This blog is meant to address some short comings in the guest experience I have witnessed as well as the constant struggle companies are in to define, teach, and empower the employees to provide resolutions.
In my experience every company worth their weight will have some sort of program for addressing guest concerns. It’s usually some acronym that identifies the adjectives of guest resolution and the timeline in which to execute the points in a manner befitting the organization, S.T.A.R.S., L.A.S.T. and the like. These axioms of the guest service world are designed to help a front line employee correctly address a guest issue or for a company to hang its flag from. I enjoy hearing each but each has the same intention; Treating the customer/guest with a genuine concern and correct the issue while displaying proper manners.
That’s all I as a guest really wants. When I have a poor guest experience, I want someone to care about it that isn’t the manager. I want the service provider (whomever that maybe) to care that I am dissatisfied. I want them to care not because as a way of avoiding of a possible uncomfortable conversation they may have to endure after I have left or because they may have lost a tip but because they believe they did not do their best and they are contrite about it. It is common in our culture to shutter away and cathartically rationalize poor performance or mistakes as ‘just a bad day’ or ‘They came in pissed’. I just don’t think this is a very healthy attitude and continues to hinder true progress of a company.
Understanding the mindset of the individual and providing an opportunity to make mistakes without penalty maybe the only way to change this dynamic. Considering this, why aren’t there more acronyms and development tools for frontline managers to exhibit and employ to encourage real sympathy for an unsatisfied guest? It seems that the ability to shift the responsibility from our own responsibility is our entire fault. When we pass the buck in a hierarchal system and fail to accept our own responsibility in a team setting we create the eventual front line employee into a autobot, incapable of expressing sympathy and empathy as the constant waves of berating form their supervisors have eroded any ability to comprehend the obvious.
It is the organizational structure and the culture of the organization that supports the lateral movement of information and accountability that will encourage a genuine care a front line employee should exhibit towards an effected party.
Sounds easy right?
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