Dealing with Guest’s Problems

Rovena I. Dellova/ 2020

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https://slideplayer.com/slide/8019708/
 What is a complaint?
1. “… one is dissatisfied, unhappy, etc.”
2. the customer’s expectations have not been
met in the service encounters

3. For example, defective shoes, poor meals

and accommodation quality, unreasonable
waiting time...
 Complaint cases
1. Traffic delay
2. Air-conditioning
problem in a hotel
3. Poor meal quality and
service
4. Unsatisfactory hygiene
environment
5. Impolite salesman
Context: Hotel, restaurant,
coach, shop
 Impact of Dissatisfied Customers
1. Losing a customer → gaining a customer
by your competitors
2. Winning back a dissatisfied customer = N
times costly than winning a new customer.
 Why is it necessary to understand your
customers and their needs?

1. 68% of customers will leave because of a

bad service experience
2. It costs five times more to acquire a new
customer than to keep an existing one
3. To bring in more or keep customers
4. Know which area to improve and how
Understanding complaining customer’s needs

A balance of the Emotional Needs

and Solution Needs

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 5 Principles of Complaint Handling: T.R.U.S.T.
1. T: Trustworthy
– taking responsibility and ownership in rendering reliable services at a
high professional and ethical standard.

2. R: Respect
– to make the customers feel that they are important, being valued to the
organization

3. U: Understanding
– to be able to see things from the customer’s point of views and
awareness of the customer’s feelings

4. S: Sensitivity
– awareness of the customer’s needs as well as verbal and non-verbal
clues in order to maintain an assertive communication

5. T: Timeliness
– to act promptly without delay and follow through the complaint to
customer’s satisfaction

Complaint is actually a good thing!

 Complaint handling techniques
1. Listening to gain an objective overview
2. Empathizing with the customer
3. Apologizing and ‘owning’ the problem
4. Taking action to resolve the complain
5. Tell them what you can do...not what you
can’t do
6. Follow up the complain to ensure
satisfaction
 Building customer loyalty
1. Asking customers if they are satisfied
2. Providing telephone customer comment numbers
3. Regular questionnaires designed to gauge量計
customer satisfaction
4. Random telephone survey on customers’
satisfaction
5. Regularly reviewing approaches to dealing with
customer problem
 Complaint Handling Steps: Emotion First
Skills Explanation
Acceptance

Apology

Empathy
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 Complaint Handling Steps: Emotion First
Skills Explanation
Acceptance - Use a positive tone to show your competence
and commitment to offer assistance
- Do NOT take complaint personally (不上身); think
positive (“complaint is actually a good thing”)
- Use customer’s name throughout the complaint
handling process
Apology

Empathy
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 Complaint Handling Steps: Emotion First
Skills Explanation
Acceptance - Use a positive tone to show your competence
and commitment to offer assistance
- Do NOT take complaint personally (不上身); think
positive (“complaint is actually a good thing”)
- Use customer’s name throughout the complaint
handling process
Apology - The act of apology is to show respect rather than
(≠) to admit that we are wrong
- Sincere apology for the “inconvenience” caused
to the customer
Empathy
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 Complaint Handling Steps: Emotion First
Skills Explanation
Acceptance - Use a positive tone to show your competence
and commitment to offer assistance
- Do NOT take complaint personally (不上身); think
positive (“complaint is actually a good thing”)
- Use customer’s name throughout the complaint
handling process
Apology - The act of apology is to show respect rather than
(≠) to admit that we are wrong
- Sincere apology for the “inconvenience” caused
to the customer
Empathy - Empathize with the customer’s feeling
- Show understanding and willingness to offer 18
assistance
Complaint Handling Steps: Problem solving second

Skills Explanation
Analysis

Alternative
solution

Agreement 19
Complaint Handling Steps: Problem solving second

Skills Explanation
Analysis - Always handle one complain issue at a time
- Avoid bias and unnecessary assumptions
- Listen without interruption
- Ask questions to gather information and to
clarify understanding
Alternative
solution

Agreement 20
Complaint Handling Steps: Problem solving second

Skills Explanation
Analysis - Always handle one complain issue at a time
- Avoid bias and unnecessary assumptions
- Listen without interruption
- Ask questions to gather information and to
clarify understanding
Alternative - Suggest feasible solutions – not false hope –
solution within your authority
- Think of another alternative if it is not
acceptable to the customer
Agreement 21
Complaint Handling Steps: Problem solving second

Skills Explanation
Analysis - Always handle one complain issue at a time
- Avoid bias and unnecessary assumptions
- Listen without interruption
- Ask questions to gather information and to
clarify understanding
Alternative - Suggest feasible solutions – not false hope –
solution within your authority
- Think of another alternative if it is not
acceptable to the customer
Agreement - Confirm the solution is acceptable 22
Complaint Handling Steps: Positive ending

Skills Explanation
Assurance - Show our genuine concern and sincerity
- Express willingness to help in future
- Thanks for the customer’s complaints /
business

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 10 Reminders in handling difficult customers
1. Think positively: “Handling difficult customer is part of your job”
and do your best to turn him into a loyal customer – meeting the
challenges
2. Handle the difficult customers with extra patience
3. Communicating assertively with the customer
4. Emphasize / focus on the negotiable issues rather than the
irrelevant issues or even personal attacks
5. Repeat on what you CAN DO, not what you CAN’T DO
6. Don’t argue with customer
7. Know your bottom-line; but be flexible
8. Escalate the case to superior if there is a deadlock in satisfying
the customer
9. Keep your superior and relevant parties informed of the
complaint from the difficult customers
10. Express appreciation when the customer agreed to the 24
recommended solution
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 Role Play

