Role play 1

The main reason for your call is because you ordered the delivery service for your family, which
consists of your wife, two young children and your mother-in-law. You were told by the person who
took your order (over the phone) that the wait would be approximately 30 minutes. After 50 minutes
you decided to call and chase up your order. You were told that it had been dispatched and was en
route, due to arrive within the next five minutes based on your location.
Your order did arrive, but a further 15 minutes later. To add insult to injury, the order was incorrect.
The kid’s menu items you ordered for your children were not provided and your meals were cold.
At first you tried to place a restaurant booking online in advance and it was cancelled due to someone
double booking the table. You were keen to give the Bridge Hotel another chance as you have not
had any poor service previously, but your wife and mother-in-law were not happy about the cancelled
booking, and they are very upset about the poor service in relation to their lunch delivery. Provide this
information at a crucial point in the role play, perhaps at the point where the student is putting forth
options for resolution.
In order to replicate a real situation, you should conduct this role play by phone.
As the customer, you should be frustrated and flustered as you have a disappointed family to deal
with. You should refuse options put forth by the student initially, but then become more understanding
and choose an appropriate outcome. However, make sure that you impress on the student that the
business should look at their booking system and staff training and determine why double bookings
are happening.
The student must submit an email they have written to the customer with the purpose of seeking
feedback about the resolution of the situation. The email should clearly describe the situation that
occurred and provide an apology for the disruption to their Mother’s Day celebrations. The student
should ask the customer if they have any further feedback regarding Bridge Hotel’s handling of the
situation and whether they were satisfied with the outcome.

Role play 2
This role play reflects a scenario in which staff member inattention and lack of competence
leads to a customer’s special dietary request not being respected. You are at the Bridge
Hotel for dinner.

The person who plays the role needs to be briefed as follows:

 they are relatively new to the Bridge Hotel; this is their second week on the job

 a couple of your friends work in the kitchen, and they got you the job

 you tried taking the order, but the customer kept changing their mind

 they asked several questions about the menu items because they have a couple of
special dietary requirements (you can make up these requirements and may like to
change them between role plays, however they will need to be a dietary requirement
that could led to anaphylaxis or an illness of some type)

 once the order was made you took it to the kitchen staff
 you served the food to the customer and walked away.

The scenario should start with you and the staff member in a heated discussion. The
student being assessed should be placed across the room from this situation and come
over to find out what is wrong.
As the customer, you will need communicate the following:

 you made it clear to the staff member that you had some dietary requirements

 they obviously weren’t listening to what you were saying

 they did not repeat the order to you, simply rushed off to the kitchen to place it

 the food served to you was not what you ordered and contained foods that were not
appropriate

 you saw them laughing and joking with the kitchen staff when they went to get your
order

 there are significant consequences had you eaten the food (ie they breached their
religious/cultural requirements, they could have suffered a terrible allergic reaction or
become ill, etc)

 you are incredibly disappointed that this has happened, this is your first time at the
Bridge Hotel, and you won’t be coming back

 you will be leaving scathing reviews on social media about the inattentiveness and
negligent behaviour of staff so that no one else is put at risk.
The person playing the role of the wait staff will need to retaliate to these statements (they
are not good with customer service!) by saying:

 they were listening to the customer, but the customer kept changing their mind and
confusing them

 the kitchen staff told you a joke and you laughed, but you weren’t distracted

 it’s not your fault, you didn’t cook or set out the meals to be picked up.

The student will need to show that they can avoid the situation from escalating and
requesting the new employee to let them handle it.
During the role play you should be angry and show this through your words and your body
language. You will need to disregard the wait person because you do not want to deal with
them anymore, you want the full attention of the student (supervisor).
The email sent to the staff involved (at the very least the wait person, and it may include the
kitchen staff but this is not mandatory) must address the fact that the situation that occurred
could have led to dire outcomes for the Bridge Hotel (referring to poor publicity due to the
customer’s threat to post over social media and the potential legal risk to the business for
having put someone’s health at risk). The email should include reference that the wait
person’s response was not appropriate and was not in line with the policy and procedure.
The email should also refer to the feedback they are providing as being part of a learning
experience, and that staff members will receive training to make sure they are well educated
in special dietary requirements and customer service). Despite the seriousness of the email,
it should be respectful and professional in the way information is imparted.
Role play 3
This role play occurs the day after the incident with the customer with special dietary
requests. There will have been a fight after that service (out of work hours) between the
wait person and the kitchen hand (their friend). The kitchen hand has an unknown drug
problem, which they have managed to keep undetected (until now). The wait person will
have threatened to tell the supervisor (the student) that the kitchen hand takes drugs and
perhaps the mix up was because they were not paying attention.
The kitchen hand, distressed at the thought of losing their job and angry at their friend, uses
drugs and comes to work drug affected. Your behaviour in this role play is to escalate to the
point that you become aggressive. You should get into the wait person’s personal space
and threaten to hurt them. You should knock over a chair or do something else to show how
agitated you are.
The person playing the role of the wait person should move behind the student being
assessed and make comments about the kitchen staff’s drug use.
The end of the scenario should involve the student calling for venue security to remove the
kitchen hand, as per Bridge Hotel’s procedures. The role play can then be stopped.
Note: it is very important to consider and be respectful of the wellbeing of your students and
their lived experiences. Discuss the nature of this role play with each student in private
before assessment occurs to determine their level of comfort. Some students could be
triggered with a scenario that includes drugs and threats of violence. At the end of this role
play it is recommended that a short debriefing occurs to discuss the student’s feelings and
reactions about this role play (not a requirement of this unit, but important as a component
of student welfare).
Where any student requests to not participate in this role play, you must respect their
wishes and take action to adjust the role play to alleviate their concerns. Where adjustments
are made to the assessment, the assessor must ensure that the unit requirements are still
addressed (threat or conflict situations and associated performance criteria items).
Instructions in this assessment marking guide, including the assessment checklist, and the
student assessment task booklet will need to be updated to reflect the changes.