The dishes are fine and the customer insists on returning them, what should I do?
There is obviously no problem with the dishes, but why do the guests complain about it and insist on returning the dishes, or complain if they don’t return the dishes? I believe that most of the catering friends have encountered this problem.
In the eyes of many practitioners, only when the quality of the dishes is unstable, or there are unexpected situations, such as bugs, will customers complain. In fact, it is not the case. When there is no problem with the dishes, restaurants often complain.
What should be done when such complaints arise?
01
Non-target customer complaints
When such customers are not suitable for the taste of the restaurant’s dishes, they will complain. For example, what you cook is southern cuisine, which is good at light and smooth stir-frying, but the guest who is complaining now is from the north. In fact, there is no problem with the dishes themselves, but the “taste” is at fault.
Case 1: The customer is a non-target customer
For example, the restaurant in Shanghai where I once worked mainly featured Shanghai-style dishes, supplemented by Huaiyang and local dishes. Once, a group of customers reported that our small yellow croaker and white crab were not fresh, and complained that our dishes were bland and tasteless, and asked for a return.
The front office manager had no choice but to ask me for a solution. After I went forward and asked in detail, I found out that they were from Ningbo and they were our foreign guests.
People along the coast of Ningbo have strong tastes, and Ningbo’s seafood is famous throughout East China. The freshness they say means that the seafood must be fresh, not “no smell” in the eyes of Shanghainese.
However, the transportation conditions at that time were far inferior to those of today. The small yellow croakers and white crabs we used were all caught in the East China Sea and then directly frozen and then transported to Shanghai. There were several steps in the process. The freshness we can guarantee is that there is no deterioration. .
At that time, Shanghai citizens were used to eating such seafood, they had accepted and got used to this taste, and no local customers reported that the seafood was not fresh.
Case 2: Target customers have changed, good dishes are not suitable for stores
It often happens that a certain chef develops a dish in a previous store, which is well received by customers and the frequency of ordering dishes increases frequently. Later, he was entrusted with the important task to try out in other branches and train the masters of the branches.
However, in this store, with the same raw materials and seasonings, the same cooking method was not well received by customers, but instead received complaints, and this situation is also a complaint from non-target customers.
If there are many customers who love spicy food in your previous store, it may be that the hotter the dishes, the more customers like them and feel better. Even customers who are not usually spicy food will not complain when they are so spicy, because they know what to eat. The shop is famous for its spicy food, and this kind of customers come here with certain mental preparations, just to seek excitement.
And the main consumer groups around the store where I am now are not very interested in spicy dishes, so if you copy them as they are, you are likely to receive complaints.
Customer characteristics: Most of these customers are non-local customers, and the restaurant’s positioning group is marginal or out of the group, which is the non-target customer group of the restaurant.
Approach:
First of all, we must have a correct attitude, and believe that guests’ complaints always have their own reasons, allowing them to express their dissatisfaction in a pleasant atmosphere.
When encountering such a thing, the chef must not be impulsive, and the manager or boss must not reprimand the chef and waiter. They should jointly analyze the reason, find the root cause, and solve it properly.
To resolve such complaints, the back kitchen must first communicate with the front office. It is suggested that when the front office encounters customers similar to the former, it should guide them to taste Shanghai-specific dishes, or things that they do not often eat in Ningbo.
For what has happened, the waiter should explain clearly to the customers before changing the dishes, so that these customers can leave a good impression on the restaurant again.
If the front hall doesn’t care about it, the customer will bring it back to the kitchen directly after saying it’s not fresh. This will not only arouse conflicts between the front hall and the back kitchen, but also make customers have a bad impression of the entire store, causing “it’s really not fresh, or else Just take it away without explaining anything” misunderstanding.
In the latter case, chefs should tailor dishes according to the preferences of special local customer groups every time they go to a new place, and they must not be proud of their previous success and copy them all.
Precaution:
In fact, as long as certain methods are mastered, these complaints can be avoided.