Handling Difficult Customers I -

Tourism Industry

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 Scenario One – Passport expired
One day, a customer wanted to check-in at the airline service counter
at the airport. A counter crew discovered that his passport had
expired. Therefore, she refused to check him in, and advised him to
renew his passport at the Hong Kong Immigration Department first.
The customer was very angry, and called up the customer service
department of the travel agency where he bought his air-ticket. On
the phone, he complained to the manager that the travel agency
should have informed him about the visa issue when he enrolled for
the tour. He claimed that the problem was caused by the negligence
of the travel agency and demanded for full compensation. He
threatened that if he could not get a satisfied answer, he would bring
the case to local newspapers and Consumer Council. Assume that
you are the customer service representative of the travel agency and
responsible for handling this case. What would you do? 33
 Scenario Two – flight delay
A group of customers joined a 4-day tour to Hokkaido in Japan. The tour
was organized by your company. However, due to the bad weather in Hong
Kong, the flight for Japan was delayed for one day. Due to the subtle
change of the arrival date to Japan, some of the itinerary activities had to be
cancelled. The customers requested your company to extend their stay in
Japan for one more day or, otherwise, refund ¼ of the tour fare. The travel
agency did not consider the extension because there was no return flight to
Hong Kong on the following three days of the original returning schedule.
The travel agency also did not consider the refund, and claimed that it was
not the responsibility of the travel agency to compensate customers when
the problem is out of their control. The customers were upset and decided
to seek redress for their loss through the Hong Kong Consumer Council. If
you are the Customer Service Manager of the travel agency, how are you
going to handle them? 34
 Scenario Three
There is a private club located in Deep Water Bay. The club has various
entertainment facilities, restaurants, tennis courts, and a swimming pool.
One day, it was a sunny day. The swimming pool of the private club was
full of people. They were the club members and their invited guests. All
people in the swimming pool were excited and highly motivated in such a
good weather day. Suddenly, there was an announcement from the
microphone in the swimming pool that a thunderstorm warning had been
hoisted. All swimmers were requested to leave the swimming pool
immediately for the sake of safety. Most of the swimmers followed the
request and left the swimming pool. However, fifteen minutes after the
announcement, a group of 6 people still remained in the swimming pool.
Then, two life guards approached the people and asked them to leave
immediately. Unfortunately, not only the people refused to leave, but also
complained that the club had no right to evacuate people from the
swimming pool when the sun was still up in the sky. These people were
very angry over the life guards. Assume that you were the club manager,
and the life guards called you for help. When you rushed to the scene, you
saw the furious people protest against you. Discuss how you would handle
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the difficult club members.
 Scenario Four
A customer was hurt in an accident while she was playing the 4-wheel min-cart
racing (小型賽車) in a theme park. Her leg was broken. The doctor warned that
the customer might become paralyzed. The customer wanted the theme park
to take up the whole responsibility of the accident, and demand the park to
compensate her for HK$500,000. Being a customer service manager of the
theme park, you started investigating the accident case. The evidence showed
that it was the customer’s fault that led to her leg broken. The customer did not
buckle the seat belt while she was playing the drive. This requirement was in
fact made known to all players in an announcement from the microphone; a
notice board was also put up on the spot describing such safety rule for all
customers. When you told the customer that the theme park would not
compensate her any money but would be happy to pay for the medical fees for
her, she was furious, and said that she would claim the money back through
the court. She also warned that she would bad-mouth your company through
the media. You understood that confronting with her would cause damage to
your company’s reputation. However, it would be unjustified and impossible for
your company to pay the compensation. Discuss what you can do to handle the
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difficult customers.
 Retail Outlet - Scenario Five
A customer bought a diamond ring from your jewelry shop for
HK$14,800. Four days after the purchase, the customer went
to your shop. She was very upset and shouted at you. She
said, “I want to return the diamond ring to you and want my
money back”. She continued to say, “I find an identical
diamond ring of only HK$8,000 in another jewelry shop. You
are not honest in doing the business. How can you mark up
the price so high and cheat me”. In fact, you are not cheating
the customer. It is because of the differences in color and
design that leads to different prices. You understood that the
customer had no knowledge about diamond, and knew that
you had to handle the customer cautiously. Otherwise, she
would go to the Consumer Council to claim the money back.
As the shop manager, how would you handle the difficult 37
customer?
 Retail Outlet - Scenario Six
A customer has recently bought a car through a salesman. He
was very satisfied with the purchase in terms of service, quality
of machine, delivery time, and price. However, three days after
the purchase, the customer found out that the car company
reduced the price of his car by 20%. He was very upset
because he thought that the salesman should realize about the
promotion scheme, and should release the scheme to him
before the purchase. He returned to the car company and
requested a payback of the difference of 20% of the car price.
As a customer service manager of the car company, how will
you handle the customer?
Activity:
Group Sharing on Experience of Complaints & Discussion

1. What are the intentions or needs of the

complaints?
2. How are the complaints being handled?
3. Are the complainants feeling satisfied or
dissatisfied? Why?
Reference:
https://www.slideshare.net/vparakhiya/complaint-handling-keeping-guests-happy

https://slideplayer.com/slide/8019708/