During reception, the two things that happen most is the phone rings and we help guest, so there is a lot of face to face interaction. It's also important to remember that customer service doesn't only take place face to face but can also take place over the phone.
Over-the-phone customer service
When picking up the phone, greet the guest with a smile, although the customer might not be able to see it but they can hear it in your voice.
Don't talk in a monotone voice but put a friendly emotion in your voice.
The customer can't see you so instead of nodding your head as you would facing a customer, make understanding sounds, ex. uh-huh.
Try answering the phone before 4 rings, if it took you longer, answer as follows: Thank you for waiting...
When putting a customer through to another extention, ask them if they would mind holding and if it would be alright, inform them about what you are going to do.
Talk loud and clear but not too loud.
When you aren't sure what the customer said, repeat what you think you heard so customer can correct you rather than you making a mistake.
Face-to-face customer service
When a customer enters, stand up even if you are busy with something, greet the guest and then you can continue with your work.
Greet the guest with a smile(sincere) and ask them how you can help them, the language they reply in should be the language you speak to them.
Concentrate on helping the guest because when you are thinking about something else, it shows in your body language and your facial expresion. The guest might feel that you don't want to help them.
When customers tells you something, nod your head in understanding, make notes on a piece of paper if they are giving you important information and repeat the details to make sure you understand what they are telling you.
When helping a customer try and make your service speedy without making the customer feel rushed.
If a customer is in front of you, do NOT pick up a ringing phone or shuffle around with something else, give guest your ful attention.
When you do make a mistake, rather admit to guest that you did and you'll fix it rather than lying to them, the guest will appreciate the honesty more than walking straight into a problem.
Guests that I have handled:
Tired/Irritated guest
Guests sometimes have to travel a very far way to get to the reserve or the drive takes very long due to accidents on the N1 and most of the time they had children in the car. So the guest arrive tired or irritated or sometimes both... Depending on your identifying skills, you can tell wether to relax the guest or just go through the procedure, trying not to irritate them further.
Angry/Aggressive guest
This weekend we had a guest with a really large head, literally, they booked for the horse rides and they couldn't go on the ride because the stables didn't have a big enough helmet. The guest wanted a refund and it was decided to give them credit at the salon rather than refunding them, with which they were happy. Later during the day, the guest booked 2 activities with me and everything was fine. On Sunday morning the guest stormed into reception, being difficult with me and telling me how incompetent I am since they had book a quad bike drive for 9AM and when they called reception to confirm, the lady told them that the first quad bike drive is only at 11AM. The guest was so mad he stormed back out of reception while saying he would never come back to Sondela. Sumaya and Divan handled the guest while I stepped out with another guest. When I returned, it turned out that the guest had phoned the wrong resort. With these tipes of guests it's better to not back chat the guest but listen to the problem and try to sort out the problem as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the guest was not gentleman enough to come back and apologise but his wife did explain that he had become sick during the weekend and everything had just gone wrong with their stay. One should always try and put yourself in the guest's shoes.
Friendly but mad guest
Making mistakes is part of learning and although it's very embarassing, one has to admit to the guest when one has made a mistake concerning the guest. I made a mistake with a guest on Friday afternoon, the lady told me that she would be receiving guest the next day, our procedure then is to fill in a form that needs to be sent to the main gate so they know who they can let in onto the Reserve, this I never did because we were in a rush during that time. The next day the guest's visitors arrived and the main gate weren't notified so they called reception, we then called the guest to confirm. The guest was unhappy since she did organize with reception, so we called main gate and confirmed so they let the visitors through. The guest arrived at reception to pay for her visitor's conservation fee but she was livid, saying she felt like a criminal even though she organized with reception. I admitted to the guest that it was my mistake and I apologised profusely.
Happy/Friendly guests
When a guest is friendly with you, return the same amount of friendliness and smile back but remember, show empathy and not sympathy. Be friendly but never get involved personally with a guest.
Reception consist of mountains of responsibility, stressful human encounters and there is no room for errors but I will miss it as this is my last day in reception and my last blog of reception....
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