We’ve been hearing the odd grumble or three about B.B. King’s Blues Club, but one intrepid LVA reader decided to go a bit farther than that. After posting it on our site, he forwarded his missive to various corporate powers that be. Lo and behold, what follow is the very candid response he received:
Thank you for taking your time to email us about your experience at our BB King’s in Las Vegas. I started BB King’s here in Memphis 19 years ago and I assure you I do understand and empathize with you regarding our product in Las Vegas. We are working daily to try and improve our product. It has been more difficult to produce an authentic experience there than any other location we have due to the union and the “lack of soul” in Las Vegas. We are about to move a Memphis “house band” out there starting June 2nd which will improve the music product significantly. We are working through the service issues and we are getting better although it is far more difficult to terminate employees for poor performance because we must abide by the Mirage‘s collective bargaining agreement. If we can do anything to make up for your poor experience please feel free to email me or call me on my cell phone listed below and I will be happy to try and accomodate [sic] you.
I hope you have a great week-end.
Tommy Peters, President
BB King’s Blues Clubs
I’d call that customer service of the first order. Well done, all!
Wow. Two negative comments about unions. Candor is fine, but will there be a backlash?
Definitely a candid response and I’m impressed by it, especially if those are truly the issues that they are dealing with, which in this case I tend to believe, if only because of their reference to the union issue seems to be stated as a fact rather then an excuse. They seem to know they have issues and are working to correct them.
Although, I’m not sure that this does anything to appease those like Steve Friess, who ran into the situation where they wanted to charge his group a cover charge to eat at the restaurant, even though they had prior reservations. That type of decision making seems to be far outside of the ‘union or lack of soul issues’ that they seem to be experiencing.
I’ve been in BB KING’s several times for
RIBS ‘n MUSIC. Always had good service,
the two bands I’ve listened to were good,
and the half order of ribs works for me just fine!
Don’t even mind their new little cover charge week nights…