First, according to the geographical location, surrounding environment and decoration style of the restaurant, strictly locate the target consumer groups.
In a popular restaurant, customers who are full of praise for the dishes must be the target customers of the store. The more such customers are caught, the higher the probability of success of the store.
This requires restaurants to develop dishes that meet their tastes according to the characteristics of target customers, because customers say it is better than any kind of commercial advertisement. Therefore, the initial positioning of dishes is the key to success.
Second, the restaurant’s decoration style, commercial advertisements, opening promotion, including store signs, etc. should match the dishes it operates.
For example, if a certain seafood city looks like it mainly eats seafood, then you should make great efforts to promote the seafood in your place, how fresh it is, etc.; another example is a certain home-cooked food, if you look like you eat local dishes, then Propaganda should be a feature of a certain place, so as to avoid complaints from customers who come in who are not your target customers.
02
Guests have different tastes
A dish uses the same raw materials, the same seasoning, and the same cooking method, but some people at the table say it is good, and some people say it is not.
Case 1: The guest of honor feels that the taste is not good, and the others agree
One day, five guests came to the private room of my restaurant and ordered some dishes under the suggestion of the waiter. During the meal, the person who looked like the host asked the other guests how the dishes were, and the guest at the guest of honor smiled and said it was okay. So, other people also echoed, feeling that the dishes are average.
At this time, the “host” also expressed embarrassingly that he also felt very average after tasting it, far from as good as the waiter introduced at the beginning. So, he angrily asked the waiter to change or give a discount.
Case 2: The customer’s personal physiological factors are at fault
One night, Xiao Wang, who was eating alone, came to the lobby. When the waiter asked for his opinion, he thought about it and ordered a certain dish that he always liked.
While waiting for the meal, the waiter was very considerate in serving tea and pouring water. After the dishes came, he put down his chopsticks after taking a few bites, and shouted to the waiter angrily, “Call your manager, what kind of dish is this?” After arguing, the waiter called me over.
Case 3: Dishes collocation and customer composition are related factors
Once I had a customer complain. The guests said that all the dishes were extremely salty. It happened that I happened to be patrolling in the front hall, so I went up to ask, and the customer asked me “is it true that salt does not cost money?”
At that time, the dishes on the table had already been served. Because there were more women, it was mainly desserts, with some hot dishes.
Approach:
The former, “difficult to adjust to everyone’s taste, those who are palatable are rare”, first analyze the combination of people at this table, there are differences in age, occupation, gender, cultural accomplishment, personal living habits, etc. It’s impossible to like a certain dish).
Then, the main reason for the complaints of this group of guests is that the host of this table or the guest of honor of this group of guests feels uncomfortable, and then everyone agrees that it is not good. In this case, just explain it clearly to the host.
In the second case, after careful observation, it was found that the dishes ordered by the customer were basically foods with thick oil and water. I learned from the waiter that this guest liked this dish more when he came and went. I don’t know why I complained that the dishes tasted bad.
Since this customer is a regular customer, I asked someone to transfer his “customer file”: Xiao Wang works three shifts, two night shifts, and basically sleeps during the day. After a day’s sleep that day, he came to have dinner at night.
After careful analysis, at this time, for him, it was the feeling of morning, dry mouth and poor appetite. If it is a bowl of porridge or a side dish, it may be more palatable to him.
If he ordered oily food at this time, no matter how much he usually likes this dish, he would find it unappetizing on the contrary. Xiao Wang had no idea that the problem was with him. After listening to my analysis, he smiled embarrassedly and left.
In Case 3, at that time, I only glanced at the customers and the dishes on the table to find the source of the complaint: the customers in this stall were mostly women, and they liked sweets. They ordered a few dessert cold dishes and drank fruit juice.
The hot dishes that came later were all salty because they were too different from the sweets I ate earlier.
So, I asked the waiter to make a cup of tea for each of them, and asked them to taste it after drinking a cup of tea, and the problem was solved.
