Q Cup in cupertino village needs some help in the customer service department
Normally I don’t like to rant too much… (oh wait, I do). Anyways, we had just finished dinner at Korea Tofu House and we decided to get a little bit of desert. So we walked around Cupertino Village and decided to hit up Q-Cup. If you just clicked through to the yelp link, you’ll notice that it got 1 out of 5 stars, and this review isn’t going to help them out any either…
We head inside and I order a pineapple bubble milk tea (yeah, I know it already sounds kind of nasty, but I like pineapple so I wasn’t thinking about that too much). When the order comes out, I taste it and it’s pretty bad. Rose has some and she doesn’t like it either. I tried some more and then I barfed a little bit in my mouth (just kidding). Long and short of it is, it’s the worst bubble tea we’ve ever had – maybe the worst bubble tea in the world says Rose.
No big deal we think, we’ll just ask for a replacement regular bubble milk tea. I walk up to the counter and politely ask if I can exchange the bubble tea for another flavor. The girl at the counter seems puzzled and asks some old guy about it and he says no. This was pretty puzzling since 1. the bubble tea costs them almost nothing and 2. customer satisfaction is usually pretty important to a business like this when there’s a perfectly good alternative just around the corner.
I ask again nicely, but no dice. When I tell Rose what happened, she gets pretty mad and proceeds to ask again for me. This time, the old guy runs to the back and mixes a little sample of the same flavor for her to taste to see if it’s still bad. Of course, it tastes exactly the same (we suspect it was the artificial pineapple flavor).
Then, he gives her a bunch of junk about how the bubble tea cup and plastic seal costs a lot of money so they’d be taking a huge financial hit if they gave us a replacement bubble tea. That’s completely ridiculous! Then he offers this case study:
“If you go to any restaurant, order some food, pay for it, and then tell them you don’t like the food, will they give you a refund or make you another dish? No! They’ll lose money! That’s how business works!”
Umm… yeah. That’s for the business tips, where’d you get your MBA again? He forgot the part where customers don’t come back and he doesn’t make money period.
The worst part is, eventually they actually gave us a replacement milk tea (they forgot the bubbles) and it tasted horrible too. Moral of the story: don’t go to Q-Cup.
Epilogue: we came home after this whole ordeal and looked online. According to wikipedia, Q-Cup is an illegal franchise?
This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007 at 9:52 pm and is filed under food, rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Totally nast!
February 6th, 2007 at 11:49 am
best post ever!
February 8th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Yea, that place is crap. All about Fantasia=)
February 9th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Starked SF, Unforgiving News from the Bay » Blog Archive » Linker Barn: Friday, February 9 says:[...] plaxoed! goes to work on Q-cup, where a rancid shake caused ballistic barfage. [...]
February 10th, 2007 at 4:58 am
Hi Mark!
How can you expect to get a new milk tea if it doesn’t taste in _your_ opinion? How can you make the owner responsible for this? If it doesn’t taste, you have to buy an other milk tea.
This is how I see it as a German … :-) Maybe it’s also a question of your socialization.
February 10th, 2007 at 5:52 am
There is no way you should have demanded another flavour. That is crazy. Just don’t go back. Or, if you are that curious, buy another cup. He is selling you a product – and he even went so far as to give you another sample to ensure that the one you bought wasn’t bad. If it tasted the same again, you are stuck with it. Get a life.
February 10th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Hi Stergucker and Brett,
Indeed it seems that we’re used to different levels of customer service. I see your point – that the proprietor definitely isn’t obligated to give a exchanges or refunds. It’s just a little bit out of place in the food service industry around here. Most smart business owners recognize the value of maximizing customer service to prevent irate customers like myself :)
After all, now I’m going to be a major detractor to their customer base whereas I could’ve been spreading stories of how great their customer service might’ve been.
April 1st, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I love Q-Cup in Cupertino Village. I’m not much of a pearl milk tea guy, but their fried chicken and dessert crepes are awesome! It’s a great way to finish off a meal.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 am
Hi Wayne – Just don’t try the pineapple PMT ;)
January 17th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Wow! Sorry to hear about that experience… This clearly was not a good branch, I guess. On the other hand, Q-cup here in Orlando is absolutely delightful and the bubble teas and foods are absurdly delicious! I haven’t tried the pineapple, come to think of it…But I have not tried a flavour that I did not like – especially Taro and the strawberry teas with the strawberry bits in them…Lollicup does not come close, in my opinion =)