Customer Service for Tourism Businesses

This course will help you explore how to satisfy your customers. You will learn how to respond to your customers wishes and also how to react to customer complaints in an appropriate way. 

Who is this course for? 

The course is intended for anyone working in tourism and hospitality and anyone interested in the topic.

What will you learn? 

• You will get to know more about customer service
• You will learn how to identify customer needs, wishes and expectations
• You will learn how to respond to customer complaints

Keywords: Sustainability, tourism, management, customer service, customer relationship

Understanding Customer Requirements

In this section you will learn how to identify customer needs, wishes and expectations. It takes around 20 minutes to complete this section.

Lesson 1: All about customer needs

Welcome to Customer Service

To fully understand your customers you should try to explore your customer needs.  Why? 

Well, if you truly understand their needs you can design better products and services to suit those needs.

Let’s take a closer look.

Description

Customer service is vital for all successful tourism businesses. In order to understand what customers want, let’s look at a dinner service. 

Manager: “Okay, specials menu, what do we have?” 

You can tick a box to say you have satisfied your customer’s immediate needs. In this case, something to eat and drink.  

Manager: “Okay, we have 6 tables reserved. Turn them over quickly.” 

But good customer service is much more than that. It’s about fulfilling the expectations of guests and even going beyond.  

Manager: “Hi welcome, table for two?” 

Mr Lee: “Yes, under Joseph Lee.”

The first impression counts. Small details make a big difference. Make sure you welcome your guests, so they feel special. 

Manager: “Come with me!”  

Mr Lee: “Thank you.”  

Manager: “Our waiter will be with you shortly.” 

Mr Lee: “Okay, thank you. Well, are you looking forward to the meal?” 

Mrs Lee: “Yeah, can’t wait.” 

Waiter: “Good evening, ma’am and sir, here’s our menu for tonight.” 

Mrs Lee: “Thank you.” 

Waiter: “For tonight’s special, we have barbequed ribs and steak ribs.” 

Mrs Lee: “Thank you.” 

Mr Lee: “This dish sounds good.” 

Mrs Lee: “Yeah, I may go for that one.” 

Waiter: “Are you ready to place your order?”  

You can and you must advise your guests about your offering. Usually, they want and expect you to offer your expertise. That is probably why they have come to you.

Mr Lee: “I think I’ll have the chicken chop. Is it good?”  

Waiter: “Yes, the chicken is popular. One of our top selling items”.  

Mr Lee: “Okay, I’ll go for it. My partner will have the ribs”.  

Waiter: “Great. Can I clear the menus now?” 

Mrs Lee: “Thank you.” 

Waiter: “Thank you, sir.” 

Mrs Lee: “I can’t wait to try the food.” 

Mr Lee: “Me too.” 

Waiter: “Ladies and gentlemen, here’s our house wine, Sauvignon Blanc. Would you like to try it?” 

Mr Lee: “Yes… It’s good.” 

Waiter: “Perfect.” 

Mrs Lee: “Perfect, thank you.”

Mrs Lee: “Cheers!” 

Waiter: “Ladies and gentlemen, be careful the plate is hot. Here are the barbequed pork spare ribs. Here’s your meal, sir.” 

But customer service is a two-way street. Your guests appreciate it when you listen to their responses and react appropriately.

Waiter: “Ladies and gentlemen, so sorry to interrupt. Can I check and see how’s your meal?”  

Waiter: “Thank you so much, glad you enjoyed it. I will send your compliments to the chef. Thank you, sir.” 

Mrs Lee: “Great service!” 

Mr Lee: “Yes, the food and service are great.”  

Mrs Lee: “Cheers!” 

Be attentive while your guests are eating. And pay attention to their needs. without intruding too much on their experience.  Be careful not to rush your guests. Only clear the table when all your guests have finished their meals. They will expect you to ask before you clear the table. As well as asking if they enjoyed the meal. 

Mrs Lee: “Yeah, that was funny.”  

Waiter: “Sir and ma’am, are you done with your meals?”  

Waiter: “Is it okay if I clear the table? Do you have a nice time?” 

Waiter: “How’s everything so far?”  

Mrs Lee: “Yeah, everything is fine, thank you.”  

Waiter: “Great! please enjoy your drinks.”   

Waiter: “Let me know if you need anything else.”  

Today, guests expect a high standard of customer service. If you can deliver this, they will reward you with good reviews online and among their friends. 

Mr Lee: “Everything is fine.” 

Waiter: “Thank you ladies and gentlemen.” 

Good customer service is about meeting and even exceeding their expectations.

Mrs Lee: “Bye!”  

Waiter: “Thank you so much! Please come again.”  

If you can consistently deliver good customer service, you are well on your way to success.

Every customer has different reasons for visiting a restaurant, a shop or a hotel to buy a product or service. Regardless of why they want to buy what you are selling, they expect to receive high quality customer service. Before you can offer quality service, you need to find out what the customers really want. You do not want to make the common mistakes of many businesses where they THINK they know what the customers want only to realise later that what they offered did not meet the customers’ needs. 

