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Can
You Top This?
Listed below are outrageous examples of poor
or simply outstanding complaint handling. It is TMI's intention that each
one of these examples will increase your personal understanding of how
to improve your own complaint handling.
 PLASTIC CHICKEN
 Janelle Barlow, President of TMI, USA, recently
spoke at a conference in NewYork City which was held at one of the most
prestigious hotels in Manhattan. When she was served her plate of food
at the first day of the conference, she found something peculiar under
her chicken entree. She first thought it was a cabbage garnish, but her
knife wouldn't cut through it. Then, to her horror, she discovered it was
a big sheet of plastic. Obviously, the chicken had been wrapped in the
plastic, and the cooks had failed to remove it when preparing it. Janelle
called over a waiter, who did not look too happy with the situation. He
picked up the piece of plastic in a most ungainly manner, so that everyone
at the table got involved with this unappetizing gob of plastic. He apologized,
and then simply removed the plastic. He did not replace the food, which
would have been appropriate. Several people at the table lost their appetite
for their chicken at that moment. Because Janelle was speaking on the topic
of complaint handling at this conference, the table began to analyze how
the waiter had handled the situation, and everyone agreed, he didn't do
very well. Other waiters overheard this conversation and then came over
to see what was happening. At that point, Janelle received several apologies
from three hotel representatives, including the Food and Beverage Manager
who became involved. They all told Janelle this was not the standard of
the hotel--though clearly one would think this wouldn't be the standard
of any restaurant. Later on in the day, Janelle was again approached by
the Food and Beverage Manager who once more apologized and offered to send
to her room a small gift. Janelle received a platter of chocolate dipped
strawberries and a bottle of wine. The following day, she received yet
another apology.
How could this have been handled better? Actually,
overall the sheer volume of the apologies and the "small gift" was notable
and handled very well. The initial display of the plastic and reluctance
to say anything by the first waiter created a huge hurdle for the hotel
to overcome. What's the lesson here? Make sure that your first attempt
at service recovery is effective, and then you won't have to spend time
recovering for poor initial service recovery. That first waiter should
have apologized (without looking disgusted), immediately removed the plate
(and not waved the plastic about),and replaced it with another. One more
apology and the situation would have been recovered very nicely. Because
this was a conference meal, offering the meal at no charge would have been
inappropriate.
Previous
"Complaint Is A Gift Corner" pages:
#1,
#2
| We invite you to submit your "best"
examples by fax or e-mail. We won't
print any company names with the "poor" examples, because we believe that
every organization fails from time to time. We will give credit to companies
delighting their customers. In the case of the "poor" examples, we'll comment
on how we think this situation could have been handled better. If you want
us to list your name, please tell us that is what you want to do. |
Go to A Complaint Is a Gift Training Program
Go to A Complaint Is a Gift Book
Note: We have been getting e-mail from our readers
asking us to list the names of the companies who get complaints. Our policy
is to never list names. The reason for this is because every company fails
from time to time, and we wouldn't want to tar some company's name just
because of one bad example. Furthermore, we are dependant upon the writer's
side of the story. We don't know for sure what happened, and in the name
of fairness, we will not post names. Furthermore, the purpose of this corner
is not to pass complaints along to corporations. This Complaint Is a Gift
corner is designed to look at examples of good and bad complaint handling
so we can learn from these experiences. Please, if you have a direct complaint
you want a company to learn about, contact them directly. In many cases,
we have never heard of the company in question and have no idea how to
reach them. Janelle Barlow |
