What should we do in such a situation? Can it be prevented?
In the eyes of many catering bosses, customers will only complain if the quality of the dishes is unstable or unexpected. In fact, sometimes even if there is no problem with the dishes, you will often encounter complaints.
So what kind of customers will complain? What are the reasons for their complaint? What should I do when a complaint appears?
The first case
Non-target customer complaints
This kind of customers will complain if they don't adapt to the taste of food in the store.
For example, you cook a southern dish, which is famous for its light and refreshing taste, but the guest who complains is a northerner. In this case, there is nothing wrong with the food itself, but the "taste" is at work.
Case 1: The customer is not the target customer.
For example, a restaurant in Shanghai is dominated by Shanghai cuisine, supplemented by Huaiyang cuisine and local cuisine. Once, a guest at a table complained that their small yellow croaker and white crab were not fresh, that their food was tasteless, and asked for a refund.
The front office manager can't find a chef to solve it. After the chef inquired in detail, he realized that the guests at this table were from Ningbo. People along the coast of Ningbo have a strong taste. When they say seafood is fresh, they mean seafood is fresh, not "tasteless" in the eyes of Shanghainese.
The traffic conditions at that time were far worse than now. The small yellow croaker and white crab used in that restaurant are directly frozen after being caught in the East China Sea and then shipped to Shanghai. The freshness that the chef can guarantee is that there is no deterioration. Shanghai residents are used to eating such seafood, so no local guests report that seafood is not fresh.
Case 2: The target customer has changed.
Another situation is that good food is not suitable for stores.
A chef developed a new dish in a front shop, and the guests applauded and the ordering rate increased frequently. Later, he was entrusted with the task of trying out and training branch chefs in other branches. However, the same raw materials and cooking methods have not been well received by customers, but have been complained. This situation belongs to non-target customer complaints.
If there used to be a lot of spicy customers in your store, it may be that the hotter the food, the more customers like it. Even if the customers who are not spicy at ordinary times are straight-mouthed, they will not complain, because they know that this store is famous for its spicy taste.
Such guests are psychologically prepared to come to the store for consumption. If the main consumer groups around the store don't like spicy food now, copying it as it is is likely to be complained.
Most of these customers are foreign guests, who are on the edge or outside of the restaurant's positioning group and belong to the restaurant's non-target customers.
Treatment method:
Now that things have happened, we should face them positively. First of all, we should have a correct attitude and allow guests to express their dissatisfaction in a pleasant atmosphere. Chefs must not be impulsive, calmly analyze the truth, find the root cause and solve it properly.
To solve such complaints, the chef should first communicate with the front desk and suggest that when meeting similar customers, guide them to taste local dishes or things that customers often can't eat.
For the complaints that have happened, the waiter should explain them clearly to the customers before changing dishes. If the front hall is left unattended, guests will take it back to the kitchen directly if they say it is not fresh, which will cause contradictions between the front hall and the kitchen.
In the latter case, every time a chef goes to a new place, he must tailor the dishes according to the hobbies of special customers in different places, and must not copy the successful experience in the past.
Preventive measures:
In fact, these complaints can be avoided as long as certain methods are mastered.
First, according to the location and surrounding environment of restaurants, strictly locate the target consumer groups. In some hot shops, we can see that the customers who are full of praise for the dishes are definitely the target customers of the store, which requires the chef to develop dishes that meet their tastes according to the characteristics of the target customers, because the customers say yes, which is better than any commercial advertisement. Therefore, the positioning of dishes is crucial.
Secondly, the decoration style, commercial advertisements and opening publicity of restaurants, including shop signs, must match the dishes they operate. For example, a seafood city should make great efforts to publicize where your seafood is and how fresh it is. For example, a home-cooked dish, then you should publicize the local characteristics, so as not to complain that the customers who come in are not your target customers.
The second situation
Guests have different tastes.
Many chefs may have experienced such an example: a dish uses the same raw materials, the same seasoning and the same cooking method, but some people at a table say it well, some say it badly, or the same person has said it twice before, and this time it feels bad, so complaints appear.
But after the analysis of the chefs, there is really no problem with this dish. Why are there complaints?
