I was on vacation last week, staying at this great place for my third time and we were hanging out at the pool with some other people that unfortunately had to check out that day. The cleaning crew was busy in the morning cleaning all the rooms and the Operations Manager rushes by and drops a bomb on the people checking out that he cannot believe the mess they left in their room. They were kind of shocked that he would say something like this to them and even explained to us that they had picked up their room and put all trash in a neat pile to be picked up. To me it was no big deal, they helped the cleaning crew by making their job easier. Well it gets better, the Ops Manager not only says something again but 3 more times to them. One of them goes to the Manager of the facility to complain about how rude the Ops Manager is being to them. The Manager obviously says something to the Ops Manager because he storms over to them and confronts them head on and starts arguing with a Paying customer. I then have to go get the Manager to diffuse the situation.

So, the number 1 rule in a service business or any business is Never argue with your customer, nothing will ever good come from that argument for your business. Yes, I do believe that the customer is always right, they are paying you and you need to provide to them the level of service you are guaranteeing to them. In the scenario I described above, no matter how bad they left the room, you never argue about that with them. They could stay at your place for the next 20 years and end up spending thousands of dollars at your facility. Now all you are going to get is 8 very unsatisfied customers who each will tell between 5 to 10 people how bad they were treated and it could potential sink your business. What I would recommend to them is to have a fund that at the end of the month you take the cleaning crew out to lunch or dinner to thank them for their hard work and then you can laugh about how bad some of the rooms where left but you are showing the team you appreciate them and their hard work.

With social media these days you will always lose in arguing with a client and they will always win when they slam you on every social network. Smile and make the situation better by taking the high road and you will sleep better at night.

Make it a great day!