What I learnt about customer service from a restaurant's mistake...

What to do when something goes wrong.

I was enjoying a meal at one of South Africa’s more prestigious hotels with my girlfriend recently, when horror of horrors I came across a small piece of steel wool in the food. Fortunately I’m not one of those people who is crazily freaked out by something like this, but it wasn’t a positive experience either. When the waiter came by, I politely told him about what I’d found, stating that I wasn’t upset, but that I did want them to know what happened so they could avoid the same thing happening again.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard the owners and managers try, no business is perfect. Systems fail. People make mistakes. Partners / suppliers / couriers let us down. Products arrive from the factory missing an accessory, or incorrectly boxed. As much as we strive for perfection, the truth is that there will always be errors that need to be dealt with.

The way the manager at this restaurant handled my situation is a good example of what to do when things do go wrong. The waiter immediately called the manager, who came over and apologised. He gave me the meal for free, and dessert and tea / coffee. Throughout he was apologetic, honest and open with me.

What specifics can we learn from this?

1. Make sure your staff know what problems need to be escalated, and who to escalate them to. In this case the waiter immediately called the manager, I didn’t have to ask.

2. Apologise immediately, and keep the customer informed. The waiter immediately apologised, and told me he was calling the manager. Nothing is more frustrating to me than an employee passing a customer on to management in a disdainful way.

3. Be honest. The manager told me straight up that they do their absolute best to make sure everyone has an amazing experience, but that these things do happen and that the hotel does it’s best to sort out the customer when they do. Had he lied to me, saying that “This never happens, I can’t believe what went wrong”, it would have only frustrated me. People aren’t stupid, don’t treat them like they are.

4. Take responsibility for the problem, and make amends. The manager told me immediately that he was sorry this has happened, and that he would not charge me for that meal, and offered us free coffee and dessert. He also asked specifically if I was happy with this offer, and if there was anything else he could do.

5. Promise to take steps to prevent a future repeat. At our first conversation, the manager promised to talk with the chef and kitchen staff and reiterate how careful they need to be.

6. Follow up with the customer, and provide feedback on what’s been done. At the end of the meal, the manager again approached me to check I was happy with everything, and confirmed that he had spoken with the chef and kitchen staff.

Obviously, I wasn’t thrilled to find something of a non-food nature in my food, especially at an expensive, high end place! However, the managers quick, honest and thoughtful response effectively dealt with the situation - I would not hesitate to go to this restaurant again. Since then, I’ve been thinking about how we can improve our responses in the small percentage of times that things do go wrong. Yes, we strive for perfection on every order - but we’ll never get there - so dealing effectively when things do go wrong is critically important.

Let us know in the comments what experiences you’ve had with companies where a problem was handled either effectively or poorly? Also tell us where we handled your problem effectively or poorly, at Prophecy.co.za.

Comments

[Firestarter]

I had lunch at a coffee house a while back. I chose this place because they are the only place that serve a certain dish that I am very fond of.

After having had some coffee we ordered and awaited our food with great anticipation. To my dismay the 2x the wrong order arrived.

So I politely inform the waitress of the blunder but offer to take the meal anyway as it looked tasty as heck. She insisted that the problem be corrected and informed the manager.

After about 10 minutes said manager appeared informing me that the now crying waitress which he did not hesitate to call to the table, had to pay for the food. I told the guy without a hint of decency that he was an absolute twat and that we were happy to take the wrong order and pay for it.

Upon leaving I gave him a clear indication that he would be hearing from the shop owner soon after as he happened to be a family friend.

This i guess is on the opposite end of the scope.
I can't fathom how as a manager you attempt to "guild trip" your patrons...

[Paul Johnston]

Yeah that's definitely the wrong extreme :( Personally, I think there is a place for employees being responsible for their mistakes in some way, but they made some critical mistakes in your example. Thanks for contributing your comment!