Michelin restaurant Hedone plans to sue BT for £10,000 after three-week line fault

 
Aurelie Jean-Marie-Flore from Hedone Restaurant in Chiswick who has had problems with BT LENTATI
Miranda Bryant5 July 2013

A Michelin-starred restaurant in Chiswick is seeking up to £10,000 in compensation from BT after it was left without a fully functioning phone line for nearly three weeks.

Hedone Restaurant — named the 70th best restaurant by the “World’s 50 Best” jury earlier this year — was left without a reservation line and no telephone line at all for a total of five days.

It was then forced to switch to temporary numbers which, it claims, resulted in thousands of pounds in lost revenue.

After 18 days of confusion, Hedone ended up with the same phone system it started with because BT failed to install the promised upgrade without adding nearly £1,400 to the quoted price.

Aurelie Jean-Marie-Flore, Hedone’s front-of-house manager, said she wanted a system that could transfer calls between the kitchen and the office but it proved so difficult for BT to do that she had to solve the problem herself with a three-way phone system.

She said the restaurant relies heavily on phone bookings and that it gets enquiries from all over the world.

She added: “It’s a big frustration, we lost business, that’s the main thing. We’re one of the 100 best restaurants in the world, we’re not a takeaway pizza place. We looked so unprofessional to our customers. No one at BT is apologising and on top of that they charge us £130 to fix the line again, it’s incredible. ”

Hedone’s accountant is liaising with BT in an effort to get compensation for lost bookings but if unsuccessful the restaurant plans to take legal action.

A BT spokeswoman said: “BT would like to apologise to Hedone for this situation. There was an initial delay, and as the customer was not satisfied they cancelled the phone line the day it was due to be installed, resulting in the disconnection. We apologise profusely and will be in touch to agree suitable redress.”

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