I had these egg tarts recently and they were so good I felt like having more today.
I was at the airport and was not sure they would be open by the time I would get there so I called ahead and the shopkeeper said they would be open and agreed to reserve 4 for yours truly. So imagine my surprise/shock/anger when upon my arrival, after I had travelled all the way from the airport, the shopkeeper sheepishly grins and says they are sold out. It would all have been excusable but for the fact that I had asked and she had agreed to reserve the tarts for me. I gave her a short lecture on living up to one’s commitments and that she had essentially wasted an hour and a half of my time traveling for nothing.
In the end—at my suggestion—they made another dozen for me after I agreed to buy the whole dozen (at a paltry HKD 6 discount only after I asked). As luck would turn out, other customers wanted egg tarts too so I only had to be responsible for 8 (conveniently didn’t give discount).
I think the least she could have done in the first instance was to offer me a discount or some other product on the house given it was her mistake. I guess it simply isn’t the way Hong Kong businesses are run. All she did was continually apologize and tell me to come back another day—I was seriously contemplating never coming back.
I will come back for the egg tarts and do appreciate that they made more but note it would have been better had they been more customer oriented and proactive in remediating what was their mistake.