Principles of customer service

AC 1.2 - Situations when customers interact with tourism organisations

Dealing with complaints

All tourism organisations receive complaints and employees have to interact with customers to deal with complaints.

In some cases, the customer may be angry or upset when they make their complaint and good customer service will involve listening to the customer and understanding their problem.

Some complaints are far more serious than others.  In the case of less serious complaints it may be that an apology may be enough to make the customer feel that they have been listened to.  Most tourism organisations have procedures for dealing with and investigating more serious complaints.

The customer is not always right.  In some cases, the customer may make out the complaint to be more serious than it is to obtain some form of compensation.  These cases may be difficult for tourism organisations to handle and may require a senior manager dealing with the customer.

Have a go at the two activities below. You can also download them offline should you wish.

Activity 1

Choose 6 of these and explain why they would be important for employees when dealing with customers who make complaints. You may need to research the meaning of words you do not understand.

When you have made your choices, discuss your answers with your classmates.

  • Accurate
  • Attention
  • Composed
  • Concerned
  • Confident
  • Controlled
  • Discreet
  • Indifferent
  • Ineffective
  • Interested
  • Responsible
  • Supportive
  • Tactless
  • Thoughtful

Activity 2

You will see steps that employees should take to ensure that a complaint by a customer is handled correctly.   Move the boxes around to make a logical order of steps that should be taken to solve a complaint.