Abiang, Jaycee Michelle C.

Handling Customer Complaint

Tittle

Date: October 02, 2020

Speaker/s:
Asst. Prof. David John Apigo, MSTM

Objectives and My Expectation/s:

Their objective is to give knowledge on how to handle customer
complaints even if there is a pandemic going on. And also enlighten us
about the proper ways to interact with the guests.
I expect to learn and enhance my knowledge about the given topic, and
use it in the future work I would have. I also expect that at the end of the
Webinar there would be more time for the Q & A portion to answers all
the questions that is being asked.

Information and highlights of the webinar

In this Webinar that the University of the East, Department of Tourism and
Hospitality Management have asked the guest speaker, Asst. Prof. David John Apigo,
MSTM of Polytechnic University of the Philippines to give us Insight and additional
knowledge on how to handle customer complaints: On Winning or Losing!.
Why do people complain? This is one question that everyone asked. Customers
complain because of many things like poor customer service, they are not satisfied,
because of the delay of the service, misunderstanding, Mistakes and also because of
disappointment they don’t expect the opposite outcome of the Service or the product
itself.
But what is complain? This word have different meaning from different sources,
one example is that according to Google, complain means express dissatisfaction or
annoyance about something. Or from another source from Cambridge Dictionary they say
that complain means to say that something is wrong or no satisfactory. And also Mr.
Apigo explain that complain is an expression of dissatisfaction, related to its products or
services, or the complains-handling process itself, where a response or resolution is
explicitly or implicitly expected. He also gave us some examples of Customer complaints
from Thomas Cook. That are for some not really a problem but for the person who
complain it is but still we need to make a solution that would satisfy our customers.
Mr. Apigo also shared to us in this webinar the most common complaints that he
encountered, this are Wrong information, poor customer service attitude, overpricing and
lack of adequate information, Delays and Unresponsiveness of service providers. This are
the common complaints that we also encountered in Hospitality industry or in different
businesses.
He also discuss if a Complaint is A gift or A curse: he explain that Complaints are
gift packages waiting to be opened because they are given freely and are not solicited by
the recipients organization. And for my own opinion it is not a curse for it is an
opportunity to experience different difficulties that would help me improved my skills in
resolving problems in customer services.
Complaints gives you free direct communication from customers about service
failures, competitors’ offerings etc. without the added cost of conducting survey, MR.
Apigo explain it that readily available market research: they define what customers want.
One of the topic that really struck me is the part where he shared to us How he or
how we should handle complaints. He gave us a acronym L.E.A.R.N. This mean that
Listen to the complaints establish eye contact and use positive body language like nod
your head and smile appropriately to the person you are talking to and also let them finish
don’t interrupt and jump to conclusion if you don’t know the whole story. Empathize
with them, Thank the gust for bringing the problem to your attention and restate the
problem making sure to include how the guest felt about it. After that Apologize,
Apologize to the guest without making excuses, take responsibility- speak on behalf of
the entire team and maintain eye contact with the guest. React this means that we need to
react take care of the guest’s immediate needs- resolve the problem now and not later.
Also we need to make sure that the problem does not occur again and to lessen
that we need to be sure to log the complaint for tracking purposes. And lastly is Notify
we need to notify our head department of what happen during the complaints.
In this Webinar the speaker make sure that we understand the topic and not to take
it personally, remain calm, to focus on the problem and not the person and to always turn
unhappy people into happy customers.
 To summarized the topic Mr. Apigo said that need to be positive, take things
professionally and not personally, aim for customer satisfaction, not just service and
solve problems without blaming yourself or others. He also said that attitudes are caught,
not taught.

Realization:
I realized in this webinar the importance on how to handle customer complains
even in terms of this pandemic because solving the problems is the priority and not the
person that caused it. I’ve also learned in this webinar that Complaints are a GIFT that is
unexpected and it comes as a surprise that we need to react on time and not delay it. That
it would also give us a positive outcome for this would be an opportunity to enhance our
service and product that we offer or the things that they are complaining.
While participating in this webinar I’ve learn different skills that the speaker used
and shared to us. This knowledge that I’ve acquired would help me on how to handle my
guest complaints in the future. He also says that we need to be positive at all time and be
professional and not take every-complains personally.
I’ve also realize new things that would help me on handling guests and also that
some part of the topic is that I already learned from my instructor. But given that it also
helped me recall the lesson that I’ve learned in school on how to handle complaints. The
speaker gave me addition knowledge on dealing with complaints he also shared inspiring
words that would really caught your attention to, he said that “Attitudes are caught, not
Taught” for me it is true because we don’t learn the negative attitudes we feel them.
I plan on using what I’ve learned in this webinar on my future career because it is
very helpful not just in Hospitality Industry but also in different factors that relates to it.
And I could also use some of the lessons I’ve learn that could relate in different aspect.
Like being positive not just in dealing with customer complains but also in dealing with
the pandemic and everyday problem we encounter.
SCREENSHOTS TAKEN DURING THE WEBINAR
&
E-CERTIFICATE: