In today’s email:

• Haters gonna hate: Responding to upset customers can be your greatest asset

I was shocked that she came back so often after this happened. When I first started handling the social media accounts of a restaurant I worked at, we had this one lady who was extremely upset because something was missing from her delivery order.

But the messages I sent back to her changed her mood pretty quickly, and she became one of our loyal regulars. Let’s try to turn your least satisfied customers into your best assets.

Keep reading if you own a restaurant, bar, or hotel, or you are in charge of their social media accounts. Unhappy customers are just a fact of life.

But it doesn’t have to mean the end of the relationship.

By the end of this article you’ll know why customers complain, how to not only handle upset customers and their private messages, but also the public replies they leave on your social media accounts.

Since 2019, as I transitioned from working with my knives to working with a keyboard, I’ve been studying and testing what calms unhappy customers.

And I’d like to share what’s worked for me so that you can avoid losing valuable customers… and even turn them into some of your biggest supporters.

Why do Customers Complain?

Customers’s issues boil down to them feeling like you didn’t keep the promise of what you said you were going to deliver- them not getting what they paid for.

Going back to the lady I mentioned earlier, you need to put yourself in her shoes. You get home from a long day at work. There were some unexpected hiccups in the project you’re working on, and the boss had a few words to say about it.

You’re home now and just want to unwind, enjoy your dinner, and forget about the day now that it’s almost over.

But sure enough your bad day isn’t quite over yet… a part of your order isn’t in the bag. Now you’re taking this bad day personally.

You have two options: you message/call the business and let them know so they can fix the issue, or, if you’re truly unnerved, you find their social media page and let ‘em have it- you want the world to know that they messed up.

So what do you do?

What NOT to say

What I didn’t want to say to this lady, which is something I see way too often is, “We apologise if this caused any inconvenience.”

Firstly, ‘we’ is cold. ‘We’ is not sincere. It separates you from them- us vs. you.

And ‘if?’ There is no ‘if’- her meal is not what she expected, so of course it’s an inconvenience. There’s no ‘if.’

You’re a human replying to another human: “I’m sorry we ruined your meal. I’m going to…”

• It admits an error was made

• Takes it seriously.

• Shows sincerity.

• Shows you’ve heard them and what you’re going to do immediately about it.

Never give excuses. They’re not reaching out to hear your problems. They want you to handle theirs.

Don’t get defensive. Again, put yourself in their shoes. It’s probably not because they want to attack you and your business. If anything they may feel attacked by the mishap.

Part of hospitality is empathy.

Above all else, do NOT dismiss their issue. It doesn’t have to be important to you, but it is important to them.

How to respond to messages

A missing item in their order by itself isn’t a deal breaker. You have the chance to fix it and all is forgotten. How you handle it can turn it from ‘no big deal’ to ‘one angry customer.’

Now legal teams would probably advise you to avoid blame. Blah, blah, blah. But for marketing, this is not the way to go.

Like I said, you’re a human being. And you’re talking to another human being.

My go-to was to first apologise that the misunderstanding happened, and to then tell them the immediate action I was going to take to fix it for them.

At this point:

• I’ve taken them seriously

• Addressed the issue

• Customer is usually happy

• Problem solved

Your response needs to match the seriousness of the issue. For medium sized issues, I’d also tell them that I’ve informed the chef that XYZ issue happened so that they can investigate.

Note: if you tell the customer you did this…make sure you did it.

It just shows an extra degree of concern. And that alone will calm a customer down from a 7 outta 10 down to a 2. They see that their concerns were taken seriously and brought to the attention of a higher authority.

For even bigger issues, I’d also inform the owner. The size of your business will affect your ability to do this. But having their issue go straight to the top all but eliminates any negativity left.

People are quick to complain and take their pain out on your entry level staff, but they sure do calm down the higher up the ladder they talk to.

I’m not going to say that telling the chef and owner are essential steps in your online response guidelines, but I find it builds a great deal of trust:

If you’ve already told the higher-ups, you’re not gonna try to get away with anything.

How to handle bad replies

If they’re really pissed, they’re going to post publicly. They want others to see that you made a mistake, and they want others to share in their anger.

If you’re brave enough, I strongly suggest that you don’t delete the comment.

Leave it there. You have to reply…there in the comments. Don’t leave it hanging unaddressed.

Remember that that one customer isn’t the only one who’s going to see your reply. Others will see how you handle a problem and will be affected by what you do next.

You may think that publicly admitting you made a mistake will discourage others from doing business with you, but that’s not true. In fact, the opposite will happen- they’ll trust you more.

They’ll see you’re not going to swipe an issue under the rug.

Conclusion

Not all customers are going to get your best. It’s just a fact of life and nothing to be ashamed of.

How you handle it will determine whether you’ve lost a customer forever or you’ve gained a satisfied loudspeaker who’s going to spread the message on how great your place is.

The choice is yours.

Record all the issues that come up so you can find patterns and areas to improve in your business.

Check back in with them soon after that first interaction was finalised to show them you genuinely care. Many companies skip this step, so imagine how much you’ll stand out when you go against the crowd?

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