Hotel owner slams 'dimwitted' customer

Victory Hotel owner Doug Govan.

A South Australian hotel owner who slammed a complaining customer on Facebook as "terribly dimwitted" has defended his comments, saying businesses should "give as good as they get" online.

Doug Govan, owner of the Victory Hotel in Adelaide, sparked an online firestorm earlier this week when he responded to a group of customers who took to Facebook to complain about a booking mishap on the weekend.

"You are rude, obnoxious and so unaccommodating," Jodie Clarke wrote on the hotel's Facebook page. "We had a group booking of 17 people, yes 17 people, and every single one ... has walked away disgusted. And every single one of us will tell every person we know our story of your terrible service and unhelpful, rude staff. We will never be back."
Emma-Jade Fowler added: "Terrible customer service, you should be ashamed victory hotel [sic]!"

In an extraordinary spray, Mr Govan hit back: "Terribly dim-witted Emma-Jade not-sure-what-my-first-name-should-be. Emma or Jade. Don't get involved in something you don't know anything about. Imagine one of your friends told you the sun wasn't going to come up tomorrow.

"Would you agree just because they were a stupid, dim-witted friend? No, you wouldn't. If one of your friends said I went to a restaurant with 17 people and they couldn't find my booking? Yes. If you were a dim-witted, imbecile, yes, possibly.

"But if they told you the truth and said that they had screwed up their booking, maybe you wouldn't be wasting your time writing this crap. But maybe you just love seeing your name on social media."

Ms Fowler replied: "Wow I can't believe a business would talk to people like this. Oh and by the way I was actually 1 of 17 people that were involved. You disgust me ... At the end of the day, this is bullying and it will be taken further. You should be ashamed of the way you have responded, it's disgusting."

In response to Ms Clarke's one-star review on TripAdvisor, Mr Govan wrote: "You had your fun on Facebook and now you're having some fun on Tripadvisor. How much fun can one person have?!?! Now let's have a look at what really happened.

"A few weeks back you rang and made a booking for 2 people at 6.30pm on Saturday the 1st of April. Our courteous staff member read the booking back to you over the phone.
"At 6.30pm on Saturday the 1st of April you turned up with 17 people. Yes 17; not 2. We couldn't accommodate you because we were full. Full except for the lovely table for 2 that you had booked. Can you imagine squeezing a 6,000kg African bush elephant into a Morris Minor? There ends the story."

Following the blow-up, the hotel temporarily took down its Facebook page, before posting on Tuesday: "The Victory Hotel management would like to convey their apologies for any offensive comments made on Facebook. The Victory Hotel remains passionate about service, the food, the wine, the staff, and the customers.

"Unfortunately in this case there has been a misunderstanding between customers and staff, perhaps out of proportion. We would like to sincerely apologise for any offence caused in this case. We are all free to voice our opinion, so you can post your feelings online if you wish and we will review all comments."

It also invited anyone who wished to make a formal complaint, with a link to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website.

Under the hotel's apology on Facebook, Ms Fowler wrote: "I want you to apologise to every single person individually that was involved and spoken to badly. I don't care about the 'booking mistake' anymore I'm extremely upset about the way my family, friends and I were spoken to. We made a review of our experience and you abused us over that but you had no one to blame but yourself for our reviews."

Speaking to The Advertiser, Mr Govan said he regretted the comments, but stood by businesses' right to defend themselves from "keyboard warriors" on social media.

He said a staff member had taken a booking for two people from one of the members of the group a few weeks ago, but 17 people turned up on Saturday night. He said they were offered seating in the bar area, but declined and left.

He told the paper he was "fuming" when he saw the Facebook post.

"I lost it a little bit there as you can see," he said. "In hindsight, would I take that back again? Yeah, absolutely I would. I get really hurt when my staff are abused the way they were in that first Facebook post. If you've got to whinge, why doesn't someone ring you instead of posting something on our Facebook page?

"Every now and then people use social media to slam hotels without thinking about the hurt it can cause. I think it's time that businesses can fire up and give as good as they get sometimes."

Opinion was split on Facebook, with many customers coming to the hotel's defence but others criticising its handling of the complaint.

Andrew Modra wrote that he had been going to the hotel for "over 20 years never had one problem booking, ordering or with quality of food or wine", describing it as the best pub in South Australia "by a mile".

"Am I the only one who isn't outraged by the hotel's response?" Simon Lucas wrote. "I can't stand PC generic replies, I got a good laugh out of it."

Peter Twinn said he visited once and was "not impressed" by the hotel, but "that is irrelevant, everyone has different tastes". "What is disgusting, and shows a complete lack of professionalism on your part, is the responses you have been making to people on here," he wrote.

Jill Gearey asked what ever happened to "the customer is always right"? "When businesses receive negative feedback, they need to accept responsibility and not lash out like an angry toddler," she wrote.