How to Deal With Unhappy or Angry Guests
In the hospitality industry, customer satisfaction is the most important factor for business success. If your guests are happy, you’re happy, right? But, what do you do when they are unhappy or even angry? Dealing with angry customers is part of running a business. Being able to do it successfully is even more important for rental and vacation properties.
A negative review from just one disgruntled guest can tarnish your reputation and lower your ranking on rental sites. At BookingTeam.com, we focus on how property managers and owners can craft consistently excellent guest experiences, to avoid dissatisfied backlash from ever happening.
However, angry customers may still come to you, even if your business is not at fault for a mistake or a situation was never in your control. Be prepared to resolve angry customer conflicts with these tips:
1. Maintain your cool.
We know it’s tempting, but don’t fight fire with fire. Angry customers may get under your skin, but you have to be the bigger person in the situation. Take a breather if you need to before replying in an appropriate, professional manner.
2. Value their time.
Above all, show customers you value them and their time. You should be sending speedy replies when it comes to all your guest communications. However, for negative reviews and customer complaints, speediness is even more critical.
Guests will feel like their concerns aren’t being taken seriously or matter if your business doesn’t respond promptly. The response speed may differ depending on the severity of the complaint and channel used. For example, on Twitter, nearly three-quarters (72%) of people expect a response to a complaint within an hour of posting. Listen to them.
3. Listen to them.
Instead of automatically viewing a complaint as a nuisance or problem that needs to be solved, view it as valuable feedback. If a guest is angry or unhappy with a certain aspect of the booking process or their stay, it can give you insight into where your property is lacking.
4. Apologize and try to understand.
Acknowledge when you’ve messed up or a service or experience didn’t meet a customer’s expectations. Sometimes, it helps to just say sorry and acknowledge that an issue exists. Denying it can make you seem defensive and untrustworthy.
5. Show you’re solving the issue and rebuild trust.
Saying sorry may put you off to a good start, but isn’t usually enough. You have to show you are at least making amends or steps to correct the issue from happening in the future. How do you rectify the guest’s complaint? For instance, if a guest had to be relocated due to overbooking, did you provide the necessary compensations (a free night, transportation or complimentary meals)?
Customer perceptions form the backbone of a business. For rental property managers and owners, it is critical to know how to manage angry customers and any other stressful situations that may arise.
Luckily, you don’t have to do it on your own. BookingTeam.com’s suite of tools combined with our 24/7, on-demand team of booking professionals make it easier than ever to manage rental properties.
This is not only applicable to rental business, I own a pharmacy and grocery store. Often times, you come across some unhappy customers, I left a standing instruction to call me in a situation that the sales people cannot handle the issue with a customer.
One customer treated fairly can bring in 100 customers to the business. One disgruntled customer can equally chase away 100 potential customer. Customer management is very essential to running a successful business.
Totally agree. And for online businesses like holiday rentals, this is even more important. Happy guests often write reviews however unhappy guests Always write reviews.
You are right on this. Unhappy guest is most likely to make out time to right bad review of his/her experience.
I would much rather have a professional agency manage any property and deal with customers rather than myself.
@amarie indeed, you would save loads of time and make more money as your guests will get much better service if you as a host can focus 100% on hospitality. Teaming up like this is exactly our sharing-economy business model :) Steem on!
I know that's right!
This is good image :)))) I like it
Well written post. I have had to deal with customer complaints for years, and I always follow these same steps. The first step is not easy, especially when the customer is wrong. But the most important thing is to ensure you don't piss them off even more. You will never please everyone, but as long as you manage to convert the majority of negative comments into a positive outcome you're on your way to winning :)
That is correct! In hospitality a winning mentality is not about whos right or wrong, but about having the happiest guests. Even if the guest is wrong, they can really harm your business with a bad review.
Lol
If I have pain customer I just refuse my service ti him/her - that's it
I do not need that kind of drama
learn from the best - try to be a jerk in casino - they will ask you to leave and that will be end of it
After studying hospitality at a Swiss Hotel management school then working in high-end hotels and restaurants for over a decade I have a lot of thoughts on this subject. This post is good but misses something important. People over profit. Employees behind the front desk of a hotel, and probably many other retail/hospitality settings, often endure tremendous verbal abuse from irate guests. When a man calls down screaming and cursing because to AC unit wont keep the room at 68 degrees when its 110 outside! "I am sorry sir, let me take $100 off your rate and give you free breakfast" is never an appropriate response. People have learned that throwing fits gets them free shit. Rule #1 Don't scream and curse at me and I will give you much more! There is a fine line for sure. Guests may be spending lots of money in your establishment and certainly have expectations for you to meet. If all expectations are not met then the customer feels gypped. One trick then is just getting the guest to arrive with expectations you can actually fulfill! If the guest is living in a dream world from the beginning you will have problems. Even then most problems can be handled with an adult conversation and without the abuse that often happens in these settings. As a supervisor, nearly every night I had to step in on a situation not because my employees couldn't handle it but because I didn't want them to go through that abuse alone. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore. Maybe it just wasn't for me but the fake smile plastered on my face seemed even more disingenuous every month. So, I quit. If I ran a hotel many guests would be asked not to come back because of their behavior. Unfortunately that hotel would then probably fail.
always Maintain your cool
yup always remain cool and don't let him speak more because this will make his anger lower and also do what he says on that time so he will feel better and will get cool :)
BITCONNECT IS AN OBVIOUS PONZI AND @craig-grant SHOULD BE ARRESTED
Oh, I missed this post, now I can't get more rewards like you guys..
But I was sleeping :(
As they say in Russian "The client is always right", one should never forget about this. Thank you for an interesting and informative article.! Repostnu for good luck!
For angry guests I kindly ask them to leave my property, because they usually cant be satisfied
people who throw tantrums and scream generally dont understand that they cant do so in public, and are usually unable to have a proper conversation about the problem
You are doing it right. We need to stop rewarding people for throwing fits and verbally abusing employees.
"Whats that? You are screaming and calling me names? How about a free night then?" Terrible way to run a business if you ask me.