In today’s world, liking, commenting, and rating are considered normal and there are no exceptions for food and beverage businesses no matter how good your restaurant is. Complaints or requests from customers are unavoidable like the truth of life, but one thing that separates a good restaurant from a normal restaurant is a professional way of handling the customers’ complaints professionally. Therefore, the current restaurant business owner must learn how to handle the customer’s complaints so that when problems have occurred, they can solve problems appropriately.
Customer’s complaint about restaurant is something that never ends.
Regardless of how good the restaurant is, if customers are not satisfied, complaint may be arisen. As the restaurant owner, you should learn what might happen. For example, in the first case, the coffee shop is complained by customers that the drinks are served slow and the seats are not enough during rush hours or the second case, customers complained that the foods are pricey, or the prices are not shown in the menu. These are the complaints often made by customers or it can be about small matters like the taste of food and beverages that are not pleasing, or things like utensils such as glasses and dishes that they do not like, which can lead to a big complaint.
Restaurant complaints can be done in the face but not on social media!
The most important thing in the present time is that once something has been posted online or in the social media world, it would definitely not go away quickly. If your restaurant is once complained then shared on social media, it would become a big issue or drama in the social world, and it would mean that you dig a hole to bury your own restaurant as thousands of people on social media would come out and complain about your restaurant, which certainly affect your reputation and the sales. Negative vibe is the first thing to avoid for all the restaurants. Therefore, if encountering an incident where the customer complaint arisen, the restaurant should clear all the issues with the customers and deal with problems as soon as possible and within the restaurant itself.
Let’s learn about the reasons of customer complaints.
Reasons that often cause complaints or matters that displease customers to visit the restaurant are usually due to 3 main reasons:
1. Food and beverage
The first problem could be as simple as the food or beverage that is served to customers. Firstly, it’s about the taste and quantity received that may not meet their expectations or for the worse matter, it is when regular customers found that the quantity and taste of food in the restaurant have changed. These kinds of matters that the customer will not speak out directly. Therefore, when you notice that the customers are not happy, you should inquire and quickly ask their opinions. One thing that should never happen is the customers find foreign objects in their food. If this happens, you must manage it and find ways to compensate them as soon as possible.
2. Due to the service of staff
The problem of people management is a big issue, whether the service is slow that often causes customers to become annoyed and dissatisfied with the service or the staff is not polite such as using vulgar words or gestures that make customers uncomfortable, which spoil the food at the restaurant. Matters like serving food to the wrong table, wrong cooking queue, wrong customer queuing are big problems that happen on a regular basis, especially, when many customers are coming in. As a business owner, it is necessary to have knowledge, competency, and determination to work due to issues with staff or people, which are difficult to solve once occurred.
3. Problems occurred due to “customers”
When problems occurred from this matter, it is considered hard because it means that the restaurant hasn’t done anything wrong, but it is an external factor that caused problem, which is the customer and it is something that is beyond control as sometimes the customers who visit the restaurant may have bad manners or are in a bad mood before visiting and while receiving the service at the restaurant, when they feel that something is not right, they would complain, even though it may be for small matters such as the seat is not comfortable, the air conditioner is too cold or many other reasons. Of course, this kind of matter cannot be resolved at the root cause and something you can do is to encourage your staff in the restaurant by making them understand that “the customer is the customer regardless of what you say, you lose”.
Resolve the situation of customers complaining about your restaurant easily with LAST + P techniques
With 5 simple principles, which can solve the situation of customer complaints
L Listen with real intentions
Before responding to customers, you should start by listening to what customers have to say without interruption then start responding with an apology. Because the important thing is that the customer is angry. To make an angry person listen, you must start by making them let out their anger first. Focus on capturing details about what customers are not happy about and what are the things that they would like to fix. Stay humble and let the customer know that you are sorry to be a part of whatever makes him or her upset.
A Apologize Sincerely
After the customer has finished complaining, you must apologize to the customer. The apology must be expressed in both the tone of voice and the gesture of expression, showing that you really are guilty. Even if the client’s reasoning is unreasonable or the client is rude, you must endure as “customer is always right”.
S Solve the problem immediately
The important thing about solving problem is, you must show the customer that you are handling the problem immediately, which shows that you care about the customer’s feelings and are able to solve or reduce the customer’s dissatisfaction.
T Treat and create friendship to keep customers
After the problem is successfully solved, you should ask the customer their contact number and their name to follow up later. This is the method to increase the chances of “reconciliation” with customers when all problems are resolved. To be able to call back to customers and report the progress of the amendment and also to invite customers back to the restaurant by offering them free vouchers to enjoy the food free of charge.
P Protect and prevent the recurrence of the incident
Once the problem with the customer is resolved, it is time to check the internal problems to see what caused the problem then, find a way to prevent it from occurring in the future, such as if there are foreign objects in the food, it is time to check food storage, cooking equipment and kitchen cleanliness to prevent the recurrence of the same incident in the future.
For the restaurant business, complaints from customers are unavoidable. But as a business owner, learning and finding a way to prevent problems and minimize customer’s complaint is something you must do. One thing that helps to prevent complaining is glasses for quality drinks, which reduce the chance of breakage, clean and beautiful. Ocean has a variety of glasses for you to choose from, whether stylish, tall glass for water like Connexion Hi Ball or Pyramid Long Drink glass that is suitable for cold drinks to calm the customer down. Let beautiful glasses of good quality help you prevent complaints from customers.
Learn about restaurants for a better experience with Ocean Glass.
Inquire about all kinds of beverage for your restaurant at
