Throughout the year, you accommodate various guests with different personality traits, different expectations and priorities. No matter how meticulous your services are, some problems with customers might be inevitable.
Such problems and related complaints might be at different levels of vehemence. At the end of the day, however, the impression with which your guests will check out depends on your attitude and how you handle these problems. When you manage the complaints properly, you can eliminate dissatisfactory experiences and enjoy customer loyalty along the way, whereas improper management of complaints might cause the problems to snowball, especially with the effect of social media.
Here are some helpful tips that will facilitate the solution process both for you and your guests.
Show that you listen to them
A guest communicating their complaint to you will first demand your attention, before other things. If your staff members try to understand the problem of your guest in a sincere way, a potential trouble can be eliminated before it has a chance to escalate. If you would like to soothe your guest’s disappointment, some of the first things you should do include listening to your guest without interrupting him/her, nodding to show that you approve and expressing that you understand him/her.
It is critical for you to consider that guests hoping to have a good time at your property might not tolerate problems, so you should handle the situation with a sensitive approach.
Just Try To Know What the Problem Is Rather Than Taking It Personally
Your guest might act harshly due to the problem and even raise his/her voice. Taking this personally might result in similar emotional reactions by your staff members. When you express the problem with his/her words, your guest will notice that you understand him/her and the communication will be facilitated.
Solution Offers and Instant Solution
After understanding the source of the problem, you can now move to determining and offering possible solutions.
Even when the staff member facing a complaint from your guest is not authorized to solve a given problem, he/she should be able to reach and contact the related person who is authorized to solve it. If there are people who need to be called, call them when your guest is there so that he/she feels that you are collaborating with him/her on solving the problem.
Remember and Follow up
After a problem is solved, you can boost your hotel’s value by following up the process, until you ensure that your guest is leaving the hotel satisfied. If the source of the problem is your hotel or your staff members, you should express how you are sorry about the inconvenience with the help of little surprises or gestures in addition to solving the problem.
When you ask if there is any other problem, your guests will feel that you care about them. If you manage to make your guests express their satisfaction in your next conversation, they will also become more aware of the situation. Therefore, during and after their stay, that satisfaction will remain in their mind rather than the problem they have experienced.
As HotelRunner, we hope that your hotel will always be full of content customers and you can minimize the problems. If you also would like to be part of content HotelRunner customers, you can create your free account and make your property online within minutes.
