During the operation of catering enterprises, customers often complain. The appearance of customers' complaints shows that enterprises still do something in service, which makes customers feel dissatisfied. Once a complaint occurs, catering enterprises need to be able to handle it quickly and properly. If handled properly, it can not only leave a good corporate image in the hearts of customers, but also gain the trust of customers. On the contrary, it will not only lead to the loss of customers, but also bring bad reputation to enterprises. Therefore, as a service-oriented catering enterprise, customers' complaints must be treated and handled correctly.

First, three misunderstandings of catering enterprises' complaints to customers

Myth 1: Treating "no customer complaints" as "no fault service" Customer complaints can be divided into "as complaints" and "as complaints". "Complaining about inaction" means that when customers are dissatisfied, they will not take further actions like "complaining about actions", but try to forget this dissatisfied experience; Due to the influence of complaint cost, complaint channel and complaint uselessness, many customers will not take complaint action even when complaining, but choose to leave silently and decide not to patronize in the future. Therefore, the absence of customer complaints does not mean that there are no customer complaints, and customer complaints are often covered up by the "inaction" of customers. It is obviously a misunderstanding for catering enterprises to regard customers' complaint-free as the embodiment of "fault-free service" and ignore customers' complaint of inaction.

Myth 2: There are two main reasons for taking "customer complaint" as "customer finding fault". In addition to customers' subjective dissatisfaction with products or services, it is often caused by service mistakes of enterprises. When service errors occur, angry customers often hope that catering enterprises can give appropriate psychological compensation and material compensation in service recovery, such as apologizing, changing dishes, giving discounts or even exempting orders. But catering enterprises are usually unwilling to pay such compensation, especially material compensation. In their view, complaints are purely customers' fault-finding behavior. They think that the purpose of customer complaints is not to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests, but to take advantage of catering enterprises through complaints. We don't deny that some customers do have this psychological motivation, but it is obviously a misunderstanding for catering enterprises to classify all customer complaints as "deliberately finding fault" indiscriminately.

Myth 3: Treat "complaint handling" as "loss of profit". In order to make customers handle complaints satisfactorily, catering enterprises often need to spend some time, energy and money. Therefore, many enterprises believe that "complaint handling" will only increase costs and will not create profits. This is also the fundamental reason why catering enterprises are unwilling to take customer complaints seriously. But in fact, complaint handling can not only make catering enterprises pay all kinds of costs, but also bring more income to enterprises, including repeated consumption by customers and marketing expenses shared by customers for many times, so as to avoid increasing marketing expenses to attract new customers because of the continuous loss of old customers. Therefore, catering enterprises regard complaint handling as a kind of loss of profit, apparently without considering the opportunity cost of complaint handling, which is a short-sighted behavior lacking long-term vision.

Second, the benefits of customer complaints to catering enterprises

Because there are many misunderstandings about customer complaints, catering enterprises often do not welcome customer complaints, and sometimes even avoid them. However, if we look at customer complaints from another angle, we will find that customer complaints actually have many benefits for catering enterprises. According to statistics, no matter whether the customer's complaints are solved or not, the return rate of customers who complain is higher than that of customers who don't complain 19%, which shows that the loss of catering enterprises is greater than that of customers who don't complain. In addition, customers who don't complain will pass on their dissatisfaction with catering enterprises to people around them. Studies have shown that 1 dissatisfied catering customer will affect the patronage of 25 potential customers. Therefore, in terms of the potential impact on catering enterprises, customer complaints are better than no complaints. To sum up, the main "victory" lies in the following aspects.

Help to retain customers. According to the estimation of American Management Institute, the profit of 1 old customers is 20% ~ 85% more than that of 1 new customers, and the cost of attracting 1 new customers is six times that of retaining 1 old customers. Therefore, catering enterprises should try their best to retain customers as much as possible and prevent customers from losing. Customer complaints are actually sending two kinds of information to catering enterprises: one is to continue to buy the products of catering enterprises; Second, I hope that catering enterprises can solve the problems they encounter immediately. Whether customers' grievances can be calmed down and whether they will patronize again in the future depends on the attitude of catering enterprises to customers' complaints at this time and the degree of solving the problems encountered by customers. If the problem is solved quickly and well, most customers will still become repeat customers. A former CEO of American Express said, "A dissatisfied customer is an opportunity." Customer complaints are not terrible. As long as catering enterprises can seize this opportunity and remedy their mistakes in time, they can win customers' satisfaction again and achieve second success. Therefore, catering enterprises encourage customers to complain and treat and deal with them correctly, which is helpful to retain customers and win their trust.

Help to win word of mouth. There are usually two kinds of consequences caused by service mistakes, one is the loss of customers, and the other is the formation and spread of bad word of mouth. The negative impact of the latter is greater than that of the former, because it is directly related to the image of catering enterprises. Once the corporate image is broken, it will affect the patronage of potential customers and even real customers. Therefore, catering enterprises should treat and deal with customer complaints seriously, eliminate customer complaints within catering enterprises as much as possible, and avoid the formation and spread of bad word of mouth from the source. To eliminate customer complaints and prevent the formation and spread of bad word of mouth, catering enterprises should do two things well when dealing with customer complaints: first, give customers an opportunity to vent their dissatisfaction; The second is to make quick and satisfactory service recovery. Many complaint cases show that as long as catering enterprises do these two things well, customer satisfaction will be greatly improved. Not only that, some satisfied customers will even do free publicity for catering enterprises, thus establishing a good reputation for catering enterprises.

