How to Resolve Guest Complaints in a Positive Way

Handling and resolving guest complaints is an uncomfortable but vital task in the hotel industry. Employees who are trained in conflict resolution will be better equipped to de-escalate tense situations. Conflict resolution techniques are a combination of active listening, compromising, collaboration, and prompt action.

In a fast-paced environment such as a hotel, the way in which a staff member responds to a guest’s complaints will significantly impact the overall customer experience. An employee who uses the right words and reactions to mitigate a guest’s concern can transform their experience from ordinary to exceptional.

The following strategies will help your staff members respond to guest complaints politely and effectively.

1. Address Guest Concerns Head-On While Practicing Empathy

A guest’s concern should be taken seriously right from the start. A frontline employee is often the first point of contact for guests when dealing with hotel complaints. Employees should always give careful consideration to a guest’s concerns, even if they seem overly dramatic.

Some of the most common complaints in the hotel industry are:

• Poor guest service: Slow check-ins and check-outs or unfriendly or unhelpful staff.
• Slow Wi-Fi: Slow or absent Wi-Fi can make a guest feel frustrated and disconnected.
• Noisy environment: A noisy environment can impact a guest’s experience. Spaces such as guest suites, conference rooms, and spa areas should be designated as “quiet zones” to help guests feel more relaxed.
• Small or uncomfortable beds: Another major concern for hotel guests is small or uncomfortable beds. Guests expect to find a home-away-from-home while traveling, especially in luxury accommodations. Comfortable large beds with quality linens contribute to an enjoyable stay for guests.
• Uncleanliness or hygiene concerns: Untidy or unhygienic hotel rooms and common spaces, such as a hotel lobby or restaurant, can lead to guest dissatisfaction and poor guest reviews. Guests are much more likely to recommend a hotel if it’s clean, and 85% of guests consider cleanliness a primary factor influencing their overall experience.

Research shows that one of the best ways to address a guest’s concern head-on is to tackle the issue immediately and with empathy. Empathetic communication and good staff training can effectively address guest concerns.

Using the hospitality LMS by Axonify, a leading learning management system, helps hotel staff members quickly learn and acquire oral communication skills like active listening, empathy, clarity, diplomacy, and connection. These customer service skills are crucial for employees who deal with common hotel guest complaints in the hospitality industry every day.

2. Remain Calm and Practice Active Listening

Employees who work at a hotel should understand the value of giving guests their undivided attention while remaining calm. An employee with a positive outlook can help make a guest’s issue feel less overwhelming while still validating the guest’s feelings.

Active listening involves letting the guest vent fully without interruptions. This will show that a customer’s complaint has been addressed and respected. Remaining calm while practicing active listening may de-escalate a problem and ensure that a hotel guest feels seen, heard, and valued.

3. Avoid Shifting Blame or Making Excuses

Alongside remaining calm and collected when a guest voices their concerns, it’s important not to shift the blame or make excuses. Top organizational psychologists agree that blame culture endorses contempt, defensiveness, criticism, and even stonewalling. While it may be tempting for an employee to shift the blame to the customer, this is absolutely not the solution.

Rather than assigning blame or making excuses when dealing with guest concerns, employees can implement the following tactics:

• Take ownership of the issue and apologize. For example, if a guest’s room is not tidy, apologize with empathy.
• Take a proactive approach and offer solutions. Offer the guest a few solutions that will resolve their concerns, such as sending the hotel cleaning service to clean the guest’s room or offering the guest a different room.
• Follow up. Make sure to check back with the guest after the concern has been resolved. This will make them feel like you genuinely care about their concerns. This will also allow you to confirm that they are not experiencing any further issues.

4. Notify All Parties

When a guest makes a complaint, it’s important to notify all parties involved who can solve the issue. For example, if a guest complains about slow Wi-Fi in their room, an employee working at the front desk should immediately notify a manager. The manager should then decide whether or not it is necessary to notify the IT department.

Other examples of the process of notifying parties when an issue arises in a hotel are:

Problem: A guest complains about a leaky faucet at the front desk.

Notification process: The front desk employee notifies the manager and maintenance department to fix the issue collaboratively.

Problem: A guest complains about the quality of food to an employee waitstaff.

Notification process: The employee waitstaff notifies the restaurant manager, and the restaurant manager speaks with the chef. The issue is followed up by notifying the hotel manager if needed.

Problem: A guest complains to a bellboy that their room is untidy or unclean.

Notification process: The bellboy reports to the front desk staff, and the front desk employee calls room service to clean the room. The front desk employee could also handle the situation directly by offering the guest a new room.

Problem: A guest expresses direct concerns to a staff member who is being unfriendly.

Notification process: The staff member apologizes sincerely and attempts to de-escalate the problem head-on. If necessary, the employee reports the situation to their manager.

When a guest complains, employees should identify the problem and inform the relevant staff member(s). Notifying all responsible parties will help solve the issue faster and more effectively.

5. Document the Problem and Resolution

Employees should log and record the specifics of present and previous guests’ complaints, concerns, and resolutions during their shifts. This can help track a pattern of guest satisfaction or dissatisfaction and evaluate potential areas of improvement for the future. This documentation may then be used to assist staff in resolving common guest complaints that occur later.

Using a learning management system (LMS) allows staff to log and manage guest complaints all on one centralized hub. This gives both hotel managers and staff easy access to complaint details and ways the situation has been resolved in the past. Tracking and reporting guest complaints will also help employees avoid making the same mistakes moving forward.

6. Provide Employees With a Step-by-Step Guide

Providing hotel staff with a step-by-step guide is a tangible way to give clear-cut guidelines on how to handle guest complaints. For example, the guide could include short and straightforward solutions to help employees avoid hotel complaints that could potentially escalate into bigger issues.

The following concepts can be broken down into a step-by-step guide for handling guest complaints:

Step one: If a guest complains, try to address the concern on your own.

Step two: While addressing the guest’s complaint, practice empathy, calmness, and active listening. Avoid shifting blame to the guest. Take full accountability for the issue.

Step three: If necessary, notify all parties that will help solve the guest’s problem. For example, a front-desk employee notifying management or the IT department about issues with slow Wi-Fi.

Step four: Document the problem and resolution using software such as an LMS to identify patterns in guest complaints and concerns over time

7. Offer Financial Compensation

Most guest complaints can be handled in-house by practicing de-escalating techniques and solving the issue head-on. However, sometimes, if a hotel makes a bigger mistake, such as messing up reservations, a financial gesture to remediate the situation may be in order. Full or partial refunds, free stays, or extra loyalty points are ways to compensate for a major blunder to uphold the hotel’s reputation.

Handle Complaints Head-On for a Great Guest Experience

In a perfect world, no guest would ever complain about their experience within the hospitality industry. However, guest complaints will inevitably arise, and handling them head-on is key to de-escalation. Practicing active listening and empathy and offering the guest clear and straightforward solutions can also diffuse conflict.

Hospitality managers can provide employees with a step-by-step guide to help them learn effective ways to handle guest complaints. They can also use a hospitality LMS to provide targeted conflict-resolution training.

Resolution tactics and common guest issues can be tracked using a software system that allows employees to input details of each interaction and monitor progress over time. This will help transform potential pitfalls into opportunities to provide excellent service to future guests.