1 Guest Complaint

Content

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..3

Customer and Customer service…………………………………………………3

Guest Complaint…………………………………………………………………3

Categories of Guest Complaint……………………………………………….....4

Attitudinal Complaint……………………………………………………………4

Service Related complaint………………………………………………………..5

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………….5

References……………………………………………………………………..…6

2 Guest Complaint

Guest Complaint

Introduction

The main purpose of this project is to stimulate the consciousness of the need to be effective in

our effort to enhance the delivery of unparallel customer service. As we strive to identify and

explain the elements associated with the topic we observe what others have to say about it. This

is what (Mr. John Russel, President, Harly Davidson) says “the more you engage with customers

the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine their needs. (Mr. Bill Gates, Founder,

Micro Soft Corporation) also think that “our greatest source of learning should be from our most

unhappy customers. Which means make every complaint a lesson? Our own chairman (Mr.

Gordon Butch Stewart’s) philosophy is to give the guest more than he or she expects. Thus,

explain the fact that every successful business has a standard that serves as their foundation on

which their customer service and problem solving technique is built.

Customer and Customer service

According to Reizenstein (2004)”customer is the recipient of a good, service, product, or idea,

obtained from a seller, vendor or supplier for a monetary or other valuable consideration”. The

term customer service is defined as “anything to do for the customer that enhances the customer

experience” (Harris, 2000).

Guest Complaint

Customer has his needs (such as to feel welcomed, important, understood, recognized, to receive

assistant) and rights (such as to be wrong, to be informed, to receive fair treatment, to expect a

resolution to complaints) to be served by the service provider. Which when is not met leads to

dissatisfaction of the customer. Displaying of this dissatisfaction can be termed as guest

complaint

3 Guest Complaint

Categories of Guest Complaint

1. Attitudinal complain:- occurs when guest feel unwelcomed, unimportant by the attitude

of the hotel staff. For ex- “The waiter was rude”, “Front office agent was not

welcoming”, “Operator was unfriendly”etc.

2. Service Related Complaints:- These complains targets the service of the hotel. For Ex-

“Food is blunt”, “Server missed my order of side of French fries”,” Operator is not

answering my phone”

3. Mechanical Complaints: These complaints deals with equipment malfunction. For Ex-

“My ac is not working”, “There is no hot water in bathtub”, “No signal in TV”.

4. Product Related Complaints:- these are associated with tangible aspect of the hotel. For

Ex- “These furniture looks worn out”, “There aren’t enough umbrellas at the beach”,

“Snorkeling gears run out very quickly at the dive shop”.

Attitudinal Complaint

According to Bittner and Smith (2000) attitudinal complaints arises when a guest observes rude

behavior or feels ignored by the hotel staff for ex- “The Front Desk staff is rude” or “Waiter is not accommodating”. As a frontline staff whose task is to deal directly with the guest on a daily

basis, it is critical to understand that the sole purpose of him being there is to serve each guest with courtesy and a smile. Hence, a situation that should be considered as norm is often misinterpreted as a scenario that ultimately leads to a complaint about the attitude of an

employee from time to time. A prime example of such a situation is, a guest showing up for a meal on closing time at a restaurant. The attitude of the host/hostess can make this situation as a

big complaint or a lifelong memory for the guest. If he is dealt with in a warm and friendly service manner and explained about timing afterwards, and being provided with something by making an exception he will always remember the service of the hotel staff and praise it, on the

other hand if the guest is turned away without even being provided with an alternative he would not only remember it, but also share his unpleasant experience with more people than in the case

of a good experience. Guest complaints are important non-transactional events, because they represent critical turning points in the hotel’s relationship with its guests (Blattberg, Kim and Neslin 2008). They are an everyday reality of business in virtually any and every industry and

are typically recorded and stored in different formats based on company to company, making them easily accessible to managers and everyone involve in strategy making process. How

complaints are handled (i.e., the recovery) marks the “acid test of a company’s customer orientation” (Homburg and Fürst 2005) and may have far-reaching positive or negative consequences for the hotel’s relationship with its customers. An extraordinary recovery may turn

complaining customers into loyal ones and generate more goodwill than if the failure had not occurred in the first place (Hart, Heskett and Sasser 1990); an ineffective recovery can leave

customers feeling even worse about the company and drive them to leave (Bitner, Booms and Tetreault 1990).

