It is very important to establish effective customer service mechanisms to improve competitiveness, and, build customer loyalty through positive customer service experience to increase customer retention, attract new customers via word of mouth and reduce marketing costs. Every company and restaurant should focus on increasing service efficiency to reduce complaints and develop a system to handle the complaints appropriately.
With all these customers flowing through your doors, you are bound to make a mistake at some point.
On occasion you may;
- Overcook / undercooked a meal
- Spill something on a guest
- Hair, plastic or something else in their dish
- Have a meal / drinks take too long
- Employ an unprofessional, or uncaring server
- Have a wobbly table
- Have bathrooms that are out of paper towel or dirty
- Have a server that checks back too late or when the customer’s mouth is full
- Have a full parking lot
- A reservation that wasn’t ready when the guests arrived
- Wine that is too warm / cold
- A draft over a table
- A table that is too close to the pass-through / washrooms / front door for a guest’s liking
- Slow service
- Lost orders
- Wrong order
- Billing takes forever
- Mean employee (manager, busboy, host etc.)
Even great restaurants, at one time or another will get any of these complaints. Now, please don’t take this as an excuse. A well developed system and a genuine concern for the customer will solve many of unwelcomed situations.
So, plan for the possibility that you and your team are fallible.
- Decide on a desired end result. You want to have this guest come back to your restaurant and give you another chance. You want your guests to leave happy and impressed, so they come back and tell the whole world about you, your excellent food, and amazing service and how much you care.
- The customers want you to listen. They do not want you to explain to them about the cook that didn’t show up to work or that there are too many people and the restaurant is at full capacity. They pay for something and that want their money’s worth. They work hard too. They want you to acknowledge that their complaint is legitimate.
- They want empathy. They want to know that you take their complaint as seriously as they do. They want to feel as though they are dealing with a professional establishment and that you can solve their issue as soon as possible.
- They want options. Sure, they may just want a replacement meal. Or they may not want to pay for the overcooked, or a meal they did not like. A free dessert may suffice. If you have not empowered your servers or simply have hired unprofessional servers, a visit from the owner / general manager has been enough to satisfy a guest. But the best thing is to read the client’s concern and level of dissatisfaction, be proactive and see what will solve his/her issue. I found that a professional server who shows concerns, and can reassure the client can solve the problem, so that it doesn’t get out of proportion. But your staff must remain highly professional, shows concern, apologize for the situation and solve it immediately with full confidence.
A simple freebie without empathy and some reassurance that it won’t happen again, will not buy customer loyalty.
As an example you may go to the customer’s work place to drop off a gift certificate and personally acknowledge their complaint to get them to come back. That will certainly give them a lasting impression on your establishment and seriousness to solve their dissatisfaction. You may follow up with a phone call the day after. There are countless of ideas to salvage a situation. It is up to you to show the level of professionalism of your establishment and your employees.
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