A common refrain from a hotel or restaurant manager when encountering a guest concern or service issue is: what can I do to make it better?
That’s a monumental mistake.
Restaurant and hotel line managers should already know how to handle guest concerns, even, if needed, running through different scenarios with management (and ownership in some cases). Parameters need to be set by ownership or General Managers.
In many cases, management training does not focus enough on effective recovery – yet it should. Nothing can make a service incident worse than the guest feeling “on their own” in how situations are handled.
It is incumbent for senior line managers in hospitality to rehearse scenarios that mitigate service concerns and complaints, leading to even better guest loyalty.
