Customer Relations: Addressing Consumer Issues

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Customer Relations: Addressing Consumer Issues

The rise of social media has changed the dynamics of customer relations in the hospitality industry and the entire business world. The customer experiences take multidimensional perspectives as they share them with their peers. The peers give an account of their experiences with the same service provider to keep the conversation going. The response of an organization to a customer is crucial as the brand name can be tarnished or reinforced depending on their strategy of engagement. Other customers both potential and current are always vigilant on the social media platform and are bound to perpetuate the issue to consequential proportions. In this way, dealing with a single customer and his/her complaints should be personalized to address their issue in-depth. Tudor restaurant branch has since differentiated its service offering by specializing in one item and ensuring that they personalize their services by taking the customers input on the design of the meals, cake in this instance.

The same attention that is given to the customer when ordering should be replicated during complaints. The complaints of the client were valid and his path of lodging his complaints was equally reasonable. They customer relations manager should ensure that they address the customers’ frustrations personally before they enter the digital continuum (Sondhi 5). The caveat of the presence of dishonest customers is true. Each case should be evaluated on its merit to sieve out manipulative clients. Naturally, not all complaints are genuine thus; the department should have the discernment to detect misleading claims. However, assuming that the complaint of the customers to be childish rants regardless triviality is misguided. The latter action will set a precedent on the organizations’ customer relations policy going forward.

In contemporary society, if a person is absent in the conversation, they are bound to be shortchanged. Tudor, customer relations department, should ensure they have employees who are active members in the food chats rooms (Sondhi 6). By virtue of being of inside the chat room, they will be able to guide the direction of the conversation and managed the customer’s impressions of them. However, being present in an official capacity can be counterintuitive, as people will get the opportunity to highlight a trivial problem that they would have otherwise ignored. The employees should blend into the group. The organization should evaluate the consistency of them communication channels. The customer’s frustration seemed to be exacerbated by the breakdown of the organization’s communication systems. The absence of direct access to the key stakeholders in the issue was a problem. Tudor has to evaluate their part of their problem. Tudor should not demonize social media. A change in mindset is necessary to the staff, to perceive technological developments as critical resources to secure the hotel’s future. Complaints and compliments are strategic to denote the consumer habits. Rather than performing market research the customers openly share their unsolicited advice should be weighed before being either adopted or discarded. Public relations are of equal importance as product development. As such, assuming past credibility will secure their reputations in the future despite changes in perceptions is shortsighted. Tudor management should have standard measures such as compensations to deal with the genuine concerns of customers. For instance, the workers can be provided with gifts or a total refund. Awareness of technological trend is not a mere requirement in today’s business environment but a necessity for survival.

Work Cited

Sondhi, Neena. “Customer Relationship Management: The Tudor House Makes Amends.” Thunderbird: School of Global Management, February 2016.pp. 1-9.