Customer Service Essay: Addressing Issues At Cape Lighthouse.

Identifying Customer Needs and Expectations

Mr and Mrs Jones were looking forward to celebrating their 5^th wedding anniversary in style and had great plans for their special evening. Mr Jones decided to book a table for two for dinner at the recently refurbished “Cape Lighthouse”, a restaurant with commanding views over the Coral Sea. To ensure a nice table with views for this occasion, Mr Jones had contacted the restaurant 2 months prior to make a reservation with a male staff member who appeared to be very professional. The booking was then confirmed by telephone with Alex, a waitress, 1 week prior to the booked date.

On their anniversary Mr and Mrs Jones arrived at the restaurant; however, they found there was no booking in their name. Staff were unable to locate any booking information. Mr Jones was asked whom he had spoken to, to make the reservation and provided the details of staff; however, this was somehow shrugged off and they were asked to wait at the entry to “see whether a table could be arranged”.

As it was a Friday night the restaurant was very busy. Mr and Mrs Jones had to wait 15 minutes before they finally were led to a small table the back of the restaurant near the kitchen doors.  

After a further 15 minutes they were attended to by a drink waiter who took their order for an aperitif. The Joneses placed their food and wine order and their entrees arrived after 30 minutes.  The white wine to go with the entrees did not arrive and the drinks waiter seemed to ignore their eye contact.

The main course for Mr Jones arrived within 5 minutes after the entrees had been cleared, however Mrs Jones’ meal did not arrive for another 20 minutes.

Mrs Jones was very upset with the service and was almost on the verge of leaving.

When Mr and Mrs Jones went to pay the cheque on their way out, Mrs Jones was expecting an apology from the restaurant staff with regards to their booking and the delay in the service, unfortunately no one was around even to talk about it.

Mr and Mrs Jones decided that this was the last visit ever at this establishment. They definitely would tell their family and friends about their dining experience at “Cape Lighthouse”.

Your task: Address each of the following questions relating to the case study.

1. Identify Mr and Mrs Jones’ customer needs and expectations in this case study. What would a customer expect not only on an important occasion like the mentioned anniversary but on each occasion when visiting an establishment?

2. What could be the likely effects of this incident for the business and custom down the track if the customer service issues are not addressed?

3. You are the General Manager of the Cape Lighthouse and the experience of Mr and Mrs Jones has come to your attention.

You are determined to make contact with the customer to attempt to resolve the issue and achieve a positive outcome. Draft a letter which clearly outlines the steps you will undertake to contact Mr and Mrs Jones and how you will try to solve the issues. (This could be used as guidance for a telephone conversation for contact).

4. Considering Mr and Mrs Jones’ recent experience, it is important to assess if there are recurring issues with customer service at the Cape Lighthouse. How will you determine if this is a one-off issue or if there are persistent problems? Outline your approach.

5. You are required to develop a policy and procedures for eachof the following problem areas which were evident:

Words as per question

a. Bookings

b. Staff Presentation / Greeting / Hosting

c. Reporting requirements / staff hierarchy (General Responsibilities and who is to be contacted in case of an issue – if your industry sector varies [events, cookery, tourism, accommodation] you may use the hierarchy which is commonly relevant to that industry sector)

d. Customer Service Procedures for Service (Orders, timelines, attendance)

e. Dealing with complaints

1. Mr and Mrs Jones customer needs and expectations was to enjoy a memorable dinner on their anniversary by spending quality time  over fine dining at Cape Lighthouse”, restaurant which had commanding views over the Coral Sea but when they arrived at the restaurant; they found there was no booking and expected that staff would take charge of the reservation and provide them details instead of shrugging off from responsibility. They even expected them to arrange alternative table instead of keeping them waiting. Lastly they expected an apology from the restaurant staff with regards to their booking and the delay in the service, unfortunately no one was around even to talk about it. On any occasion customers expect a good service that can maximize service encounters experience  to make even the bad things that happen to customers go awayreally quickly.

2. If customer service issues are not addressed on time the likely incidents that can negatively impact on business and down the customer interests on availing the service of restaurant would be lack of customer inclination and buying intention to visit restaurant due to their poor customer services and lack of staff accountability in event of unfavourable incidents. This would result to drop of sales and revenues for business due to low customer demand and in long run if issues are not addressed immediately it can create negative publicity and harm the restaurants brand image ultimately resulting into negative sentiments among customers which would even draw poor return to stakeholders and in adverse case closure of business.   

3. From,

Mr. XYZ

General Manager,

The Cape Lighthouse

To,

Mr and Mrs Jones

Dear Mr & Mrs Jones,

I Mr XYZ, the General Manager of The Club Lighthouse am writing this letter to apologize after the poor service encounter on your special occasion that we learnt after the incident and on behalf of our staff, I convey my sincere apologies to have not made your special day as pleasant as it should have been. Here it is difficult to  truly resolve and bring back cherished memory that was expected but I offer resolution with my gesture to either offer a refund or discount on future services so that I can be given an opportunity to truly recreate good service that was desired.

This letter has been drafted not only to make you know about the fact that we have been aware of the bad incident and but also to make you aware that we expect a chance to sincerely apologise and give you the best possible solution and service in future.

