Training for trouble
Guests who complain are everywhere and that includes the hospitality trade as well. In most instances it is for a good reason. Some encounter problems associated with attitudes – such as staff being impolite, indifferent or displaying unprofessional behaviour. Other issues may be product-related such as food that is not cooked properly, perhaps portion size or even a stale beer served. In the case of service - slow speed may be at the top-of-the-list, particularly when food ordered comes hours later. Another common ‘dissatisfier’ is an ignored request. Others have had problems associated with the hotel room. Either the view was not good or the allocated room was not what one had booked online.
No small wonder then why staff training and management structure is vital to the effectiveness of handling complaints. It is all about mastering the art of turning an angry frown into a happy smile. Unlike in most other service sectors, the hospitality industry deals with guests from different cultures, and communicating properly - even a simple gesture can be problematic sometimes. We are in an industry where people serve people and we are all human…and yet dropping the ball can be so unforgiving.
A guest who complains is in reality giving us a second chance to put things right. Whereas, the guest who does not tell the hotel or restaurant manager but lets the whole world know about a negative experience on the web can do irreparable damage instead.
Staff training must include providing employees with insights into social graces and etiquette in a hotel environment to provide them with a feeling of what guests expect. Examples go beyond the basic things such as how to pour a glass of water and to serve ladies first. This includes allowing guests to enter the elevator first to opening doors for females (both for guess as well as for fellow employees) among several other tiny guest touch-points, employees can approach in a winning way
Attitudinal training though is more difficult. This requires teaching staff to take control of one’s self, then to begin taking control of the situation and aim at helping the guest. What often happens is that when an employee receives a complaint, he or she goes defensive, begins playing the blame/shame game and tries to control the guest who complained. That’s when the guest starts banging on the table and demands to see the manager. Now it’s past the point of no return because the guest believes only the manager can resolve the problem. If that happens, there is something not right with the staffing structure - not the guest. To overcome this, some hotels diffuse power so that complaints can be resolved before they come to the boil.
Most hotels train staff to express sympathy (apologise) and ending with offering some usually hollow empathy. The better hotels go a few steps further where staff is empowered to show empathy and sympathy and to make decisions to take reasonable action to please the guest immediately. When staffs join these hotels, they take a guest relations course which includes handling complaints. Employees are taught to make their own decisions, admittedly a difficult one in the Sri Lankan context – but one has to overcome these barriers. The bottom-line is to enable the guest to be able to deal with only one person, rather than getting aggravated by having to deal with three or four staff. This really is the key. Sometimes one needn’t give the guest anything – just a sincere apology and an immediate fixing of the problem will do.
Good training programmes teach staff to understand that whether or not a guest complains depends on partly how he or she is feeling at that particularly moment. For instance a business traveler whose baggage has been lost after a long - delayed flight is more likely to be stressed out than a guest who is relaxing on holiday. On the other hand, even if the guest is on holiday, should the wife’s bags go missing…the situation may also need to handled carefully. The way to deal with this potential minefield can be summed up in two words: act fast. Get the guest/s to their rooms fast and without any hassle.
However much a hotel invests on complaint handling by staff, there will always be some guests who will never be satisfied. One hotel manager recalls a hotel guest who checked in every month over a period of several years and, each month, complained about the fruit basket in the room. Whatever they were they had to be changed to suit the guest’s mood. One month it would be that she did not like the taste of apples, another time she was allergic to berries and it went on…Eventually, the hotel simply opted to wait until she checked in and gave her a choice of available fruits to choose from.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex- Hotelier
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