OPINION
The art of complaining Sometimes bypassing customer services and going straight to the top is the only way to resolve a complaint DEREK PICOT A HOTELIER FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS AND AUTHOR OF THE HOTEL DETECTIVE AND HIS LOVER
A 40
SEPTEMBER 2022
CONTACT THE BOSS know you are a valued customer. Tell them How should we express our comments good how much you spend with them, or why you or bad to make sure that they get attention? chose them on this occasion. Has customer relations offered a real solution Set a deadline by when you expect a reply to your problems in a timely manner? If not, (for business people, time is of the essence). what should you do? Finally, make sure you finish your letter Well, I would suggest you skirt past the correctly. You would be surprised about the complaints department and vent your number of times unpleasant notes to me have frustration directly with the head of the been signed off, “love”. organisation. Marcus Williamson knows how Business travellers constitute an important to reach them. He is the founder and editor segment of hotels’ and airlines’ business. If of CEOemail.com, a site that gives you direct you receive a reply but you still don’t think access to the head offices of your complaint has been a huge number of businesses successfully addressed, Let the organisation together with the top man there is no point in know you are a or woman’s email address prolonging an unsatisfactory and telephone number. He correspondence. If you are valued customer. Tell reports that CEOemail.com clear on your rights, take the them how much you receives up to 11,000 hits a issue further, perhaps to an spend with them day from customers. Ombudsman or similar However, before you fire authority where one exists. off your email to the CEO, it is worthwhile considering what constitutes LOST AND FOUND a well-structured complaint. There are Finally, here’s some useful several key points to make. information for those who Firstly, act quickly; strike complain about unreturned lost before the iron goes cold. property. Customers cannot Know your rights and don’t understand why a lost item is never exaggerate what happened. No automatically sent on when found. The one died, we hope, otherwise reason? Hotels can’t be sure who was with the police would be involved. Before writing, whom in a room and what relation they have condense your story and list the points you to one another. want to make with the most important one On a lighter note, an astonished room first. Getting everything onto one page helps attendant once found a prosthetic leg in a with clarity and gives the recipient an recently vacated room. I immediately rang the immediate picture of your grievance. client and asked if he was missing anything, Be as polite as you are able, avoid sarcasm perplexed as to how he could have left the and, most importantly, let them know how hotel without noticing. “Oh!” he replied. the experience affected you (again, don’t “You must have found my jogging leg – I exaggerate) and what you would like in wondered where I had left it.” For once, one compensation. It helps to let the organisation guest who wasn’t hopping mad with us.
BENJAMIN SOUTHAN
hotel manager’s mail is always a delight to read. Grumbling letters tumble through the letterbox at a rate of three complaints to every one compliment. It’s quite a ratio, and the petulant correspondence is the full spectrum; the food, the service, lost property, the bill, the room, the people, and even the weather. Complainants can be very rude. For example, I once received a note which read: “Compared to your hotel in Athens – this place is a cowshed.” I replied by thanking him for his kind remark about the hotel in Athens and then added that I had visited many cowsheds and in my opinion, the particular one I was managing was the most luxurious cowshed I had ever seen. Another correspondent complained about the programming on the local TV station after the 9pm watershed, which included some inappropriate offerings. “Do you realise children are up at this hour?” he asked rhetorically. I did, but I wasn’t expecting his next line. “Mine weren’t,” he wrote, “but I got them up especially to see the sort of rubbish that goes on while they are asleep.” I couldn’t think of a reply to this, so instead arranged for his television to be unplugged. Not all problems are so easily solved. One guest wrote: “Dear Sir, I wish to complain about absolutely everything…” And he went on to do exactly that. Even praise can come with a sting in the tail. One guest wrote in glowing terms about the quality of the hotel linen and at the end of his letter added: “…and the towels were so fluff y we could hardly pack them into our suitcase”. I didn’t hear from him again, even after we had levied a late charge on his credit card for sundry items stolen.