Mommy to the rescue… Really??? That's new and it all makes perfect sense now. To be clear… I don't think I intentionally wanted to be "passive". I think it was clear what my intentions were and the fact that his “Mommy” is out here defending her little boy is actually quite brilliant, so thank you. Reminds me of when I worked for the University of Toronto and parents would call Professors on behalf of their kids complaining about their child’s poor grades. Parents have certainly changed over the generations... I don't expect either of you to see the irony of both your comments where you both said to us: "instead of taking the time to get in touch with us to understand what we didn’t like about the tour…" Do you not see how hypocritical and ironic that comment is? Why didn’t your son take his own advice and reach out directly to us to give us his feedback rather than vent on this platform? Still don’t see it? Or is this one of those parenting rules, “do as I say and not what I do” scenarios?
I don’t apologize for the way we replied to your son and I’m sorry that he got his feelings hurt. Yes, I am being patronizing and I am perfectly fine leaving this reviews as it is and allow the reader to come to their own conclusions about your son’s review and my reply. Your review adds to the dialogue and I certainly appreciate you taking the time to share as you did.
To the reader…
There were 14 people on this guest’s tour and 12 stayed till the end after these two guests left halfway through as the weather and food didn’t meet their expectations. However, there were compliments to the guide and a positive 5-star reviews from a guest who was on the same tour. They had the same weather, food and guide… yet dramatically different outcomes and opinions. The question now is… was it us? Reader… I'm happy for you to come to your own conclusions.
I am very proud of our company and the standard of excellence we operate by. We are a small family-owned business and most understand that reviews play a significant role in our success. We have a remarkable track record that goes back to 2016. 98%+ of our reviews on TripAdvisor, Expedia, AirBnb, etc., are 4-star or better. On TripAdvisor, we only have 10 reviews less than 4-stars out of 635 reviews to date, where now, 2 of those 10 reviews are from this mom and son. That works out to about 1.5% of our reviews of 3-star or less, including theirs. Small-family owned business on TripAdvisor value reviews differently than large corporations. Bad reviews do affect small-businesses differently because there is an actual face behind the company to take it personal. And that is why I will always reply to all our poor reviews with fervor and always in the defence of our team, restaurant partners food and of course the neighbourhood of Kensington Market. Poor reviews for small, family-owned business can literally take food away from the mouths of our staff. I DO NOT expect our guests to think about reviews in this manner but as a small-business owner, we think about it all the time. Hence, why it is important to reply to poor reviews and to never be bashful about calling people out and defending the reputation of our company and brand.
ADVICE FOR TRAVEL RESEARCHERS
It is always brilliant to read the poor reviews of any company before spending your hard-earned money. Then after, ask yourself, “is the reviewer like me and will I experience things the way this reviewer sees it?”. In this case, it is good to ask yourself, who is it that is writing the review and why should this person’s opinion matter to me? I’m a Canadian born, South-Korean and I never travel to another country (been to almost 60) and write disparaging review (less than 4 stars) about ANY family-owned business, even if didn’t meet my expectations. I would NEVER do that to a small family-owned business when I personally know how difficult it is to maintain and be successful and fully understanding who they are competing against to survive. I live by the rule when I travel to other countries, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”, especially when the Experience/Restaurant/Tour is well-reviewed by others in the past. And if I have issues, I certainly would NOT make it public where it could harm the small family-owned business because I don’t think of myself as so important that strangers should care about my opinion that is counter to the vast majority. That’s not how life works and sadly, there will always be people who will never learn or be taught how to turn lemons into lemonade when things don’t go exactly the way they expected and clearly these two didn’t manage well when mother nature didn’t give them the day they wanted and then turned around to try and ruin the days of others. The irony of being called “arrogant” did not go unnoticed.
Please do your research and if a poor review resonates with you, then please take the advice but I am confident that if you read some of our many positive ones, you will quickly learn, this mom and son duo are the exception, rather than the rule.
I do admit that this reply is unprofessional but as the owner and founder of Chopsticks+Forks… I treat my business like it was my son and as this mom demonstrates, we will always defend the things we love and give birth to without apology because it is personal. I appreciate that this mother wants to come to the defence of her son and that is exactly what I’m doing here with my business.
Feel free to reach out to us directly if you have any questions and we hope to see you on one of our Foodie Adventures in the near future.
Till then… Stay Hungry!
