Customer complaints

Dealing with complaints

Recording complaints
Following up a complaint
Keeping track of complaints

Key skills in hospitality and catering

 A complaint can be costly for the business – but it can have a positive outcome.
This all depends on how it is dealt with by members of staff.
If a customer is unhappy and given bad customer service, then they may never
return. Worse still, they are likely to tell others about the bad service they were

‘
given, and so put off potential customers.
If the
If a complaint is dealt with in a positive manner and the customer feels they
customer is
have received very good customer service, then they may forget about their bad
happy, so is experience and may even promote the business because of the excellent service
they have received. This is known as a ‘win–win’ situation: the customer is happy
the business!
’ and so is the business.
Keeping track of complaints can also provide you with useful information
concerning levels of customer satisfaction.

Dealing with complaints

At some stage during the course of your work, you may have to deal with
unhappy or even angry customers.
Your first priority is to listen to the customer and decide on your best course of
action. You may well need to pass it on to your manager, but you may not have
the chance to do so straight away. You need to be able to look beyond their
anger to stay focused on the problem.
Try not to take personally what the customer says. The person is not necessarily
angry or upset with you; they are complaining about a service that you provide
and they feel you are responsible for solving their problem or complaint.

Procedure for handling complaints

When a customer first complains, they may well be upset or angry. Your
objective is to calm them down by the end of the conversation, by following
these steps:
1 Let the customer have his or her say and remain polite and friendly.
2 Ask questions to clarify any points: ‘Can I just clarify how long it was before
your meal arrived?’
3 Summarise the problem: ‘So you waited half an hour for your meal.’
4 Resolve the situation if possible: ‘I will speak to the chef straight away.’
5 If you cannot meet the demands of the customer, pass the complaint on to
the appropriate manager or supervisor, giving them all the details you have
gained from the customer.
6 Record the complaint.

2 | Key skills in hospitality and catering | Customer complaints

 Find out about your company’s complaints policy or procedure and ask your
manager to discuss it with you.
Use the table below to complete a checklist for handling problems or

‘
complaints. The first two have been filled in to give you some ideas.
Keeping track
of complaints
Handling complaints checklist
can provide you
Do Don’t with useful
Take notes Interrupt information
Stay calm Shout concerning
levels of
customer
satisfaction
’
How might you handle each of the following complaints?
1 A customer complains about the beer being cloudy due to the fact that
you were near the end of a barrel.

2 A customer had completed a dietary requirement form when making

the booking. Despite pre-booking, their meal took a lot longer than their
colleagues’ meals and they were still eating long after everyone else
had finished.

3 A customer complains that they have been overcharged for their

food bill.

4 A customer complains that their room is not to the standard expected.

Customer complaints | Key skills in hospitality and catering | 3

 Recording complaints
It is useful to keep details of the problems or complaints you deal with as they
will help you to pinpoint any solutions or improvements. Here is an example of

‘
the headings you might use:
It is useful to
keep details of
Using the following headings, describe the last problem or complaint you
the problems or
dealt with.
complaints you
• The date.
deal with as
• Details of the problem or complaint – for example, ‘Meal did not arrive
they will help on time.’
you to pinpoint
any solutions or • Any action you took – for example, ‘Offered a free coffee.’
improvements
’ • Any costs involved in resolving the complaint – for example, ‘Free
coffees cost us £2.50.’

It is useful to have a form for recording complaints. Here is one example:

DATE 1/4/04 REPORT NO. 52

CUSTOMER DETAILS
Name: Mr Daniel Brookes
Address: Castle House, Castle Way, Windsor
Postcode: SL2 6LN
Telephone: (Home) 01753 876543 (Mobile) 0987654321
Email address: D.Brookes@castlehouse.co.uk

CUSTOMER COMMENTS
TAKEN BY: Sue Roberts TIME OF COMPLAINT: 9.01pm
SITUATION (Identify the complaint and comments made by the customer)
The customer had to wait over an hour for their food to arrive. The
customer ordered at approx. 7.15pm. They were very angry about the service
they had received. I apologised for the delay. Food arrived at 8.20pm. Food
when arrived was satisfactory. Informed Jo (Manager) of the situation.
ACTION TAKEN (Detail actions taken on the day of complaint and customer
reaction. If not resolved, what is the customer expecting?)
Food arrived and satisfactory. Coffees were given complimentary.
Was customer happy? YES NO
FOLLOW-UP TAKEN
Was situation resolved on day? YES/NO
Letter sent/Telephone call (Attach copy/record to this form)
BUSINESS IMPACT
£2.50 (£1.25 x 2 coffees)

