Over the years of professional experience of Group La Meridiana in the hotel sector, it  has been possible to largely illustrate the concept of reception and the paramount importance in any facility is to show in what form this key concept should be declined in a well managed hotel and attentive to the needs of its guests. 

The intriguing mechanism of the hotel consists of countless gears that only if well-oiled leads to the highest quality of performance. Since the hotel is a facility that provides services primarily through human interaction it does not always offer the constant quality and satisfactory results. For these reasons, there is the need of a good customer care service aimed at the establishment of management systems of the complaint and implementation and the systems for recovery of service.

The greatest resources of a hotel are in fact his guests. They are welcomed flawlessly and put at ease in order to make their stay unforgettable. These are of course the good intentions of every good host but it is not always possible to get 100% satisfaction from the customer. That’s why it is so important to have a proper handling of their claims.

Every dissatisfied customer has the right to present his grievances to the hotel’s management and it is the duty the hotelier to rectify them and humbly take note of the mistakes and shortcomings of the services. Customer complaints must therefore be read as a second chance to do better and to limit the inefficiencies of the system. A good recovery, next to an appropriate grievance, will make the customer pleasantly surprised and encouraged to return demonstrating loyalty to the structure that has done its utmost to solve any kind of problem he has encountered during his stay.

For this reason, the Group La Meridiana is committed constantly organizing seminars and training for its employees by recognizing the importance of proper management of the complaints within the services sector and more specifically the hotel reality.

A structure is primarily an organization that provides services. Customer satisfaction is defined as equality between perceived performance and expected performance and can result in dissonance or consonance. In the first case the expectations of the customer have not been met: the service provided by the hotel was not up to the customer’s standards. If you detect a consonance this means that the expectations of the customer have been met.

It also introduces the concept of customer’s gap. This is the discrepancy between expected service and perceived service. Where expected service is the expected level of service that the customer expects to receive, is the service desired. It’s a mix between what in the opinion of the customer “can” and “should be” based on the expectations that you created or he was induced to create.

When there is a discrepancy between the customer’s expectations and the services received the complaint comes and the management of it. Below the Group La Meridiana lists a few measures that should be taken into consideration during the claims management procedure.

1 Complaints and Suggestions Management

The management of complaints and suggestions action is essential to the hotels for more reasons: first it improves the service in light of the considerations coming from the host, providing remedies and corrective or preventive actions; on the other hand, it  improves customer satisfaction and consensus around the same management and the services provided, making it a way to monitor more generally the quality of services and to spread the image of a company focused on the needs and feedback of its guests.

2 Encourage the claim

Encourage and remove barriers including through the provision of collection points of the reports very visible thus facilitating ‘the guests in the expression of their complaints and suggestions. Users will present complaints only if they have the feeling that the organization listens to the comments and use them, so if you will not reclaim the perception that their contribution is useless. The organization will make clear that complaints are welcome, they will be studied carefully, they will be answered. The information will be used to improve the service and the fact that they have complained will not result in discrimination or retaliation by staff.

3 Claims procedures

Claims procedures should be formalized and shared to encourage the quick fix with the easy and available forms to fill out for the presentation of the written complaint/suggestion and providing the answer mode with terms and timetable.

4 Staff training

Treat the attitude of the operators against the complaint: the functionality of a system for handling complaints, in fact, is guaranteed not only by the formal procedure but also by the attitude of the operators who must understand that the management of complaints is a part of an integral activity of customers care and not annoying intrusion. Recognizing the benefits of a good system for handling complaints and meaning the complaint as an opportunity both to “fix things” with respect to the individual user will improve the service.

The Group La Meridiana devotes great space to train its staff constantly organizing seminars to emphasize the importance of handling complaints in the correct direction, helping their staff to understand and caring for their attitude toward claims and suggestions.

So, how do you ensure customer satisfaction? One possible technique shown in the course of the experience in the hotel industry by the Group La Meridiana is “loyalty”. It has been shown that the tolerance zone of a regular (and loyal) customer is generally larger than that of an occasional customer, in fact a frequent visitor. He is aware of the often cited difficulties in ensuring a standard of service and he will be more willing to accept some variability in performance. The idea is to show that proper claims management can be a winning strategy for customer retention. To ensure that a dissatisfied customer can paradoxically become a loyal customer, you must first listen to his grievances and encourage them, establishing the formal complaint procedures as modules clear and easy to find and train operators at direct contact with customers to deal with the grievances professionalism.

The hotelier has a chance to redeem himself from the mistakes. Claims management creates a dual opportunity: opportunity to make a disappointed customer satisfied and make customers happy future regulars with greater efficiency. In the next article it will be treated the subject of “The recovery of the service”, through the suggestion of some useful tips from Group La Meridiana to make dissatisfied customers become loyal customers.