Doctors will tell you that pizza slowly kills you.
But in this case, it may have lead to a very quick death for a car dealership in Westport..
You may have already heard the story. But you may not have realized the implications. Here's what you might have missed.
The video, which was posted to YouTube (apparently by the employees at the dealership) was picked up by LiveLeak. It begins with a delivery guy returning $7 cash to the dealership that he thought was a tip.
By the end of it, one of the dealership employees threatens to "put my foot up your ass" and another says he's going to call the delivery man's manager to get him fired.
The total bill for the pizza and drinks was just over $42. Dealership workers gave the driver, Jarrid Tansey, $50 in two twenties and two fives. In the video, he says he confirmed that they wanted to give the whole $50, so he left with that he figured was a $7 and change tip.
Not so fast. The dealership called and forced him to return to the dealership with the change, and didn't give him a tip. That's what caused the exchange on video.
"It just doesn't make sense why you'd hand me a bill that you were just gonna have me drive back here to give you anyway," says Tansey. "I'm not mad, I just had to waste my resources coming back here."
The office workers won't hear it.
"So listen: the manager apologized once for you. Do you want him to apologize for you again?" says one employee.
"Out the door before I put my foot in your ass," says another.
"Get the f*ing owner and manager on the phone, I want that motherf*er done," says a third man after he leaves. "I want him fired."
A manager working at the pizza joint that night said he did get a call from the dealership, saying that Tansey had "verbally berated" them. He took it seriously at first - until he got Tansey's side of the story.
Turns out there have been a number of problems with the dealership...it's been ongoing for quite some time.
Enter: social justice.
Palace Pizza has since been flooded with calls from across the country. People have even been pledging to raise or donate money for the driver.
On the flip side - F&R Auto Sales in Westport has been getting SLAMMED.
Review pages of the dealership on Yelp and Google have been flooded with negative ratings. And at last check, their website had been hit with a DOS attack, effectively shutting it down. The phone has apparently been pulled. And although their Facebook page has been pulled...a new one has gone up that's NOT so official - F&R Auto Sales D*Bags, which has some 8,100 likes already.
Here's a picture that was shared on the page which was apparently temporarily put up by DealerRater.
This, my friends - love it or hate it - is the power of social media.
The car dealerships we run the marketing for have bought into the idea of turning their customers into brand ambassadors. A happy customer will tell a whole lot of people online about their spectacular experience.
But that comes at a price. The price, as you see here, is that social media can entirely redefine the concept of "social justice".
Now the dealership owner and son DID visit the pizza place after in an attempt to apologize, and the pizza place management accepted the apology. Pre-social, this would have been fine.
Before the internet, people would yell and scream at each other - perhaps exchange a few blows - and then go out for beers after.
Now, a dealership is most certainly finished. And it's all because of a pizza delivery.
But if they take a page from the book of Botto Bistro in Richmond, they may just stand a chance.
The restaurant wants to undermine Yelp's credibility. They are on a mission to be the worst rated restaurant in the world.
They encourage people to write one-star Yelp reviews. Anyone who writes the review gets 25% off any pizza and a chance to win a cooking class.
The restaurant owners aren't newbies, either - they've been in the industry for years. They say not only has the campaign brought in MORE customers, but it's brought in BETTER customers who are more loyal and spend more.
Yelp wasn't happy. They responded with a letter. And so the restaurant also responded with a letter.
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 18:28:59 +0000
From: feedback@yelp.com
To: [Redacted]
Subject: Message from Yelp HQ [ 2800338 ]
__________________________________
SEP 15, 2014 | 11:28AM PDT
Hi Michele,
I’m contacting you from the Yelp User Support Team because we’ve received complaints from the community that you may be offering incentives in exchange for reviews.
To be clear, this violates our Terms of Service (http://www.yelp.com/static?p=tos&country=US), and reviews written under such circumstances violate Yelp’s Content Guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/guidelines). We also often find from user feedback that such practices do more harm than good, as the practice creates distrust amongst customers and users who now eye all reviews on a listing with suspicion.
If you are offering incentives in exchange for reviews, we ask that you immediately discontinue such activity. If we learn that this type of behavior has continued, we may take action on your Business Account which could include suspending access to your listing. It may also result in a Consumer Alert being placed on your listing: http://officialblog.yelp.com/2012/10/consumer-alerts-because-you-might-like-to-know.html
Regards,
Marvin
Yelp Support
San Francisco, California
Yelp Official Blog | http://officialblog.yelp.com
Yelp Support Center | http://www.yelp-support.com
Yelp for Business Owners | https://biz.yelp.com
————————-
From: [Redacted]
To: feedback@yelp.com
Subject: RE: Message from Yelp HQ [ 2800338 ]
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 08:43:36 -0700
Hi marvin,
I’m contacting you from the Botto User Support Team because we’ve received complaints from the community that you may be removing reviews in exchange of vague explanations to loyal customers.
