Dealing with Dissatisfied Customers
July 2008
Although we spend a great deal of time on “customer satisfaction” in reality the real issue may not be how do we keep customers satisfied, bur rather what do we do about “dissatisfied customers.” Often Customer Dissatisfaction comes from a variety of causes. Among these are (1) not delivering what is promised, (2) lack of accepting personal/corporate responsibility, (3) rudeness, (4) and unconscious projected attitude of “I really hate my job and/or the people whom I have to serve.”
In travel and tourism customer dissatisfaction is rampant. In fact, in many areas of the travel and hospitality industry just lodging a complaint is akin to running an obstacle course. To the detriment of the entire travel, tourism and hospitality industry it simply is not easy to let a manager or corporate office know about a rude employee or a failure to deliver promised service. Our industry’s inability to resolve issues of customer dissatisfaction results in new frustrations, anger and loss of reputation. When our customers do complain our industry all too often ignores legitimate grievances or deals with them in such a way as to turn a minor grievance into a major one. While, improved customer satisfaction may result in increased profits, increased customer dissatisfaction will result in not only decreased profits but also in a possible business failure. Furthermore, the hardest thing to repair is a business’ reputation. Thus, the marketing costs of customer dissatisfaction may be enormous. To help your business and employees deal with issues of customer dissatisfaction, Tourism & More offers the following suggestions.
- Know what product you are selling. All too often customer dissatisfaction stems from not really knowing what product we are selling. For example, in the fast food industry, is the baseline product the quality of the food that is being sold or the time that it takes to have the food delivered from the moment it is ordered? If the issue is time then long lines, inefficient food delivery are bound to result in dissatisfied customers. In the case of leisure tourism, the end line is fun and relaxation. How well are your providing what you are selling?
- Most people want to be satisfied. The average customer in travel and tourism wants to be satisfied and tends to have a great deal of patience when things go wrong. Have a plan in place to deflect anger by offering creative compensation. Often customers are satisfied with a caring smile or a verbal apology. A root cause of customer dissatisfaction often stems from the customer’s feeling that s/he is simply a number and of minimal importance to the company.
- Make complaining easy. Ask yourself if your phone tree with multiple menus is productive or does it make a bad situation even worse? There is nothing more frustrating to a caller who desires to make a complaint than not being able to speak to a person. Most people simply do not want to have to go through multiple menus in order to lodge a legitimate complaint. Hiring a few extra people and doing away with phone tree menus will result in a lot less dissatisfaction with your business and may save a customer.
- Often it is not what you say, but how you say it. It is amazing how the same thing said with a smile, a sense of warmth, and empathy can change a dissatisfied customer into a satisfied one. In tourism and travel the human touch is paramount in transforming a negative into a positive experience.
- Empower your employees to make logical decisions on the spot. Perhaps nothing frustrates a customer more than being told that this ‘issue’ is not the responsibility of the frontline person. Huge bureaucracies and “stated policies” all too often become excuses not to work, listen, or deal with problems. Customers want to be treated as individuals and not as collective enemies whom your employees wish to defeat.
- Dissatisfaction is often based on not looking at individual circumstances. Tourism and hospitality are not about “people” but rather about “persons.” Those companies that treat their customers as individual guests tend to have the lowest dissatisfaction levels. Those parts of the travel and tourism industry that treat their customers as mere commodities register the higher levels of dissatisfaction.
- Dissatisfaction comes not only from lack of caring and listening, but lack of knowing. All too often our personnel have never been in the situation that is causing the customer to be dissatisfied. In many cases dissatisfaction comes from a lack of flexibility and an understanding on how to build customer loyalty. Employees need to have the right to ask, in this situation does this rule make sense and is there a good reason for me to be able to override it.
- Not all people are nice. While no industry wants dissatisfied customers, no matter who good, patient and polite we are, there will always be some people who will never be happy. When dealing with these people, try to isolate them as soon as possible and remember that they are the exception rather than then the rule. Never allow the odd-complainer to lessen your enthusiasm or permit you to become cynical.
- Satisfied employees produce less dissatisfied customers. All too often CEOs in travel and tourism forget that happy and satisfied employees are the best defense against dissatisfied customers. When your employees believe that management cares about them, there is a higher probability that they will care about your customers and provide them with the type of service that turns dissatisfaction into a memory moment of caring.
