Do the right people hear the complaints?
Once upon a time, there was a local hospital and there was a senior health service administrator. One day the administrator visited the hospital - an event that was portrayed as being spontaneous: "Hello, I was just passing and thought I'd drop in and see how things were going."
The dignitary was escorted down uncrowded corridors to a brightly painted ward where smiling patients testified to the finest medical treatment. The floor sparkled and a full compliment of staff were on hand to attend to the needs of the sick. The administrator then departed, happy in the knowledge that the hospital was clean and functional.
It wasn't quite like that, of course - I know, I was there. The visit was arranged in advance; the hospital was given plenty of notice. A pot of paint was produced, the linoleum was swept clean and extra staff were drafted in to attend to the patients, the most distastefully critical of whom were removed to less visible areas of the establishment. What our very important person saw that day was a sanitised version of reality.
It happened a long time ago, but it used to be common practice in many manufacturing and service industries: "Quick, the boss is coming, look busy."
Today, no doubt, things are different. Managers are taught to have an intimate, and real, knowledge of their hospitals, factories and hotels; of their patients, clients and customers. Or do they?
We learn from the Surrey European Management School that front-line staff in hotels and restaurants are sometimes put under pressure by having to deal with customer grumbles using an inadequate complaints procedure drawn up by managers who never see the operation in action.
There is a tendency these days to use more and more sophisticated methods to promote the hospitality business, with detailed customer surveys becoming common. These have their place, but they are pointless if unwelcome news is filtered out before it reaches a senior level, or if they heighten customer expectations beyond the achievable.
This doesn't mean that modern marketing policies have no place in the hotel industry. Equally, it is not a call for hotel group managers to work on one of their reception desks for a day, or to slip unannounced (or even with advance warning) through the back door of one of their establishments.
What a proper complaints procedure requires is a communication link between the gurus in the marketing office and staff on the front line; a method of transferring customers' real, unadulterated requirements back to headquarters.
If this doesn't happen, management may one day slip up on the specially polished linoleum.
FORBES MUTCH
Editor,
Caterer & Hotelkeeper
