Handling Common Hotel Guest Complaints

If you run a hotel, you will receive customer complaints. Some will be valid and deserved, pay attention to those and learn from them. But a great many will not be.

Every customer complaint is an opportunity to either alienate a customer or build customer loyalty. Here’s how to handle common customer complaints so that the customer leaves with a positive impression:

“That’s not what the website looks like.”

Head this one off at the pass - keep the website current. If the customer has a valid complaint, apologise and say you see their point, and ask what you could do to make it right with them. Most of the time they’ll say “Don’t worry about it,” but they’ll appreciate your concern.

“Your staff was rude to me.”

Most likely the customer perceived the situation incorrectly, but that’s the absolute last thing you say. Listen to the customer carefully, don’t interrupt and don’t imply that you doubt his account. Say you’ll speak with the staff member. If it’s a genuine offence, inform the guest what action you took and offer them something: a discount or vouchers, for example. Do not throw a staff member under the bus just to placate an unreasonable guest - your staff morale will plummet, resulting in far more (genuine) attitude-related complaints in the future.

“I didn’t know that cost extra.”

Prevent this one - keep your charges clear and make sure guests are properly informed of them. You can score a lot of customer loyalty points by waiving small charges. If it’s too much to write off, show the customers where they were informed of the pricing policy.

Any other incidental complaint.

Ask the customer “How can we solve this for you?” Whether or not they have a specific remedy in mind, they will be pleasantly surprised that you saw it from their point of view and put them in “control” of the situation.