where hospitality people meet
Dealing with customers...the tipping point.
"I mean, have you seen the people in room six? They've never even sat on chairs before. They are the commonest, vulgarest, most horrible, nasty..."
Basil Fawlty, Fawlty Towers, A Touch of Class
This is a follow-on from Ben McEwen’s recent article If the face doesn't fit..? http://www.hotcatuk.com/forum/topics/if-the-face-doesnt-fit. It got me thinking about another side of this, which is the judgements that we ourselves may make about the customers we serve and at what point, if any, could or would you refuse to engage with someone based, not so much on their appearance, but their attitude, manner or personal views.
Of course no one would be expected to put up with rude, abusive and/or aggressive behaviour from customers or clients, however, if you were, for example, a member of the RSPCA and strongly against animal testing and cruelty, would the sight of a customer sporting a real mink coat would it affect, even in the smallest way, the way you engaged with them? How about if you were called upon to serve a high-profile person whose known racial or sexual views you found offensive? Carrying the appearance theme to an extreme, if a young man in a hoodie and giant unlaced trainers wandered into Claridges, could he expect to be treated with the same deference and respect as anyone else?
There was a recent case in Cornwall where Christian guest house owners refused a double room to a gay couple. The owners have defended themselves by stating that their policy is that they only allow married heterosexual couples to rent double rooms in accordance with their own deeply held religious beliefs. In East Yorkshire, the owner of a Polish delicatessen is under investigation for allegedly refusing to sell to English customers. And in Nottingham, a postmaster, himself from Sri Lanka, said he would not serve any customer who couldn’t speak English on the grounds of time wasting and annoying the other customers.
Everyone has a tipping point, some may be perceived as unreasonable, although this will always depend on perspective. I’d be interested to know if any of you have had an experience of finding it extremely hard to serve the person in front of you due to the way they looked, spoke or behaved? What is your tipping point when faced by a customer and how would you deal with it?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Marcus Weedon on -
I always had trouble with a elderly man probably in his late 70's, he used to come in every day to our restaurant and was terribly smelly, used to pull faces, had half of his breakfast down his trousers which were puulled up to his chest, but was generally he was a nice person to talk to whilst holding my breathe. I tried to avoid but was never able to do so, at times the smell was frightening it almost knocked me out. This was in the early stages of my career in hospitality so I learnt to grin and bear it as much as you might not like it.
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Permalink Reply by Ben McEwen on -
This is a great article - I think everyone has an inner Basil Fawlty, you need to, otherwise you would go mad. I remember working on the Queen Mary 2 and everyone would keep asking where the computer room was despite a whacking great big sign with a big arrow - used to drive us crackers. My tipping point has to be when people start comparing your establishments to others to which I have to restrain myself from saying..."well why don't you p*ss off there then!"
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Permalink Reply by Linus Axing on -
I have experienced numerous occasions where guests have been rude and obnoxious, however the tipping point for me is miles away. Normally, the easiest way to deal with a situation is to smile and get on with it. However, I once served a regular, an old rich lady who was in a wheelchair. She would, every time she visited us, yell at waiters other guests and complain about everything all the time, nothing was good! We unfortunately had to ban her from the premises as she was upsetting both staff and customers and we figured that since she never liked anything of what we did she wouldnt miss us. We also had numerous old regulars who where....well....rather peculiar and only some of the waiters would accept to handle them.
As for Bens example of the Green sign, I can tell you straight of that I would come to a person to ask before even trying to look for it myself, but I understand your frustration.
And for Marcus point, I think everyone has had regulars that they wish to avoid, it can be tricky to know where to draw the line.
I think my tipping point was when I listened to my room service collages and who had a guest who was calling down to see how they where, all night, every 10 minutes. He would order ice to get them up to his room, he even called colleagues of mine privately and tried to constantly invite male staff to his room for dinner, this kind of behaviour is not acceptable as some staff might not now when to say NO MORE ICE! Especially when there is a hotel guest calling asking for a service that should be available. Where the line is to be drawn is important for management to inform young inexperienced workers, especially if they have been taught things like "the guest is always right". This was reported, and dealt with well by management, and after some research it was evident that the customer had done this in several establishments. However, it is a difficult situation for staff in the initial stages, especially when working night shifts.
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Hi Tom,
Wow, that is some thought provoking discussion, but i have to strongly disagree with your points.
No way is hospitality a dead end job, yes it has had bad press but so has many a job in many different industries, they all come with differe…
Janet
Sounds interesting will have a look at the link
Marcus
Hi Alexander - great first blog thanks for sharing your experiences - look forward to hearing more if you can make it to one of our Live events and future blogs!
Best wishes - Ben
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