Help to open up new markets. With the intensification of industry competition and the formation of buyer's market, whether catering enterprises can gain a firm foothold in the market and seek greater development mainly depends on whether the products or services they provide can meet the needs of customers well. From this perspective, if catering enterprises want to meet the needs of customers well, they must first clearly know "what customers need". Because the requirements of customers vary from person to person, and the needs of customers will change with the passage of time, it is not easy for catering enterprises to truly understand "what customers need", and it is often troublesome to invest a certain cost. Comparatively speaking, customer complaint is the most effective and economical way for catering enterprises to understand customer needs. According to Bearden and Thiel's research, about 65,438+05% of the reasons that cause customers to complain are complaints. If we study these demands carefully, it will help catering enterprises to explore new markets.

Third, the management of customer complaints.

Handling customer complaints will bring many benefits to catering enterprises, so it is necessary for catering enterprises to strengthen the management of customer complaints.

Encourage customers to complain. According to statistics, an enterprise has about 10% ~ 12% dissatisfied customers on average, but only 5% of them will complain or complain. The main reasons why customers don't complain are high complaint cost, blocked complaint channels, invalid complaints and fear of worse service. Therefore, catering enterprises must also encourage customers to complain if they want to receive more complaints from customers about "gifts". First of all, catering enterprises should create a corporate culture of "welcoming customer complaints". From top managers to ordinary employees, we should take a welcome attitude towards customers' complaints, treat complaining customers as friends and treat their complaints as gifts. Secondly, it is not difficult to minimize the expenditure and intermediate links of customer complaints and let customers know about the complaints. If the complaint cost is too high or the complaint procedure is too complicated, customers will often give up the complaint. Third, design a reward system to reward customer complaints. On the one hand, it can mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of customer complaints; On the other hand, it also expresses the importance and gratitude of catering enterprises to customer complaints.

Handle customer complaints. In order to handle complaints smoothly and truly satisfy customers, catering enterprises should do the following work: First, establish an organizational structure for handling customer complaints. Among the many reasons why dissatisfied customers don't complain, it is also an important reason that customers don't know who to complain to. The establishment of complaint handling institutions, on the one hand, provides convenience for customer complaints, on the other hand, it also helps catering enterprises to handle customer complaints more efficiently. Second, targeted training for front-line employees. According to statistics, 65% of customer complaints accepted by enterprises are received by front-line employees who directly provide goods or services to customers. The service ability of front-line employees often has a vital impact on the development trend of complaints. A trained front-line employee can "roll with the punches" customer complaints. And a frontline employee who lacks training can not only quell customer complaints, but may "add fuel to the fire" to customer complaints. Therefore, it is necessary for catering enterprises to focus on training front-line employees in oral communication skills, listening to customers' complaints, how to apologize to customers, analyzing customers' problems, taking preliminary actions and changing rules. Third, give front-line employees certain rights to improve the flexibility and creativity in handling customer complaints. As long as any employee thinks it is necessary, he can appease dissatisfied customers with extra expenses not exceeding the prescribed limit of the restaurant, and grant certain rights to front-line employees, which will help front-line employees solve customers' problems quickly and flexibly. If front-line employees always have no right to deal with customers' problems, it is easy for customers to doubt the sincerity of catering enterprises in handling complaints. Fourth, provide financial support for service recovery. Service recovery often requires catering enterprises to pay certain spiritual compensation and material compensation. Mental compensation is relatively easy to do, as long as you sincerely apologize and appease, it will not cause any losses to catering enterprises. However, catering enterprises care about material compensation and think that material compensation is the increase of cost, so they are usually reluctant to invest in material compensation. In the eyes of customers, without substantial material compensation, it is superficial for catering enterprises to give even the best spiritual compensation. Therefore, catering enterprises should give appropriate financial support in service recovery and give material compensation without hesitation or stint, so as to fully demonstrate the sincerity and determination of catering enterprises in handling customer complaints.

Summarize customer complaints. In terms of customer complaints, many catering enterprises think that customers are satisfied and the work is over. However, in the long run, this work is not over. Another job that catering enterprises have to do is to summarize customer complaints. The purpose of handling customer complaints is not only to satisfy the customers who are complaining, but more importantly, to sum up some experiences and lessons from them and apply them to customer service to minimize the recurrence of customer complaints. It is precisely because of the lack of summary of customer complaints that some catering enterprises fail to improve their service level, which leads to frequent customer complaints, and sometimes even repeated complaints by customers because of the same problem.

To summarize customer complaints, catering enterprises can start from two aspects: first, establish a system of recording, sorting, classifying and analyzing customer complaints. The content should include the cause of the complaint, the course of the incident, the handling method, the customer's feelings, etc. The second is to organize management and ordinary employees to analyze customer complaints and learn from them, so as to provide better products and services for customers in future work.