Chapter 9: Service Failures and Service Recovery
Objectives
At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:
o Show the importance of recovery arising from service failures
o Identify the different kinds of guests complaints
o Check for evidence on customers’ expectations and their responses when
they complain
o Define service guarantees and how they affect service failures
Learning Content
What is Service Failure and Recovery?
Service failure is service rendered not meeting the expectations or standards of a
guests, leading to guest dissatisfaction. Usually, a failure would be because a
service was unavailable when it was promised; a service was done slowly or late; a
service was wrong or poorly implemented; or a service staff may be rude in the
execution. Although guests would usually experience these kinds of shortcomings
as it would seem, not all customers would react or respond accordingly, making it
very difficult for a service staff to rectify or correct the acts done. If the failures
committed remain unfixed, guest can leave, bringing with them these experiences
which in turn become stories that they share with everyone around them.
As failure is inevitable, service recovery can remedy this is an soonest possible
time. Service recovery is an organizations response to a failure it committed to
improve the guest experience. This has great impact on guest satisfaction, loyalty,
word of mouth, and ultimately, performance. This is fact true as smart guests know
that failures are inevitable; and they realize that is not the failure that matters, but
how an organization that has a great service recovery mechanism in place, which
translates into an organizations profitability.
Types of Service Failures
To further illustrate the different service failures that a hospitality and tourism
establishment may commit, discussions on these concepts are as follows:
1. Failures on service-products. These are failures which involve issues on the
core product. These would include delayed or cancelled flights, cross
contaminated food, dirty guest rooms, unavailable menu items, and absence
of service staff.
2. Failures on customer request delivery. These are failures on adhering to
specific special guest request, such as seat assignment, special arrangement
on menu items, hotel guest’s room setup, and program schedules.
3. Failures on customer’s service. These include problems and complaints on
intentional or unintentional actions of service staff exhibiting offensive
attitude to guests, such as frowning or failure to smile and display a positive
disposition to guests and deliberately ignoring a guests request.
4. Failures brought about by other organizational key players. These are failures
caused by unforeseen happenings, other guests, and other unusual
complaints which a guest still expects to be corrected.
With these failures, whatever may be the cause, a guest will always expect it to
be fixed, the situation turned around in favor of the valued guest. A remedy to
these failures may not be addressed as the guests expects, but an immediate
positive request should always be the answer of the organization.
Guest Responses to Service Failure
If service recovery mechanism is not in place and the organization has failed to
turn back around the situation in favor of the guests, a lot of responses may be
displayed by the guest. The following are some of their responses:
1. Never return. A lot of guests have this as a response. Some guests will not
even give the staff a hint based on their reactions that they will never return.
As discussed, a guests not returning is an opportunity lost forever. This is one
of the reasons why empowering service staff to deliver immediate service
recovery is deemed a priority.
2. Complaints. Complaints filed by a guest are seen by traditional organizations
as a problem. However, these should not be seen that way. Modern
organizations today take complaints as a form of feedback. It is an
opportunity for an organization to display how better they can make things
positive for a guest. Unfortunately, only few guests file complaints and just
resort to other responses.
3. Negative word of mouth. Another response of a guest is to bad-mouth an
organization. He/she will speak ill of his/her experience and try to tell others
not to avail the services of the said company. He/she will be so motivated to
do this depending how far he/she was inconvenienced by said company. This
will really have a great impact, much more if the guest is an influential
person, who has access to many other people who are probable guests of the
organization.
4. Strike back and get even. Retaliating is another response a guest can make.
More than bad-mouthing, a guest will make actions just to even the score or
get revenge for the inconvenience he/she has experienced with the
establishment. In this day and age, this is very easy for a guests to do using
social media. He/she can simply post his/her experience on a social media
site through videos or memes, and immediately, the establishment will be
the talk of the town. Other was include going to legal authorities and filling
lawsuits, publishing in other media forms, and even boycotting a specific
brand.
In order to prevent this from happening, credibility should be established as how
an establishments operates. Even if a mishap has happened, with the credibility
of the company, added with a positive response on the side of the company, this
situation will be quick turnaround.
Service Recovery Strategies
The most significant thing after a service failure is a quick turnaround. So, focus is
really embedded on how to make a failure into an opportunity. Unfortunately, there
are also times that a problem cannot be remedied right there and then as it is
rooted deeper on how the system works. This may take more effort and expense on
the side of the company just to provide the initial request of the guests. With this
occurrence happening more and more to different guests, a recheck on the service
delivery system should also be in place. The following are some ways of service
recovery:
1. Urge and Monitor Complaints. When guests are encouraged to leave a
feedback, may it be in the form of complaints, a problem will be made known
and it will be easy for the organization to remedy it. But aside from letting a
problem be known, it is also important to keep track of the different
complaints, the nature from which they arose, and the solution that was
placed. By doing so, the organization will now have an inventory and data
base of these information, which the organization may use in strategizing
future plans for these situations. Some organizations utilize technology to
enable these strategies and plan ahead expecting guest responses and the
solutions to be utilized.
2. Learning from Solutions Made. The service recovery situations that were
utilized should not only be seen as immediate solutions, but also as inputs in
improving future instances of service delivery. With checking back on these
instances which somehow keeps happening, the management may check
systematic problems that need fixing. Forms can be used and given to
different departments and their employees to note the immediate responses
they gave to the situations and be kept for future use.
3. Learning from Lost Opportunities which are Guests. As grateful are we that a
guest patronizes our services, it is also important to study why a guest
leaves. It is good to know that we can also learn from them. By studying what
made a guest leave the organization will irk us in knowing what have not we
delivered, causing him/her to leave. Larger marketing organizations have this
as a priority to provide the optimal service possible. This is also important for
organizations in the fore front of service delivery to anticipate guests and
non-guest (the guests who left) needs.
4. Introducing a Service Fail-safe. What is best to do to provide excellent
quality service? Do it right the first time! To do this would be to really study
the playing field. Information on service operations are usually available
anywhere the experience we have as individuals who, at some point, are also
guests to these organizations. Even if it will be costly for the organizations to
invest on this, a guests will expect nothing but the best from a service
provider. That is why he/she chose the organization in the first place. So, do it
the right and best way for the first time.
Really, the best way to be a leader in service provision is the delivery of flawless
service. If service delivery has a lot of phases making it complex, it is better to
always have service guarantee system in place. Thus, it will strengthen the trust
that the organization has invested in its guests and will, in one way or another,
exhibit the true motive of the organization-to serve its guests.