So learning to understand their needs is really important to providing good service.

If you were a customer at a restaurant, retail shop or hotel, what would you want when dining at a restaurant, shopping at a shop or staying at a hotel?

You might think that’s easy, the customer needs…

• the menu
• the product
• the hotel room

But if you understand customer service your answers should be much more: 

Menu Offering

Wide selection and, depending on your budget and reason for dining, these may be different.

Product Environment

Relaxed, nice music, good recommendations and availability of the items you wanted, well displayed.

Hotel room environment

Full amenities, great mini bar and room service, nice bed and clean towels, TV and Wi-Fi.

So understanding what the customer really wants or needs is essential in providing quality customer service.

Lesson 2: How to identify customer needs

What is the difference between a customer’s needs, wishes/wants and expectations?

Needs

These are things that the customer is unable to do without — they are often the first trigger to buy a product or service, e.g: a meal because they are hungry.

Wishes/wants

The way customers prefer to satisfy a specific need. And if they cannot afford it, they would settle for alternatives, e.g:  when buying a burger or a lobster dinner, both satisfy their hunger but the cost is very different

Expectations

These come from needs and wishes, and could be affected by the business’s market reputation, past experience, feedback online, advertisement, etc.

Identify customer needs

You could actively listen to the customers who come into our business — strike up a conversation and ask questions.  What are their motivations to come to your hotel, restaurant or shop? What is important to them?

You can also try to see from their viewpoint or try to get into their shoes.

Needs: The guests were hungry and felt the need to have a delicious dinner.

Wishes/wants: The guests did not want to eat just anything — they wanted high-quality products. They also wanted the atmosphere and ambience to be elegant and inviting.

Expectations: In addition to the high quality food and pleasant ambience, they expect to find excellent customer service.

Offering Quality Services in Tourism Businesses

In this section you will get to know more about customer service. 

Lesson 1: How do we meet customers’ needs, wishes and expectations?

After you have identified the needs, wishes and expectations of your customers, you could develop suitable standards or operating procedures to improve your customer service. 

How? Well, with your team you could write down certain customer service actions and activities that you would expect to deliver to a high standard. 

How would this work?

Think about all the areas in your business where you would need to standardise a process of customer service delivery. Discuss with your team and then write down the steps in your operating procedures document:

It should be clear to the staff how they should deal with the above situations.

Lesson 2: Search for and solve causes of complaints

Imagine there were frequent complaints about the long waiting time to pay the bill after eating in a restaurant. 

What do you think is the cause of the long wait?

The Waiter:

• The waiter was busy and did not realise the customer had finished his meal 
• The waiter was probably new and slow in bringing the bill to the customer
• The waiter thought his customers want to sit and chat after the meal

The Customer:

• The customer thought the waiter was too busy and they had to wait for their turn
• The customer feels the waiter did not pay attention and did not see that they are done
• The customer did not indicate that they were ready to pay so no one brought the bill

So who do you think is causing the problem?

• The waiter?
• The customer?

Depending on how you judge your service delivery, you could approach the issue from a customer or staff perspective. The follow-up actions for each might be different.

You could consider providing the following for your team:

Training and coaching

Both on the job training and in a formal classroom for new or unfamiliar employees (e.g. how to do things more accurately and efficiently)

Physical resources

More physical resources to get things done efficiently, e.g: where employees or equipment is lacking

Rewards and recognition

Reward and recognise jobs well done by employees and partners

Support

Moral and verbal support for those who performed well or tried to improve their service through new ideas

However, if you think it is customer behaviour or processes that need to change, then put in place new equipment or technology/processes to facilitate that change. 

How about considering: 

• A pay-first-eat-later policy and the process to facilitate payment upfront? 
• Installing a self-ordering and self-payment system — this can be done through a simple app.
• A signal to inform the cashier/waiter that the customer is ready to pay and a standard process for closing the bill?

Lesson 3: Developing standards and plans

Customer service team

To help develop these standards with your team you could identify suitable staff members for the customer service team. Your team should be tasked with delivering quality customer service, be experienced in their job and dedicated to service improvement. They should also identify the areas in the restaurant, shop or hotel that need to have a customer service standard and plan.

 

What are some of factors you would consider in developing a good customer service process besides the above two points?

Value for money

Think about the image, reputation and advertising efforts of your restaurant, shop or hotel (remember how this influences a customer’s choice on where to dine, shop or stay). Does it bring value for money for the customer?

Think about what your competitors are doing? Can you identify the differences in what they are doing? Can you match them or do better? Remember your customer needs, wants and expectations?  Can you meet or exceed expectations?

Here are some areas you could consider when developing customer service standards and plans:

RESTAURANT

• Reservation process (steps to take)
• Greetings (things to say or not say)
• Food & beverage suggestions (solicited or unsolicited)
• Payment process or bill presentation

SOUVENIR SHOPS/STALLS

• Response times (e.g. in processing payment or advance order)
• Service, pricing and product guarantees (e.g. conditions)
• Document presentations (e.g. presenting customer’s receipt)

HOTEL

• Telephone manners (e.g. telephone etiquette)
• Check-in procedures (e.g. steps and sequence of events)
• Room cancellation policy (e.g. what is allowed or not allowed)

Lesson 4: Monitor the results

How will you know if you are improving?

