Back To Basics - Turning Complaints into Loyalty
TLDR
Everyone benefits from better guest insights,
📌 Make your ‘order of service’ a key part of your brand experience
📌 Go above and beyond when someone makes a complaint
📌 Always provoke a return visit with an offer
📌 Watch your revenue and loyalty increase
Still With Me?
You get the drill. I bang the ‘brand experience’ drum on the regular, because I believe it’s not given enough focus.
Marketers may tell you to double down on Tik Tok, the Metaverse and other external initiatives as the solutions to our problems. And as founders, owners and leaders, we’ve got a million other things to be getting on with.
But your ‘order of service’ is more than a tool to be trained in by your managers, it’s a crucial component of your brand and should be a key focus of the wider senior team. Particularly those crucial moments where there is a direct link to revenue (selling), and marketing (data capture, promotion).
Hiring that agency to get you up on running on the hottest digital platforms may yield a short term warm and fuzzy feeling of moving forward, but if your brand experience in store isn’t up to scratch too, it’ll ultimately be in vein.
During a staffing crisis, when service standards are under pressure and mistakes are inevitable, we’ve got to empower our people to fix things in a way that maintains the brand love you’ve worked so hard to build.
After all, getting people to return to your venues is much easier - and cheaper - than getting them to visit in the first place. So what happens table-side matters, and this is never more true than when something goes wrong.
Double Down on Making Things Right
A spirit of generosity is something I value greatly when drinking or dining out. It comes with the territory for great operators. And yet on occasion, when something goes wrong, ambivalence and even disdain can follow.
In a previous post, I discussed how to solicit better feedback. So whether this is how you stumble across an issue, or if someone makes a complaint, there are two things I believe should happen -
1) Over compensate for the issue
2) Give someone a reason to come back
Do More than Expected
“I’ll get my manager” is an unnecessary and time consuming hassle for a guest. And takes the manager away from what they should be doing. I believe it’s much better to empower front line staff and allow them to offer discounts and refunds provided it’s with good reason.
If someone complains about a specific item, take it - and something else - off the bill. Do so without question and with unfaltering politeness. Under no circumstances should the guest feel at fault. “If you’d told us your steak was over cooked we could have replaced it” for example.
They didn’t. They’re telling you now. So do something about it.
There must then be a mechanism in place to record these refunds and the reasons they were offered, so that this information can be funnelled back into briefings and management meetings.
Provoke a Return Visit
Even an expertly-handled complaint can still leave a bitter taste in a guest’s mouth. And in the face of incredible competition, people have more choice than ever.
So it’s worth considering how you might increase the chances of these guests coming back to give you another go.
Rapport is everything here. Front line staff who can connect with guests can both handle complaints better, but win people over and convenience them to come back.
This doesn’t have to be a complex exercise.
A simple business card with the server’s name jotted on it along with “20% off lunch” or “a bottle of wine on us” will do just fine. With the instruction to mention this at booking or on arrival.
Not only does this signal that as a business, you value your guests and their loyalty. But that you place this above everything else.
Hospitalty after all, isn’t transactional, it’s about shared experiences and connection.
Nail your Second Chance
If and when the guest returns, you can then ensure they see you at your best this time round. Give them the best table. The best server. And without going overboard, the hospitality experience of a lifetime.
Acknowledge the previous issues but don’t dwell on them. Talk to them, ensure they know how important their custom is to you. You’ll have a fan for ever.
Then, even if issues happen in the future, they’ll be more understanding and more invested in providing constructive feedback because you’ve shown you really care.
And that’s how to create loyalty. Guest by guest. Service by service. With a long term view and a bottom up approach to building your brand.
Then you can shout about it on TikTok and anywhere else you wish. But success can’t exist by doing one, in the absence of another.
When we start seeing service as a part of brand experience, not just ‘an order of service’ to be trained in, everybody wins. And your reputation and bottom line will be all the better for it.
Do you want to learn more about how I help companies to launch and scale hospitality brands from the inside? Or do you have a project or collaboration you’d like to discuss?
