The challenges of the Big C – Customer Service

Some time ago, I went to Benin, in Edo State (Nigeria) for work.  On one of my days there, I decided to visit a hotel to work by their pool bar for a couple of hours. On getting there, I noticed that the chair provided outside of the bar area had no cushions, perhaps because of the threat of rain.  I looked inside the bar area and saw it was empty and the chairs had seat-pads. There were two members of staff on duty, who had not bothered to reply to my ‘Good evening’ greeting, as they were so engrossed in the football they were watching.  Nothing wrong with watching football, but there is an opportunity missing here to provide service to a guest.

Seeing that no one was coming to me, I went to the bar area to get a seat pad from one of the chairs and then one of the bar staff told me not to worry, that I could just take the chair out without bothering to remove the seat pad. This statement was mentioned casually,  seemingly simple and I was just about to say okay and proceed to carry the chair outside, but the tourism customer service trainer in me was like no, that is not right. So I asked her very politely, to take the chair out for me; which she did, grudgingly.

The experience left me wondering, “how have we gotten it so wrong in the hospitality sector that a member of staff who is not attending to anyone can choose to tell a customer to sort themselves out, unapologetically and with so much confidence, and how variants of this behaviour have become the norm? Is it that they were not trained when they were recruited, or that they decided that there was no need to actually provide customers with service?”  What’s more, in this particular instance, I ended up working for over an hour, and not once did someone come to ask me what I would like.

Again as someone in the industry, I see that as a lost revenue-generating opportunity for the establishment. Some might ask: “well, why didn’t I call for service?” That is a fair point, but then, the onus should be on the establishment to get people to purchase products, not the other way round. Perhaps, they have not made the connection between bar sales and their salaries at the end of the month.

There are several observations here: firstly, the lack of basic customer service, a willingness to assist the customer and provide decent service – this is not asking for people to go above and beyond, but simply to provide customer service at a basic level. The second is a connection to sales, where people can see that hospitality establishments can only be viable if people make purchases, and work hard to ensure a sale – not forcefully – but having someone sit at your pool bar should automatically involve a waiter going with the person, welcoming them and presenting them with a menu, discussing the specials for the day, and making recommendations for the guest to order. Thirdly is for stronger management, to make people responsible for their work, and results. I know this is not easy, but it is possible.

Training can help, but it can’t be a one-off occurrence; it needs to be part and parcel of the work environment. Some establishments do weekly sessions, others do role-play where staff are made to experience what it feels like to be a guest, and the best organizations have a dedicated continuing training plan focused on various themes and capabilities. These can be monthly or quarterly, but it provides a sense of continuous learning and development.

The best establishments are those where customer service appears to happen effortlessly, naturally, such that the guest feels satisfied that their outing has been a pleasant one, and money has been well spent in making this happen. Trust me when I say this takes a lot of work, investment and dedication on the part of management to make it happen.

Customer service can make or break a guest experience. Imagine spending so much money to build and decorate your establishment, and then scrimping on training the people who will run it?

I would love to hear from you. Tell me about your customer service experience in your hospitality and tourism establishment; what has worked, and what has not worked? Please leave a comment in the chatbox below, or send your response to tourism@redclayadvisory.com. You can also send me an email about a topic you would like my perspective on.

Best wishes,
Adun