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Seize the Oppurtunity
Foodservice
and Hospitality, Friday, August 2000. David Lipton
A complaint is often regarded as a bad thing, but in a service-oriented
industry, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Complaints
provide an opportunity to seize the moment, turning the experience
of a disappointed customer into an opportunity to identify the establishment’s
overlooked problems and improve customer service. An, of course,
by properly appeasing the customers who voiced concerns in the first
place, a business can be sure to retain those once-dissatisfied
patients.
Customers have an expectation that something will actually be done
about their complaint, and fulfilling this expectation will benefit
the business as much as it benefits the customer. Actions can range
from a sincere apology (which at least acknowledges the validity
of the complain), to a refund, a product replacement, or even future
product discounts or coupons. When deciding how to resolve a situation,
the establishment should take into account the cost of satisfying
the customer versus the cost of losing future patronage. Since it
can cost up to five times as much to attract a new customer as it
does to retain an existing one, it’s in the company’s
best interest not to let complainers go. As long as customers receive
something of value, they’re apt to hold a more positive image
of the company in their minds, and they’re more likely to
remain customers in the future.
The key, however, is to handle the complaint quickly. Between 54
and 70 per cent of dissatisfied customers will do business again
with an organization if their complain id resolved in a merely acceptable
amount of time, while 95 per cent will return if the complaint is
resolved quickly. The only way to ensure complaints are dealt with
in a timely manner is to empower front-line workers to resolve complaints
the moment they become known.
That’s why it’s imperative that employees who have
direct contact with customers, such as wait staff or cashiers, are
aware of the operation’s complaint system, guidelines and
procedures. It’s equally important to provide extensive training
in handling customer complaints for all customer-contact employees.
In many cases, front-line employees feel frustrated when they can’t
fix the situation. It’s exceedingly common to hear “let
me check with my manager” or “there’s nothing
I can do” from servers, but employees need to have faith that
their employees will make the right decisions- in fact, they should
openly encourage them to be proactive when responding to customer
concerns. That said, clear guidelines should be set to assist employees
in their decision-making, which could, for example, include monetary
guidelines for the limit on what can be spent in order to resolve
a complaint.
Of course, an employee can’t satisfactorily address a concern
if it’s impossible for the customer to voice it. To facilitate
the complaint process, many companies use toll-free customer service
numbers or comment cards – by eliminating the trouble involved,
the operation will be able to hear more complaints, fix the problems
more easily and lose fewer customers in the process. If a dissatisfied
customer has no way to complain, they’ll silently take their
business elsewhere and you’ll ever know there was a problem.
In any hospitality-oriented business, it’s important to stay
focused on customer satisfaction at all times. That’s why
handling complaints in a proactive manner, and even going as far
as to actively encourage customers to voice complaints, is common
sense for any service-driven organization. Ignoring a problem will
only make it worse, while handling it properly is sure to keep customers
happy.
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