4 Guest Complaint

Service Related Complaints

Complaint can be defined as a social confrontation that has been initiated to adjust perception

and the outcomes, either in short term or in long term (Sturman et al, 2011). Service related

complaints are the guests’ dissatisfaction over the hotel service or customer service. For ex-“The

service is slow”, “The food is cold”. So, when the service failure occurs guests are forced to

chose two options, either communicating the complaint to influence the service delivery or to

leave the service exchange without having their expectation met. For instance, a guest

approaches the bar and ordered cocktail and request a specific spirit, the bartender just served the

last bit from that bottle and realizes that he needs to get another bottle, without communicating to

the guest. He just left; meanwhile the guest is waiting and become edgy because he is waiting for

the drink that should have been served within few minutes of ordering it, causing him to be

dissatisfied with service.

With Service related complaints, the key dissatisfying elements leads to visible initial acts that

can be identified, if trained well and can be resolved before it leads to complaint. Sturman et al

(2011) suggests that these hints can be categories into five segments of hinting (body language),

Seeking confirmation (asking questions), blaming and accusing (confrontation) emotional

display (anger, sarcasm) emotional statement (showing intense anger or disappointment).

The staff should be provided with training to identify these elements of service so that they can

handle guest dissatisfaction before it escalates to another level. The guests should also be

encouraged to complain if he/ she are not satisfied as it is the direct feedback and recovery can

be done instantly to turn their experience around.

Conclusion

In customer service understanding the customer comes first hand when dealing with a

dissatisfied customer. Secondly, categorizing the complaints is an effective way not only to

handle the situation but also in a long run to formulate the plan of improving and putting

procedures in place to enhance guest experience. Identifying the guest complaints has helped us

to realize that customer service is an awareness of customer’s needs, satisfaction and most

importantly customer retention.

“It is not enough just to make a sale instead we should aim to make customers that will make

customers and this is done by not just performing well but so well that the customer not only

come back but will bring a friend on their way back”. Donald Trump

5 Guest Complaint

References

Blattberg, Robert C., Byung-Do Kim and Scott A. Neslin (2008), Database Marketing:

Analyzing and Managing Customers, Springer

Bittner, Robert and Smith, Jennifer (2000), Lodging Management Program, American Hotel and Motel

Association.

{http://quizlet.com/14897467/lodging-management-program-yr-1-ch-44-flash-cards/} Accessed 6th April

2015

Harris, E. K. (2000), Customer Service -A Practical Approach, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,

2nd Ed., p. 2.

{ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1934385} Accessed 3rd April 2015

Hart, Christoffer W. L., James L. Heskett and W. Earl Sasser (1990), “The Profitable Art of

Service Recovery”, Harvard Business Review, (July-August), 148-156.

Homburg, Christian and Andreas Fürst (2005), “How Organizational Complaint Handling Drives

Customer Loyalty: An Analysis of the Mechanistic and the Organic Approach”, Journal of Marketing, 69 (July), 95-114.

Reizenstein, Richard C.(2204).” Customer”. In Stahl. Michael J. Encyclopedia of health care

management. Sage eRefrence, SAGE ISBN 978076192654-0

Sturman,C.Michael, Corgel,B.Jack, Verma, Rohit(2011), The Cornell School of Hotel Administration on

Hospiatality: Cutting Edge thinking and practice, John Wiley and sons

{https://books.google.com/books?id=oTRp-

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Sturman, Michael, Ford Robert, Heaton, Cherill (2011), Managing quality service in hospitality: How

organizations have achieved excellence in the guest experience. Cengage Learning

{https://books.google.com/books?id=UoP5Z_-

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6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=guest%20complaint&f=false } Accessed on 5th April 2015