Monitor the results.

It is very important to monitor and measure actual performance against the standards you have set out. Because the variant in the measurement could show that what you set out to do was or was not not achieved. 

 

Reviewing the areas where you have not met performance standards will help you close the gaps. Here are some areas that you can review:

Waiting times

Time taken to respond or complete a process

Number of complaints received

Who or where are they from? What are they about?

Number of service recovery efforts

Complimentary food, products or room nights given away due to errors

Feedback channels

Frequency or ease of use: online/written and verbal

How to monitor performance

Observations

This could be done personally or by others such as colleagues, peers or supervisors.

Meetings

Conducting formal and informal meetings to find out more about a particular issue.

Feedback

Customers and staff could provide feedback (written or verbal) and this could include the areas done well or not so well.

Operational reports

Measuring the food returns, product exchange incidents and number of complaints

Financial reports

Revenues, return/repeat visits, waste reports

 

Example

Imagine that you have to monitor a newly created dish so that you can decide if it will go into the main menu for the restaurant. Which of the following actions would you take? 

• Check the daily sales report for number of orders
• Speak to customers who ordered the dish in the restaurant
• Ask your staff during the daily debrief about their thoughts/ observations
• Walk around the restaurant during meal time to observe staff and diners
• Look at the leftovers on the plates

Indeed, there are so many ways to collect information for monitoring before making a decision.

There is no single method to monitor customer service. Often, business owners can use multiple ways to monitor and measure customer service so that they can get a fuller picture.

Resolving Customer Issues in Tourism Businesses

In this section you will learn how to respond to customer complaints. It takes around 20 minutes to complete this section.

 

Lesson 1: What are customers complaining about?

Customer complaints are a complicated issue

They can range from a food order gone wrong or taking too long, waiting for service at a souvenir shop or a bad experience or encounter with front desk staff when checking into a room at your hotel. So really, customers can complain about anything and in most circumstances they have a valid reason. You learned in earlier topics that this is often the result of the needs, wishes and/or expectations of customers not being met.

How much of the customer base do you think businesses are losing each year as a result of service failure?

• 0-9.9%
• 10%-14%
• 15%-19%
• 20% and more

You should always ask yourself what customers are complaining about and how they are behaving towards you and your company.

Are customers complaining or are they saying nothing and leaving never to come back?

Are they just disappointed with your products or service because it is really not up to standard?

Do customers have something negative to say on…

• what you do or did not do?
• how or why you do it?
• when and where you do it?

You should regard customer complaints as an opportunity to make right what was not correct. Your customers will come back to your restaurant, retail shop and/or hotel after they have been dissatisfied and complained, if you have made the effort to improve the bad service.

Lesson 2: Resolving complaints

There are four steps that are particularly helpful in resolving customer complaints:

• Listening
• Knowing
• Speed
• Keep a log

Listening: Not just hearing, but actively listening to the issue. If possible digging deeper into the issue by asking questions. Sometimes customers are very angry and can sound agitated but, even in those situations, you can seek out insights and find the points of dissatisfaction. 

Some of the questions you could consider asking the customers are:

Questions for the customer:

Some of the questions you could consider asking the customers are:

Can you please tell me what do you mean by…? 

Such questions attempt to establish understanding

Can you provide an example? 

Asking for examples allows you to dig deeper into the areas where the needs, wishes and expectations were not met.

Questions for yourself:

We should also ask ourselves:

What other information do I need in solving this complaint?

This could assist you in working out a solution.

Why is this complaint important to the customer?

Often, the complaint is a result of a problem with an area in the business process. There could be a missing or inappropriate standard in that process.

Knowing:

Knowing and paying attention to identify the different types of customers that are complaining is an important factor in resolving the issue. Responding with politeness and avoiding mirroring their confrontational behaviour is a better option in handling customers that are aggressive.

Customers that keep contacting you

Always remain patient and do not be seen as frustrated if you have customers that keep contacting you.

Customers who do not wish to tell you more

Probably the hardest type will be those customers who do not wish to tell you more and they are likely to dine, shop or stay somewhere else. These are the ones that require efforts to reach them to regain their trust.

No complaints = No Problems?

No complaints may not always mean that there are no problems. Especially if you have noticed a drop in revenue. What you choose not to do can be as important as what you choose to do.

Speed:

Nothing is more important than speed in resolving customer complaints. Responding to a complaint must be swift. The longer it takes, the unhappier the customer will be. Taking too long to respond to a complaint also gives an impression that you do not care and are not sincere in resolving the problem.

Therefore, do not delay —act swiftly.

Keep a log:

Do not forget to log the complaint. This is to track trends and help you review processes and identify areas to improve.

High-volume complaints will require more attention and resources to resolve.

Now that you have successfully completed the unit you can immediately start to improve your customer service.