Follow up

• No matter what action is taken, staff should always check to ensure that what they agreed has happened. If anything changes they should make sure the customer is told.

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4.5. Standards/Codes of Practice

Most organizations have formal complaints procedures. Dealing with complaints is not easy and unless they are handled sensitively, the problem could get worse.

Customers complain because they are disappointed, annoyed, frustrated or even angry.

It is important that all staff are clear about the steps they have to take to comply with the procedure. A complaints procedure is likely to include:

• who should deal with it;

• what should be done (the steps to be taken);

• the limits of individual authority; and

• recording the outcome.

Organizations work to achieve a high quality in everything they produce. That includes dealing with complaints’ and complaints procedures often include standards and codes of practice.

For example:

• a face-to-face customer complaint must be dealt with and action agreed within 15 minutes

• a written customer complaint must be acknowledge on day of receipt

• company complaint records must be completed neatly in block capitals in black ink

ACTIVITY 4.2

Read through the situations below. Then write underneath each one what you would do and say in each case.

1. A telephone call from Mr Cheung. His suitcase has been mislaid somewhere and he needs to checkout urgently to go to the airport and catch his flight.

2. A child has gone missing at the Theme Park where you work. Her mother comes into the Customer Service area. She is very upset.

3. While serving the wine in the restaurant you spill red wine on a customer’s expensive white dress.

4. “I’ve been standing at the payment point for 10 minutes. Is anyone going to serve me?”

ACTIVITY 4.3

The manager of your hotel has decided to produce a procedure to deal with customer complaints. This will inform staff on what to do and how to react when they receive complaints from a guest – either by phone or in person. Here is a list, choose those that you think are suitable and put them in the correct order. Next, write an e-mail to your boss advising him of your suggestions. Be careful to use the correct tone in your e-mail.

Customer Complaints Procedure

• The guest should be taken to a quiet room so as not to upset the other guests

• The complaint shall be passed to the General Manager

• An acknowledgement of the complaint will be sent to the guest within 10 working days

• The complaint shall be passed to another colleague to deal with if you are busy

• If the complaint remains unresolved the guest will receive a follow up to explain what has happened

• The guest should be told not to complain if possible

• The same staff member who received the complaint will be responsible for resolving it and informing the guest

• Any complaint must be recorded on the Customer Complaint form

• The guest shall be dealt with calmly and politely at all times

• The guest will be informed of the progress of their complaint within 24 hours

• The duty manager should be notified of the complaint and asked to assist where necessary

• The guest shall be compensated for their inconvenience if appropriate

Once you have finished, discuss your answers with a classmate.

Summary

Customers, from time to time and quite rightly, will complain about poor service.

Most organizations will have procedures for dealing with this kind of situation, but how the occasion is handled is up to the individual staff member.

4.6. Handling Customer Complaints

Complaints are a special type of customer problem for three reasons:

• complaints give companies an opportunity to put things right that they might not otherwise have had – many customers never make a complaint, they just go elsewhere

• complaints give companies an opportunity to build a relationship with the customer – how a complaint is handled will influence the customer

• complaints offer an opportunity to improve customer service – they indicate that the service has fallen short of the required standard.

Figure 4.4: Service with a Smile (Photo: Broken Piggy Bank)

Summary

This section looked at how to handle one particular kind of problem: complaints.

Once we know what the problem is, we are able to solve it. We now go onto look at how hospitality organizations can turn problems to their advantage.

Remember that time is money.

Benjamin Franklin ACTIVITY 4.4

Work with a partner to decide how you would deal with the following complaints:

a) One of the directors of your hotel phones to complain that the hotel limousine is not at the airport to pick him up.

b) A potential guest calls to complain that the dates on your hotel booking confirmation e-mail are incorrect.

c) A tourist calls your office to complain that the ferry schedule in the Hong Kong Tourist Guidebook is wrong and that he had to stay overnight on Cheung Chau Island because he missed the last ferry.

d) A visitor to Hong Kong calls from the airport to complain that his hand luggage which he left on a Cathay Pacific flight is not at the ‘Lost and Found’ counter.

e) You receive a call from a customer who complains that out of a party of six people who ate at your restaurant the evening before, four are suffering from food poisoning. The sick people all had oysters for their dinner.

4.7. Resolving Customer Problems

Identifying the customer’s problems and then resolving them as a key effect on the ability to get customers to come back. Research has found that if a customer is unhappy and they don’t complain, only 9% will return again. However, if they complain and it is resolved quickly 82% will return (Technical Assistance Research Program).

Therefore, hospitality and tourism organizations today have realized the value of creating processes for their employees to handle complaints and solve them quickly.

Walt Disney Company, for example, has a system that empowers the employee at Disneyland (they call them cast members) to be able to solve the complaints themselves. The first thing a cast member is taught to do is to determine what the problem is by listening to the customer. Once they determine the problem they are empowered to make decisions to solve the problem and then record what they did of the purpose of assuring that complaints are resolved.

Ritz-Carlton hotels also have an empowerment process that enables the employees to give the guest up to USD 2,000 worth of services to the customer to solve the problem without any senior level management approval. While some might think this would lead to problems with abuse by the staff, the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, which has been opened for more than 10 years, has never had an employee give more than USD 1,400 and that was for a fur coat that was damaged.

The growth of online websites/blogs for customer comments, such as www.tripadvisor.com, has also had a positive effect on how hotel companies and destinations handle customer complaints. In the beginning, hospitality and tourism organizations feared these websites because they might say bad things about them.

However, what they have learned today is that if they respond to the customer complaint made online with a positive response, sometimes admitting their own

the service they provide and show they are willing to solve complaints, as well as accept favourable comments. People also believe the positive comments more from others on a blog than in the advertising message of the organization.

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Bill Gates from Business @ The Speed of Thought