To reduce the probability of a complaint being made it is important for all staff to follow the established policies and procedures. Failing to adhere to the rules opens up the orgainsation to complaints.

Work through pages 38-55  and 56-78 of your workbook to begin to understand some organisational standards for delivering services in the following areas:

• Presentation and Hygiene

• Acceptable Speech

• Inclusive Customer Service

• Professional Standards 

• Building a Rapport

• Listening Skills

• Promptly Meeting Needs and Requests

• Customers with Special Needs

• Providing Supplier and Manufacturer Information

• Conveying Product/Service Information

• Urgent Needs

Customers from diverse cultural backgrounds provides some challenges but it also provides some wonderful opportunities to expand your understanding and improve your customer service.

Read the information (left) about communication with customers from diverse cultural backgrounds and discuss with the class some interesting points that you gained. 

You may come across customers in the industry that are quite difficult, even abusive. You may use the following three steps to help contain the situation:

1. Train in using de-escalation techniques

• Use positive language

• Thank the customer for bringing the issue to your attention

• Tell the customer what you’ll do to help them

2. Teach customer service best practices

• Let frustrated customers vent

• Apologise

• Offer a discount or refund if possible

3. Make psychological safety a top priority

You should always remember that your supervisor is there to help in these situations and should be engage with at any time you feel that you need support with a difficult customer.

Choose one of the following areas and research policies and procedures within the entertainment indusry to do with this area: Create a Word document that outlines what the area is and how businesses approach them in terms of policies and procedures.

– loyalty programs

– presentation standards for documents and promotional materials

– pricing and service guarantees

– product quality

– refunds and cancellation fees

When a customer approaches you with an inquiry, you may not always be the most appropriate person to deal with their inquiry. As part of your job, you should be aware of who, in your organisation, is responsible for the different areas and be able to competently direct customers to the right person. This would include times when another staff member is more experienced than you in a certain area and would be more suitable to handle the situation.

You should also be able to inform the customer of the relevant policies in regards to the engagement of different levels of personnel to resolve complaints, disputes, service issues and customer compensation.

To ensure that you are continuing to maintain quality customer service it is essential to collect customer feedback. This can be done either formally through official surveys, interviews with customers and structured questioning. You can also collect valuable information informally through observation and casual disucssions. 

Whatever method you use to collect feedback, this information is very helpful in continuing to improve your service and should be done on a regular basis. 

Work through pages 104-109 of your workbook.