Theory Session number 1
Types of Guest complaints
Guidelines to handle complaints
Service Recovery
Types of Guest Complaints:-
When guests are not satisfied with some services and express their
discontent to hotel employees, most often to the front desk staff,
their grievances are recorded as guest complaints.
These complaints are classified on the basis of their nature.
The guests’ complaints can be grouped into four major categories
1. Mechanical Complaints.
2. Attitudinal Complaints.
3. Service-related Complaints.
4. Unusual complaints.
Mechanical Complaint: Mechanical complaints are related to
the malfunctioning or non-functioning of systems and equipment
installed in guest rooms, like television, mini-bar, weather
control, channeled music, geyser, and so on.
Attitudinal Complaint : When a guest feels insulted by the
rude or tactless hotel staff and lodges a complaint, it is referred
to as attitudinal complaint. A guest may also make attitudinal
complaints when the hotel staff bothers him with their problems.
Service-related Complaint : Service-related complaints are
about the problems in services provided by the hotel, like delay
in the room service of lunch, or delay in the clearance of soiled
crockery from the room after meals, etc.
Unusual Complaint : Unusual complaints are those over which
the hotel does not have any control. For example, a guest may
complain about the lack of golf course in the hotel, or the lack of
central heating facility, etc.
Guideline to handle a guest complaints.
The front office should handle guests’ complaints tactfully,
exercising patience, empathy, and decision-making skills. As
hospitality is a service-oriented industry, the hotel staff should
always try to resolve the customer’s problems immediately and thus
appease him. If a front office agent is unable to handle a guest’s
complaint, she should call her superior before the situation gets out
of control or becomes worse.
The following guidelines may be followed while handling
guest complaints:
Listen silently without interruption, with empathy.
Show concern and take complaints seriously.
Never argue. Remember the guest is always right.
Never try to win an argument you may win the argument but lose
the guest forever.
If possible, isolate the guest so that other guests may not overhear.
Offer choices and never make a false promise.
Monitor the corrective measures.
Follow up and inform the guest about the solution.
If unable to resolve the guest problem, consult your superiors
Hoteliers have tried to do there best in solving guest issues. Certain
things are out of our control but it’s about how we react to
situations that occur that can set you apart from your competition.
Marriott, Hilton and Starwood Hotels try to incorporate this into their
training programs from the start. Using the L.E.A.R.N. model on a
daily basis can save your hotel from being just another property that
people stay at.
L Listen
E Empathize
A-Apologize
R-React/Response
N Notify
L -Listen
Perception has different angles that you can work with. Guests seem
to be hard to please at all times but you have to the first thing right
which is by listening to them. Hear what the actual problem is and
work around that. I know a lot of hotel staff members will just hear
an issue and have it go from one ear to another. Make sure that you
listen to the issue that the guest is having and make an honest
effort on what happened.
E-Empathize
Try go get an understanding of what this difficulty has caused for
your guest. It carries a lot of weight if you make them feel that the
issue that happened was a mistake and that you will do whatever it
takes to make it better again. A phrase that seems to work is that
you tell the guest that if you were in the same situation or are in
“their” shoes, that you would be upset and have every right to be.
Keep your hotel guest calm and make sure you have them feel at
ease.
A-Apologize
An apology goes a long way when a problem has come up. All a
guest wants to hear is that your sorry that the situation occurred in
the first place. This is the case 9 out of 10 times from what other
critics and reviewers have seen. Make it certain that you accept
what happened was your fault and that you will do whatever it takes
to fix it.
R-React/Response
Decide what you will do to resolve the problem. All hotel employees
should be empowered to make the right decision right then and
there. A guest does not want to hear you checking with a supervisor
or manager about something that you can solve. Keep the customer
informed during this part of the process. Explain to them what steps
you are going to take to fix the issue.
N-Notify
Take immediate action. Don’t delay your response because every
minute that wait to come up with answer, it feels 10 times longer for
your guest. Giving remarkable customer service comes down to
solving problems in a timely fashion. Show that you want to make a
difference for that guest by taking ownership of an issue.Once the
situation is dealt, kindly notify the same to immediate supervisor
and also notify the the concerned department, so that similarly
situation can be avoided in future and a better service can be
offered .
The L.E.A.R.N. model is essential when it comes to handling guest
complaints. It is something that will eventually happen no matter
how great your hotel is. By having the right management in place
and by the training program, each employee will have the tools to
succeed. Superior service is something that an individual earns but
turning an issue that a guest has into an experience that they will
remember if it’s fixed correctly.
Service recovery
‘’ Service recovery converting a previously dissatisfied customer
into a loyal customer.’’ It is the action a service provider takes in
response to service failure. By including also customer satisfaction
Into the definition, service recovery is a thought-out, planned ,
process of returning aggrieved/dissatisfied customers to state of
satisfaction with a company/service. Service recovery differs to
complaint management in its focus on service failure and the
company’s immediate reaction to it. Complaint management is
based on customer complaint, which, in turn, may be triggered by
service failures. However, since most dissatisfied customer are
reluctant to complain, service recovery attempt to solve the
problems at the service encounter before customers complain or
before they leave the service encounter dissatisfied. Both complaint
management and service recovery are consider as customer
retention strategies. Recently, some researches proved that
strategies such as value co-creation, follow up, etc. Can improve the
effectiveness of service recovery efforts.
Effects
Literature on service recovery suggest that a good recovery has a
positive impact on satisfaction, recommendation intention, word-of-
mouth, loyalty , image, and trust.
Effective service recovery could not only eliminate the loss of
service failure, but also improve much higher service satisfaction on
contrast with situation service failure. Some even argue that a good
recovery can increase satisfaction to a higher level than if nothing
had gone wrong in the first place, which is referred to as the service
recovery paradox. Many researchers provides evidence in the
existence of service recovery paradox from rational customer
expectation through interaction between employees and customers
under service failure.
Three categories of recovery strategies can be
distinguished:
Customer recovery is aiming at satisfied customer.
Process recovery tries to improve processes.
Employees recovery as an internal marketing strategy to help
employees coping with failure and recovery situation.
