1.4 Handling Customer Feedback and Complaints

THE SERVICE RECOVERY PHILOSOPHY

Many service businesses have adopted principles of quality assurance (QA) and have created formal quality control systems, i.e., procedures, policies, methods, and processes to guarantee the delivery of consistent good quality products or services to their customers. In quality assurance, the focus is on satisfaction through continuous improvement of the product and constant checks on service delivery using customer feedback to know what is going right or wrong.

It is well known that service recovery plays an important role in influencing future customer behaviors including customer word of mouth; customer defection or exit or switching to other brands; and repurchase and revisit intention. Thus, service recovery has a significant bottom line financial impact on our wineries in North Carolina.

Commitment to service recovery involves the following strategies:

• 1. recognizing, researching, and reacting to customer complaints,

  2. honoring promises of product and service performance,

  3. sharing information on the performance and credibility of the business and its staff, and

  4. taking considerable steps to regain consumer trust in a brand after a service failure.

Research has shown that companies are more successful when they invite feedback (both positive and negative) from customers and when they make it relatively easy for customer complaints to be heard and resolved as soon as possible. The following diagram helps us to understand what happens in each of four scenarios.

Looking at this diagram, you see on the horizontal line that customers can range in their personality type from feeling uncomfortable ever complaining to having no problem complaining when service issues arise. On the business side, companies can make it easy for customers to know how and where to complain, or at the other end, companies can make it almost impossible to complain to someone about a service failure.

We call customers who don't like to complain and who also wind up in a business that doesn't invite complaints, Missing in Action. They will be upset and leave, and you will never know why. On the other hand, people who are good "complainers' but can't find out how to complain to a business, tend to become Sour Grapes and instead complain through social networks and negative word of mouth to friends and acquaintances.

For those companies that do a better job of inviting customer feedback, we have to nurture the Walking Wounded customers and watch for opportunities to reassure these naturally shy complainers that it is really okay to give feedback. Our most positive outcome is the Champions group; they don't mind to give feedback or complain and really appreciate it when the company listens and takes care of their service issues.

The basic point of this section is that you need to find ways to invite customer feedback and to understand that customer feedback is a vital part of the data that your winery needs to achieve an excellent reputation. The next section will go over ways to actually handle a customer complaint. At this point, you are ready to check what you remember about service recovery. What answers do you prefer for the following questions?

1. Which of the following are critical aspects of quality assurance systems?

a. continuous improvement of products and services

b. constant checks on service delivery quality

c. use of customer feedback to assess service quality

d. all of the above

2. One of the important outcomes of an effective service recovery system is:

a. encouraging customers to complain to friends rather than to the company

b. regaining customer trust after a service failure has been handled successfully

c. hiding information about the service performance of a company

d. making it harder for customers to complain to a business

3. Customers willing to complain who find that the company is willing to listen, can become:

a. Walking Wounded

b. Missing in Action

c. Sour Grapes

d. Champions

The answers are: 1. d; 2. b; and 3.d.

HANDLING A CUSTOMER COMPLAINT

Many instances of service recovery will arise during regular encounters between you and your guests; these are the times where you will be asked to respond to customer complaints. Your job as a winery tasting room professional is to support both immediate problem resolution and the more generalized communication of service assurance to customers. By adopting an attitude of courtesy and empathy in these situations you are helping to rebuild consumer trust in the brand.

Of course, every winery will have its own policy on who handles each part of the service recovery process in different complaint situations. You may be asked to send all complaints to a supervisor or manager on duty at the winery. That being said, if guests do complain directly to you, there are some important skills that you need to handle service recovery in the best way possible.

These skills comprise: managing emotions, offering a sincere apology, listening carefully, and personalizing the recovery outcome. These are the top skills to master for you to be able to handle service recovery situations effectively in your tasting room. The following video will walk you through each skill in more detail.

Now that you have finished the video, check your knowledge with the following questions:

1. When handling guest complaints, you can effectively manage emotions in the situation by:

a. viewing the complaint as an insult to your personal professional reputation

b. letting all the other customers see you argue with the problem guest

c. accepting the customer's complaint as one made in good faith

d. telling the customer he or she has no right to complain

2. A sincere apology to a guest normally involves:

a. inviting the customer to leave the winery as soon as possible

b. telling the guest that you are genuinely sorry there was a problem

c. telling the guest all the reasons he or she is wrong

d. making the guest feel as though the complaint was too small to bother with

3. One effective way to personalize a service recovery for a winery guest is to:

a. avoid using his or her name in any service recovery activities

b. give the guest a generic excuse, "oh that happens all the time, it's nothing new"

c. throw your hands up in the air and ask "What makes you so special?"

d. present a possible solution or two to them and ask for their opinion

Check your answers as follows: 1. c; 2. b; and 3. d.

Congratulations! You have reached the end of the first module. When you are ready, click on the following to move to Module 2.

MODULE 2: The Process of Guiding a Wine Tasting