I have always been a big fan of cakes from The French Loaf. I have been ordering here for more than three years now and I have blogged about my earlier experiences here.
No one loves messy service and goof-ups. In spite of going to the best of places, once in a while something screws up. I wanted to specifically blog about this experience, not to highlight the goof-up, but to highlight the subsequent action taken on that.
I ordered a 2Kg Irish Fantasy Photo Cake from The French Loaf, Velachery. This is where I have been ordering cakes for the past few years and I like the convenience of sending our preferred photo to a mail address and have it printed on the cake. This time it was ‘Ninja Turtles’ for my son. Each year, these characters change based on my kids’ preferences. Everything went well and I placed an order a day in advance and I was asked to collect the cake next day at 11:AM and I did.
My son cut the cake and we served it to everyone. All of them appreciated the cake. I must say, I love cakes from here ! While I took my first bite, I immediately realized this was NOT Irish Fantasy. The cake tasted good, alright, but not the flavor I ordered. There was no flavor of Mocha, the chocolate-flavored Caffe latte. To me this tasted like a vanilla or a butterscotch cream on a Vanilla sponge !
I called up the outlet and spoke to a lady and told her the problem. That lady tried to convince me that it is definitely Irish Fantasy. Then I requested to talk to the Manager. When I explained to him, he readily agreed to come home and inspect it in person. The reason he said was cakes are made in their production unit in Guindy and dispatched to the outlets. In a cake that is completely done, it is difficult to make out what flavor the cake is. Fair enough, I asked him to come.
He came home and looked at the cross-section of the partially cut cake and immediately agreed this did not look like Irish Fantasy. He brought an empty box along and asked for two small pieces to take it to their production unit. He apparently went there and took it up with the people at the production unit. On his way back, he dropped in and delivered an Irish Fantasy Cake with the words ‘Sorry’ on it, apologized for this bad experience and refunded the difference in amount between the two flavors.
I was really touched by this gesture because, as a manager of the outlet, he owned up to this mistake, in a way not necessarily his own, and gave his best to correct the situation. I really appreciate the effort from Mr. Moorthy’s side.
As always, I would drop in again at their outlet in the future. It is a good feeling to know some establishments care about their customers. If they had been more careful, they could have avoided this whole episode is an argument, but as I said, sometimes goof-ups happen.
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