Yours truly,

Mr XYZ

4. In order to determine whether the customer service issues are persistent or not Mr & Mrs Jones can check the review given by customers on Club Lighthouse in either their public social webpage or in general can check reviews being posted on other group forums over internet by the customers who have used their service. Through online reviews that are posted on internet they can figure out experiences and encounters of other customers so as to get clear picture and assess if customer services issues are recurring in nature or not at Club Lighthouse.    

Potential Effects on the Business

5. a) Booking : The policy and procedure that needs to be included for reservation and table booking is called Reservation booking policy. The aim of this policy is to ensure that guest receive best of service experiences by having a secured reservation of table on a specific time to. The reservation booking policy ensure detail of reserved table made by guest for a whole service and pre-payment in advance along with notifying specific dietary or allergic requirement during the time of booking. The normal procedure followed is making a call to restaurant and booking table in advance for full service. Guest should arrive in advance on booking day to ensure best service or if there is delay with more than 30 mins without prior information then booking time can be held back to later time to ensure possible level of service for other guests (Chen 2016).  In order to perform booking services and adhere to its policies it is necessary that staffs receive proper training to understand guidelines that comes under reservation policies. Employees should be careful not to do overbooking of reservation in a temptation to fill every table as this could be trouble during busy nights like Fridays. If any party is late at table or may sit longer then overbooking can trouble entire restaurant reservation chain by creating more waiting time for other guests. To monitor effectiveness of this policy it is essential to check and trace booking entries done by reservation staff so that inaccuracies can be located. This policy is made available for front line or reservation staffs and through manual guides or booking policies framework.

b. Staff presentation/Greeting/ hosting :  the staffs are required to wear formal attire at work and should be well dressed and groomed to welcome and greet guests. These come under policy and procedure of greeting and seating. The aim is to attend the guest and help them in seating at proper sized table depending on guest count to ensure that servers have equal guest number and are not overloaded. This includes greeting guest at entrance by host or hostess and alerting then of any wait time and escort them to appropriate seating table, give them electronic or manual seating chart that gives information about each table’s party to be added and replaced with new ones. The employees who greet must ensure to use seating chart to hold table for reservation or big parties. In order to perform greeting and seating procedure the employees need to be trained on etiquettes to greet and meet guest and help them in queries and give them proper information on seating and waiting time if any. Employees should also be trained to use seating chart and adjust information as guests come and go to ensure space for each guest. Also they need to be trained to allow equal distribution of service staff so that they can attend guest as per count and are not overloaded. To ensure effectiveness and evaluation of this procedure a simulation or drill exercise can be conducted to check understanding of host or hostess responsible for greeting guest. This policy will be applicable to employees who are responsible to greet guest and monitor service staffs activities to ensure guest are given best of services. And this policies are made available through printed guidelines as well as on employees job guide manuals.       

c. Reporting requirement/staff hierarchy :  these come under organisational structure policies and procedure and their aim is to ensure proper clarification of job duties, line of command and reporting structures. These include detail of individual general responsibilities, allocation ,supervision and coordination of tasks as well as reporting hierarchy in case of person to be contacted for issue or query. To attain the purpose entire organisation is divided into structural hierarchy with clear line of command and roles as per specific job responsibility and position in organisational hierarchy (Chou,Wu & Huang 2014). To ensure that staffs perform as per reporting requirement they should be trained and given brief explanation of organisational structure and line of command and reporting. The effectiveness can be monitored and evaluated by clarity of roles and responsibility in area of leadership, decision making, structure , work process and systems and clarity of instructions. This will be made available to all employees in organisation from top-down and through employees policy and procedure guidebook.    

d. Customer Service Procedures for Service (Orders, timelines, attendance) :  these policies come under general guideline of restaurant for customer assistance whose aim is to assist guest to ensure hassle free standard operating procedure. This will include responsibility of customer service employees in delivering service roles and duties in context to general area of ordering, guest attendance tracking and maintaining schedules of reservation. The procedure applied to attain purpose is providing information to all employees through  communication either on portal or by supervisor where purpose us explained, implemented and enforced with accessibility protocol and standard. Effectiveness will be monitored and evaluated through guest feedback and supervisor feedback as well as observation. This will be applicable to customer service staffs and will be made available through restaurant customer service guidelines.

e. Dealing with complaints : the policy is called grievance handing and resolving and it aims to solve various issues or difficulties that may arise in regular operational activities of restaurant including reservation and booking table. This includes recording customer complaint and solving them as per need and to attain this purpose employees need to be aware of all grievance handling techniques, policies and regulatory framework of restaurant. To perform this procedure staffs should be regularly trained and made aware of policies, changes and updates and should be given test practices to exercise handling requirement under expert supervision. Effectiveness and evaluation can be measured by decline in number of registered complaints and this is made available for all employees who are involved in front line and is made available through grievance handling procedure and guidelines.     

References  

Chen, C. (2016). Cancellation policies in the hotel, airline and restaurant industries. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 15(3-4), 270-275. Retrieved from doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/rpm.2016.9 [Accessed on 24 Nov. 2018]

Chou, C., Wu, P., & Huang, C. (2014). SERVICE CLIMATE, SERVICE CONVENIENCE, SERVICE QUALITY AND BEHAVIORAL INTENTIONS IN CHAIN STORE RESTAURANTS. International Journal of Organizational Innovation (Online), 7(1), 161-170. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1544215803?accountid=30552[Accessed on 24 Nov. 2018]