How Complaint Severity and Service Recovery Influence Guest’s Preferences and Attitudes

In restaurants, guests bring various problems to the manager’s attention in more than one way. The mode of delivering such feedbacks or complaints depends on how severe or sophisticated the problems are. More often than not, we would expect guests to file immediate complaints in person (face-to-face) if the problems are serious. However, some guests are more likely to write letters to address similar problems. The worst complaint possible would be guest’s dissatisfaction with both food and service provided in the restaurant. However, the manger still has a chance to save the situation by handling those issues/complaints are taken seriously and dealt with properly; the customers may simply ignore these part problems and return as patrons. It is undeniable that some issues allow immediate recovery because guests tend to feedback to the waiters straightaway if they are not satisfied with food or service. On the other hand, some non-food-or-service-related factors such as atmosphere may seem less severe, but they are generally brought to the manger’s attention much later. Due to such delay, those customers may just decide to never return to the restaurant even though such problems are resolved.