Laurent's Café & Chocolate Bar — Restaurant in Singapore

Went in for ice cream with my young kids. Ordered ice cream for everyone except myself and as we went to pay we were told about the new policy where everyone needs to order an item and you can only stay for 60 minutes. Then the French sounding man working in the shop said there wasn’t room for customers with us there (even with us sitting down were empty tables). He was very rude to us and then put the closed sign on the door as if to prove a point. His tone was horrible to me and upset my kids. He was rude and aggressive. He did comp us the ice cream but he was so rude I fail to understand how he can work in a service industry. We have lived in the area for years and go there with the kids every couple of months and sit and eat our ice creams for 5 or 10 minutes, but we will not be going back. An unexpectedly horrible to end to our family evening.

Given you have now reviewed the audio and visual you will know that we did nothing wrong. You should also have seen that the French sounding male employee had been giving us bad looks before we even ordered. He also ranted at me about how could he make money out of what we had ordered. I did point out he should just state somewhere that ice cream is take away only if that is how he wants to run this (again I’m assuming you heard all of this on the audio). I offered for my helper and I to leave as we had not ordered, but we were not sitting down and taking up table space (just making sure my kids were not making a mess or disturbing other customers). It seems an odd protocol to me to put the closed sign on when you have empty tables and you have 3 staff available to serve but that’s up to you. It was taken as an act of aggression by myself as it was done whilst looking at me and talking aggressively to me. Given people after us ordered 2 scoops ice cream and sat down at one table (we ordered 6 scoops for 2 tables) it would appear that we were picked on unnecessarily. Again all of this should be evident in your footage and audio. I tried to talk to your French sounding employee reasonably after words were exchanged between him and my husband, but as you could hear he was far from reasonable with me. It felt intimidating and was unpleasant as we had done nothing wrong. As I said to him and you should have heard from your audio, he works in a customer service industry but his customer service was bad. This is the first negative review i have ever written on google as I understand small businesses trying to make ends meet, but I believe your employees behaviour was disgraceful and unnecessary. Instead of telling me we are no longer welcome maybe you should consider further training in customer relations for your more senior members of staff so they don’t deter other...

I am one who never writes a bad review before but hopefully this is going to be my first and last. In this case, customer service was very very bad. I ordered a hamper and chose the timing given which was between 10 am to 2 pm. Anyways, this hamper is to be sent to a hotel where I’m going to have a staycation as I am going to celebrate my partner’s birthday. The hotel was kind enough to accommodate to my request to check in early hence I emailed Laurent Bernard’s sales team and asked if the hamper could be sent slightly earlier about 1pm. Mind you, this is not a last minute request. In fact, a week in advance which I think vendors would prefer that. A day has passed but no response. So I emailed the team again and I even specify that if this cannot be done, it is fine. Let’s just stick to the initial time. I am not one of those unreasonable customers. Still nothing. So I decided to call instead. 1. She never apologize, 2. She said she saw the email (but never reply), 3. She sarcastically mentioned that the request is a week in advance, 4. She said she doesn’t understand my email (all she could do is reply or call me) and so I explained to her, 5. She said she needs to liaise with the driver and she is very very busy, 6. She said she will call me that very evening but never did. Up till now, I am still waiting for that call or even a response to my email... NOTHING! Worst part and which really angers me was the way she speaks to a paying customer like myself. She quotes before hanging up on me, “Okay, my driver is here to do collection and I am very very busy. I will call you tonight. BYE!” The tone was very harsh and of cos, that call never came through. After that call, I sent her an email and requested if I can self collect instead to save her time because she’s very very busy. Again, nothing. Laurent Bernard - you maybe one of the best chocolatier but customer service should be playing a part as well. I understand that person was very busy but when you work in this sort of industry, you need to be tactful when dealing with customers. Please note, you’re not the only vendor I’m liaising with. I have liaised with other vendors too but NONE treats me like how your person treats me. This is appalling!

PS: Since your sales team can’t accommodate to my request, I do hope my hamper will arrive between 10am to 2pm and no later than 2pm because that is the initial timing I chose when I...

Extremely rude attitude from the owner I presume named Iveta. Truth be told I have been supporting Laurent Bernard for the longest time but I have not patronised this shop for the last few years because of the terrible customer service. My friend always celebrates my bday for me with Laurent Bernard cake and we didn't have any issue but the last experience with a chocolate cake Lola was awful. The cake was so dry and unpalatable, even those cheap cakes you can get anywhere were more moist. As the bday girl, I was definitely disappointed and it definitely spoilt our day thus my friend contacted Iveta about it. We did not even finish one slice of the cake as it tasted so dry hence we wanted to see if they could substitute it with something else, if not a refund. As a business, please take note that customer service is imperative. Even if you as the owner do not want to want to do anything about the customer's poor experience, at least be courteous. Iveta was rude and condescending in her messages. She was even accusatory in her tone to my friend making it seem like we were out to "cheat" her to get a "free" cake. We don't have time to play such mind games on a person's bday FYI. I had always supported LB brand esp their chocolates because I found it good. Therefore, it was disappointing that on my bday then, the cake was not up to par like usual. Moreover, instead of respecting us as already disappointed customers, Iveta's tone was very rude. She even maligned my friend saying that we "threatened" her staff for freebies. Super shocking but my friend continued to be polite. I happened to write this review today because a friend of mine told me about the poor CS at LB recently which reminded me of my own traumatic experience so I decided to post today. I have all the evidences of the WhatsApp screenshots between my friend and Iveta which I do not want to post here. However if Laurent Bernard does see this message and tries to continue to make us more aggravated, we, as customers have the right to post our truthful review of what we have experienced. Please remember that if you think your food is good, there will always be somewhere new and better. If you want to exist in the F and B line, kindly think twice about being haughty and rude to...