In fact, this is the difference in taste.
Case 1: Some people say it tastes bad, while others follow suit.
A restaurant owner has encountered such a thing: one day, five guests came to the restaurant room and ordered several dishes at the suggestion of the waiter. When eating, the "host" politely asked the other guests how the food was, and all the guests smiled and said that they felt the food was average.
The "host" felt that the food was far from as good as the waiter introduced, so he asked the waiter to change it or discount it.
Case 2: Dish collocation is related to customer composition.
A restaurant received a complaint from a customer that all the dishes were very salty. Just as the chef was patrolling the front hall, he came forward to ask. At that time, all the dishes on the table had been served. When the chef saw that there were more women at this table, he gave priority to desserts and some hot dishes.
Treatment method:
In the first case, because of "different opinions", we should first analyze the combination of people at this table, because everyone's age, occupation, gender, cultural literacy, personal habits and so on are different, which may lead to obvious differences in taste (but some people naturally don't like a dish, so there is nothing we can do), and the main reason why the guests at this table complain is that the host or guests feel bad, and then everyone agrees that it is not good for them.
In the second case, as long as you glance at the dishes on the guest's table, you can find that the root cause of the complaint is that there are more women at this table, because the dessert and juice are finished in advance, and then the hot dishes served are too different from the previous sweetness, giving the customer a salty feeling. In this case, the waiter can make each of them a cup of tea and let them taste it after drinking, and the problem can be solved.
Preventive measures:
The key to solve this kind of thing lies in the good communication between the front desk and the kitchen. The waiter had better know as much as possible about the customer before ordering.
In addition, the difference of taste also changes with the change of seasons, such as spicy taste in spring, bitter taste in summer, sour taste in autumn and salty taste in winter. It may also be caused by taste fatigue. For example, guests order the same dish every time they come, and over time, they will feel that this dish is not as delicious as before.
These two situations are easy for customers to complain, so the kitchen should also develop more seasonal dishes and learn more about the taste differences brought about by seasonal changes. When seasoning, we should also adjust the taste difference with the change of seasons to meet the changing needs of customers.
The third situation
It's all expectation.
This factor can be divided into two types. In the first case, it generally means that a guest has eaten a dish in another restaurant and feels delicious. It happens that your restaurant also serves this dish, but if there are obvious differences in taste, atmosphere and weight between the two restaurants, guests may complain that "your food tastes wrong."
The second situation is the expectation of price. When a guest orders a dish, he doesn't pay attention to the price. He just casually said that he wanted this dish. When he pays the bill, he finds that the price of the food exceeds the psychological price, and he will complain on the grounds that the food is not delicious.
Case 1: measure the food ordered by other stores' standards.
One day, Xiao Li and others went to a restaurant for dinner. Just before they entered the restaurant, they shouted for a fish head with chopped pepper. But after a few bites, these guests shouted in the hall and asked the chef to make them an authentic fish head with chopped pepper.
Case 2: Complain when ordering food without looking at the price or paying the bill.
One day, Xiao Zhao invited friends from afar to dinner. When the waiter handed the menu and asked how to order, they didn't look at the menu, but ordered several dishes according to their own understanding of some dishes. The whole meal was full of pleasant atmosphere.
But there was an argument with the cashier at the checkout. Without controversy, they complained about the food (in fact, they wanted to get a discount).
Treatment method:
The former, because customers have recognized the dishes they have eaten in other people's homes, they will think that the fish heads with chopped peppers in the restaurant taste the same.
If the guest doesn't feel the expected effect after eating the fish head with chopped pepper, he will say: You can't make this fish head well. Faced with this situation, you can explain the characteristics of your dishes to customers in time.
Preventive measures:
Try not to imitate dishes that can't be imitated. If you want to imitate other people's dishes, you can repackage the name to highlight your own characteristics. You can also inform customers in advance and indicate their characteristics on the menu; Or inform the waiter and tell him clearly when ordering: this is our new dish and has not been officially promoted. Please try it first.
In this way, customers have a feeling of being respected. Even if you are not satisfied with the food, you will patiently put forward your own views and look forward to eating a satisfactory taste next time.