As much as you would love all of your guests to enjoy their dining experience at your restaurant and have a great time, that doesn’t always happen. When you work in a service industry, you will run across customers who are upset. No matter how good you are and how good your product is, it’s unavoidable – except at One Fat Frog, of course. Since it’s impossible for your restaurant to avoid customer complaints, the important thing is to learn how to handle them in a way that minimizes the damage.
There are many different reasons that restaurant customers complain. Sometimes it’s a legitimate complaint because service was subpar, there is a problem with their order, or a server was rude. Other times it’s simply because the customer is in a bad mood and is letting off steam. Sometimes it’s because the customer is looking for a free meal so they are making excuses. Sometimes the customers just think it’s fun to cause problems at restaurant. The important thing to remember is that regardless of the reason for a customer’s complaint, it should always be treated as though the customer is correct.
In his book Cashing in on Complaints, Bill Marvin says that the worst thing a restaurant owner or manager can do is to get defensive and try to explain the situation. The best thing you can do is quickly resolve the issue in the customer’s favor. It doesn’t matter who is wrong. Handling a customer complaint is “not about determining who is right and who is wrong,” Marvin says. Rather, it is about satisfying a disgruntled customer so you can retain their business.
I once had a manager who always told complaining customers that all complaints had to be directed to his Complaint Manager, Helen Wait. “So if you have a complaint, please go to Helen Wait.” If you read that name fast, you’ll get what he did there, and it’s not good customer service. Think about it. Which is more important, being right or getting customers to keep coming back and spending money at your restaurant? It certainly should be the latter.
With that in mind, there is great incentive to quickly resolve all customer complaints in their favor. According to Marvin, 70% of complaining customers will return to your restaurant if the complaint is resolved in their favor. It gets better. If that resolution happens immediately after their complaint, 95% of those complaining guests will return as guests, so a prompt and proper response means everything.