To be clear, this violates our Terms of Service (http://www.bottobistro.com/FAQ.html), and reviews removed under such circumstances violate Botto’s Content Guidelines (http://www.bottobistro.com/FAQ.html). We also often find from loyal customers feedback that such practices do more harm than good, as the practice creates distrust amongst loyal customers and users who now eye your site with suspicion.
If you are offering this explanations in exchange of removed reviews, we ask that you immediately discontinue such activity. If we learn that this type of behavior has continued, we may take action on our Business Account which could include suspending all activity to our listing. It may also result on adding a Yelp Customer Alert page on our website and in our Newsletters.
Botto User Support Team
Turns out the owner doesn't mess around.
Check out this apparently SERIOUS "1 Star" review a customer left.
"This should be zero stars.
Attended the "cooking demonstration" dinner. We had a very frustrating experience tonight and will never visit again. To be fair to the establishment, we had been told that we could bring a bottle of wine and it turns out that that is against their policy. So, no big deal, right? Hell, no.
The owner tried to charge us a $30 corkage fee (what?!). Then the staff brought us wine in plastic cups that we BOUGHT FROM THE BAR (also what?!). Then, when we brought up the issue of the corkage fee and lack of wine glasses, the owner became completely belligerent despite us being very polite and flexible on the subject. He went totally berserk and seems to have an ego issue. He told us he didn't care if we ever came back and didn't need our repeat visit.
OK. We won't come back. I'd rather go to a Pizza Hut or Olive Garden where at least I'm not screamed at. Plus the food was not properly seasoned and the meat was gristly.
The one thing I would say is that the rest of the staff tried to be nice and seemed to be embarrassed by the episode.
Ouch. Rough. But check out what the owner had to say in response.
"When you see a big sign at the door saying "NO FOOD OR BEVERAGE FROM OUTSIDE", it should be your first clue!
But if that is not enough, on our website and in our menu it is written in English language and very clear, that should be your second clue.
You didn't ask any of us whether you could bring your own bottle, and you didn't ask any of our waiters to open it for you. You simply opened it and served it to your party. When our waiter informed you that no outside beverages were allowed, you laughed him away saying it was 'no big deal'. For all the other customers who were there that night and respecting the rules of the establishment, it is a big deal. On top of that, you also tried to get us to waive the corkage fee, which we found to be the final straw.
For people like you the corkage fee should be $200.
Disregarding any of our demands and disrespecting our establishment and all our guests who were present that night left us no choice. If we could give stars to you for rudeness and carelessness, we would give you 5.
We are definately happy to not have you near our businesses again, even though is not an option you have.
We do not care about the stars, we care about not having you in our restaurant again.
We certainly don't need your business and/or your approval on how to run our restaurant.
Please take your attitude exactly where you said, to Pizza hut and Olive garden and don't forget to bring your own food and wine!
We also do not really care if you like our food or not - that is irrelevant to us. It seems that the 80 guests who attend our classes monthly are pretty happy...we'll stick with them.
We hope to be clear enough this time, as it was not enough for you that evening and you prefer to be exposed in a public site.
We also apologize to all other guests who have to witness this unfortunate episode, but we have no contol over who is coming to our restaurant. We certainly have control over who is going out.
The only reason you were not asked to leave immediately was to save the embarassment for the other seventy guests who were having a good time, and we feel we missed the opportunity to give you the third clue.
Despite the fact that thousands of people attend our cooking classes every year and we are sold out for the 2013, we have no idea how you got in...certainly not invited by us.
You should take a class on how to respect other people business, certainly not cooking classes. You were definitely in the wrong place.
But again, first and last time I can assure you.
In 25 successful years in the restaurant business we learned that individual like you are only a damage.
Pathetic, useless clowns self-entitle themself 'customers', browsing around restaurants where they believe the customer is always right...so they can get away with doing whatever they want.
This time it did not work, you find the Italians and instead of getting a gift certificate and an apology you are told ..don't come back. How refreshing that must be for your circus.
Write down all the name of the restaurants we own( quite few) and make sure you stay away., we will make sure too. Tell your friends."
Here's the bottom line, folks. Reputation is EVERYTHING. It can make you or it can break you.
If you're not going to subscribe to the Golden Rule of "do onto others...", then you should at least be ready to handle an army of social justice soldiers.
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