When A CUSTOMER COMPLAINS, but we know THEY ARE WRONG! … What should we do?
Conflicts with customers NEVER end well. So we had a specific plan for handling a customer who feels like we did something wrong… regardless of who was correct!
It is really tempting to explain to them how they are wrong.
If they continue to complain, it is really, really tempting to yell how they are wrong!
Our policy was, “always act as though the customer is telling the truth!”
Now that triggers a lot of people, WHY? because some customers will lie to you! The problem is… we never know for certain which customers are lying. But I have had assistant managers who guarantee they know which customers are lying... but I say, if you know for sure when someone is lying every time… they should quit working for me and go to Vegas and become millionaires!
And sometimes people think that I don’t care about my assistants and I’m letting the customer run all over them… but the truth is, I do this to help my assistants! I never want an assistant to be in a position of wondering if they should argue with a guest or not … the answer is always, no, don’t argue, just act as though they are telling the truth.
No one wins when you argue with a guest… We always just say, “I’m so sorry, let me fix that for you”, that way I can fix their problem, and get back to taking care of the rest of my customers.

#paulreiser #business #restaurant