was concerned because we got a few 1-2 stars reviews and she thought they weren’t at all fair.
Over the past 4 years, instead of expanding our business, we decide to stay true and small and keep Mints a Local Alamedan family owned mom n’pop. We want to get to know our customers personally and we want to pay attention to every tiny detail — like making a kid laugh when I poke the Venus Flytrap or wrapping a $5 succulent plant with dragonfly tissue paper and ribbons. We take a great deal of pride in everything we do and it would be a big fat lie if I told you the bad reviews do not bother me at all. I am disheartened and disappointed because we have tried so hard yet we fell so far short of our own expectations.
Usually if I have the contact info, I would contact the reviewers personally hoping to clear any misunderstandings or fix our mistakes. For instance, one reviewer was frustrated because we didn’t return email soon enough and it was totally my fault as I was overjoy with Canna’s new baby girl that week and I was behind on emails. Another reviewer was upset because we were late on our consultation appointment and since then we tried to schedule only 2 consultations per day so that each bride has more than 3 hours to discuss her dream wedding. I truly appreciate yelpers for bringing things up. With this information, we can take the proper steps to ensure that mistakes such as these do not happen again. =P
Nevertheless, as much as we would like to provide the best customer services, I can’t help but wonder why a person would need to use the F word just because we didn’t have her order ready when she walked into the store. After reading Sara’s review, Mei and I searched every single receipt, trying to remember when did this horrible thing happened. We didn’t find anything. Maybe it was one of those busy weekends when we had a long line of customers or maybe it was totally Mei’s fault for being absent-minded. I am not here to deny any responsibilities, but do we really need to use such an offensive language for a tiny matter like this?
I know I shouldn’t worry as we have 25+ 5 star reviews but I am really upset this time because it is just simply painful to know that someone was this rude to my little beloved sister. Mei works really hard at the shop and she always wears a big smile for every customer. I guess I really don’t understand why people can be this mad and disrespectful to people they rarely know. oh well, here’s my dot and let’s put the past behind us. Happy Friday!!
I had to flag her review, Dot. I totally agree… really no need for the vulgar language. Which reminds me, I still have to write my 5-star review for you guys!! Hope the wedding planning is going well… I hope you post sooooo many pics of it because I know how absolutely gorgeous it will be!