4 | Key skills in hospitality and catering | Customer complaints

Following up a complaint
Whenever possible, you should follow up complaints to see what you can learn
from them and so prevent them happening again.
•
•
Investigate the complaint – check with the members of staff involved.
Analyse the problem – was this a one-off mistake caused by exceptional
circumstances, or is it evidence of a failure in your system? How can you
‘ Whenever
possible, you
should follow up
avoid it happening again?
complaints to
• Write the customer a follow-up letter to outline the results of your
investigation and apologise for the inconvenience caused. Decide whether see what you
to offer compensation.
can learn from
them and so
You receive the following letter from a customer:
prevent them
• Draft a reply.
happening
• What steps might you consider to help prevent this happening again?
again
’
The Manager
t
The Restauran
High Street
Windsor

02 April 2004
, staurant
Dear Sir/Madam m y pa rtner to your re
my vi si t w ith we
you regarding ppointing and
I am writing to se rv ice I ha d was very disa ing to
ening. The ppoint
last Tuesday ev od , w hi ch w as severely disa
wait for our fo
had a very long l occasion, our
anniversary.
a sp ecia
me as this was owever, we
m in ut e w ai t for my food, H
mind a 10–15 hen I
I don’t generally di dn ’t ar ri ve until 8.20pm. W
d it plained that th
e
od at 7.15pm an minutes, she ex
ordered our fo staff af te r 40 r w ou ld
ember of r orde
questioned a m t to find out how long ou
ry busy and w en away om fr
kitchen was ve he lp fu l, bu t th is does not take
very polite and
take. She was r 5 minutes.
e food took 1h gree of good
the fact that th ), I expected a de
ve r £4 0. 00
that we spent (o
For the money we experience
d.
t the wait that any of my
service, and no th is restaurant to
co m m en di ng
I will not be re
Unfortunately, be vi si ting again.
lleague s an d will not
co
se.
to your respon
I look forward
DB ro okes

Daniel Brookes

Customer complaints | Key skills in hospitality and catering | 5

 Keeping track of complaints
Complaints often follow trends that may differ in certain areas or at different
times of the year. Any research you can carry out concerning complaints

‘
provides your company with valuable information that they can use to make
Any research
improvements, such as changing a system or procedure, or introducing some
you can carry staff training.
out concerning Here’s how one hotel kept a log of complaints over one year:
complaints
First Second Third Fourth Total
provides your
quarter quarter quarter quarter for
company with year
valuable Bar
information Poor quality 2 1 3 2 8
that they can Overcharging 4 5 3 1 13
use to make Staff-related 1 1 1 2 5
improvements
’ Restaurant
Poor quality 9 11 9 15 44
Overcharging 2 3 3 0 8
Staff-related 1 0 0 2 3
Time 5 8 9 8 30
Housekeeping
Room service 2 7 5 5 19
Cleanliness 1 1 2 1 5
Quality 0 1 1 0 2
Total 27 38 36 36 137

It’s easier to see where most complaints are being made if you can present your
data visually.

6 | Key skills in hospitality and catering | Customer complaints

Here is a pie chart for the bar data:

To turn your data into a pie chart, you first

need to work out the size of each segment.
‘ Look for
patterns in

Poor
quality 31%
To do this, you need to work out what
percentage of the whole pie each total
represents.
complaints
’

Here’s how you carry out the calculation using the total bar complaints for
the year as an example:
There is a total of 26 bar complaints over the 12-month period. Eight of these are
about poor quality. We can show this as a fraction:

8
–––––
26
You can convert this to a percentage as follows:

8 x 100
–––––
26
You can simplify the calculation by dividing 8 and 26 by 2, like this:

4 x 100 = 400 = 30.76%

––––– ––––––––––––
13 13

If you round up 30.76 to the nearest whole number, you get 31. The number of
complaints concerning quality therefore represents 31% of the total.

Now work out the percentages of bar complaints from ‘overcharging’ and
‘staff-related’ and write them on the pie chart.
Overcharging:

Staff-related:

Try showing the restaurant and/or housekeeping complaints in a similar way.

Customer complaints | Key skills in hospitality and catering | 7

 Analyse complaints records
Look for patterns in complaints, such as:
• recurring causes of complaints – in our example, poor quality was a significant
cause of complaint in the restaurant
• system problems – for example, staff handover at a busy period
• costs of dealing with the complaints
• staff issues and any additional staff training required
• reputation of the business.
If you get the opportunity, it is also useful to keep a record of complaints after
introducing any changes to your service. You can then compare pie charts and
note whether or not the level of complaints has reduced, i.e. whether or not your
changes have been effective.
Links to qualifications

This workbook will help with the following parts of your qualifications:

NVQ level 3 units

HS2 Establish and develop positive working relationships in hospitality
HS19 Monitor and solve customer service problems
(ICS imported unit)
HS23 Work with others to improve customer service
(ICS imported unit)

NVQ level 2 units

2GEN2 Customer care skills

Key skills
Communication: C2.1a, 2.3
Application of number: N2.1, 2.2, 2.3

Technical certificates
Hospitality Customer Relations

© Crown copyright 2005