While opening a resort hotel with four hundred and twenty rooms and ten
food and beverage outlets many years ago as F&B and Executive Assistant
Manager, one of the people that I still remember vividly is the onsite representative
of one of the largest travel companies in Europe.
He was a very pleasant fellow but the one thing that stood out was his
way of treating complaints, which, during an opening period as anyone will tell
you, are numerous.
“There is no such thing as a complaint, there is only a solution.” It was
his favorite way of handling a complaint, and he was right.
If you believe, as I still do, that most guests are honest, then
something untoward must have happened to them for them to come forward with a
complaint. In turn this means that it must be dealt with to their satisfaction
or you will have an unhappy guest on your hands. Worse still, if not handled
correctly, you will have a guest leaving your establishment dissatisfied which
not only will lead to bad reviews across social media but will also cost you
precious marketing and sales dollars in repair.
So you have an irate guest on your hands, and you may be the last person
in line to handle that customer. He has already been handled by at least two of
your staff and is still not satisfied that his or her complaint has been
adequately taken care of.
How does you establishment take care of complaints? Is there are
procedure in place, and do all the staff know what steps to take from the time
a customer approaches with a complaint?
The best possible way to solve a complaint is to empower staff, even
line staff, to solve them. It is not an easy thing to give empowerment to line
staff, but often it is the best way to stop a complaint ‘in its tracks’. Train
your staff in handling complaints and give them parameters of what they can
offer as compensation for the different types of complaints. Again not easy, but
this can be done with logical training. However, the staff must know when the
complaint is such that it needs handling at a different level. The staffs I
have been lucky to work with have virtually always known instinctively if the
matter needed passing to a superior.
Giving staff the opportunity to solve the small complaints will leave
them respecting your management more, and will make all those ‘niggly’, small
complaints disappear before they get to you. Staff are clever and most know
when a complaint is justified. They are in the best position to offer a
replacement dish in the restaurant, rebate a cold soup or whatever the
complaint justifies. Customers will appreciate the fast solution and no harm
will be done to your reputation, something you work so hard for.
I recently picked up a takeout order from McDonalds only to find when I
arrived that three orders of fries had not been included in the bag. I returned
later to get the refund on my card which was done with no questions asked, and
the server apologized profusely, which calmed me. What was out of the ordinary
was that after processing my rebate the server handed me three coupons for free
Big Macs. I did not ask for any compensation, it was offered a gesture. Will I
return to that branch? You know the answer!
So, you now stand in front of an irate guest who is angered even more by
having had to go through staff to get to you. What do you do now?
Here is what I have always done and it has worked for me in 100% of the
serious complaints that have landed up with me……..where the buck stops.
Having concluded that the guest is telling the truth and has a valid
complaint, I first apologize for this happening at the establishment I run. I
do not know is an apology has been forthcoming previously, but it is a good
step to take. I than ask for clarification of the actual complaint, even if the
guest has already given it. I do this, as I inform the guest, so that we can
learn from his experience and correct this for future guests. This gives him a
feeling of ‘importance’, since we want to hear and learn, and it will, more
often than not, bring out willingness to recount the incident.
While the guest is recounting his complaint, the time allows me to
consider all the facts and come to a decision as to the compensation that is
fair, in my honest opinion. The way I calculate this is to think of what I
would want had this incident happened to me. I then decide on the maximum compensation
that I would demand, and this is what I offer the guest.
I start with the MAXIMUM I would offer. I do not start any sort of
negotiation on the level of compensation, but start off with the fairest offer
I think suitable. It has nearly always worked for me, and oftentimes the guest
is surprised by the ‘generous’ offer.
Complaints handled this way tend to sort out the ‘men from the boys’ in
that if the guest still wants compensation outrageous and way above what is
fair, it is now that you will see this. I again offer them the maximum that I
started with, and apologize if they are not satisfied with that. But I never
offer more than the maximum I would have demanded for the incident.
This method has invariable worked for me. The staff are happy that you
place trust in them. They know when to pass along the complaint to a superior,
and guests that do arrive at my doorstep most often depart satisfied.
It is the most sensible and logical approach to complaints. It has
served me well.
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