Precaution:
The key to solving this kind of problem lies in the good communication between the front hall and the back kitchen, so that the waiters can learn as much as possible about the customers before ordering, and the regular customers will be ordered by the same waiter, and pay attention to the guest of honor , the host, etc., these aspects can be identified when the guests give up their seats.
In addition, the difference in taste also changes due to seasonal changes, such as the difference between spicy taste in spring, bitter taste in summer, sour taste in autumn, salty taste in winter, etc.; it may also be caused by taste fatigue, such as a certain customer ordering the same dish every time they come. After a long time, you will feel that this dish is not as delicious as before.
In both cases, it is also easy for customers to complain. Therefore, the kitchen should also develop more seasonal dishes, and learn more about the taste differences caused by seasonal changes. Seasoning should adjust the taste differences with seasonal changes, and constantly meet the changing needs of customers.
03
It’s all about expectations
This factor can also be divided into two types. The first kind of situation generally refers to the fact that the customer has eaten a certain dish in other restaurants and found it delicious. There are obvious differences in food, atmosphere, weight, etc., and the guest may complain with “the taste of your dish is not right”.
The second situation is the expectation on the price. Maybe he didn’t pay attention to the price when ordering a certain dish, but just casually said that he wanted a certain dish, but when he paid the order, he realized that the dish was beyond the psychological price and it was difficult to say. Complaint on the grounds that this dish tastes bad, intending to ask for a discount.
Case: Use the standards of other stores to measure the dishes ordered
One day, Xiao Li and a group of people came to eat. As soon as they entered the restaurant, before they were seated, they called for a fish head with chopped pepper.
After eating a few mouthfuls, these guests shouted in the hall, asking the chef to make another authentic chopped pepper fish head for them.
Approach:
Because the customer has already recognized the dish that he had eaten at other people’s homes, it’s like we all have a good impression of the Monkey King played by Liu Xiaolingtong, but we don’t think it’s like the one played by others later. This is called “preconception”.
For example, fish heads with chopped peppers are now being made by every family. If a customer has a deep impression of fish heads with chopped peppers represented by Xiangwei, he will definitely order them when he sees that we also supply fish heads with chopped peppers. At this time, What he expects is to sweat profusely after eating it, but the chopped pepper fish head we made is good at freshness, slightly spicy, not heavy spicy, so the guest did not achieve the effect he expected after eating, then He would say: You can’t do a good job with this fish head. At this time, just explain clearly to the customer.
Precaution:
Try not to imitate dishes that you can’t imitate. To imitate others’ dishes, you can repackage the names of the dishes to highlight your own characteristics. Clearly inform when ordering: this is our new dish that has not been officially promoted yet, please try it first to see if there is any room for improvement?
In this way, the customer has a feeling of being respected. Even if he is not satisfied with the food, he will patiently put forward his own opinions in order to have a satisfactory taste next time.
04
Missed the best eating time
Especially hot dishes in winter, iced dishes in summer, etc., if the best eating temperature is missed, the flavor will be greatly reduced.
Such as tofu, the general requirement is that it can be boiled until the heart is the best temperature for eating; such as iron plate dishes, the flavor is the best when the chopsticks are held when they squeak, because the atmosphere is strong at this time; such as some dry pot, Pot-shaped dishes, some become saltier the longer they are cooked, some raw materials get older as they are cooked, and some raw materials become rotten after a long time of cooking, etc., all of which greatly reduce the original flavor.
Another example is a certain kind of noodle soup, if it is not eaten as soon as possible when it is served, it may become mushy. Of course, it is another matter if you like noodles.
Approach:
To solve this kind of problem, first of all, the service staff should remind customers to eat the special dishes within the best eating time when they are on the table. Then there are measures such as taking heat preservation measures in winter, heating and adding soup for guests.
To sum up, the most important thing is to let the front office staff know more about the general knowledge. The head chef should communicate more with the front office. communication.
If the service staff in the front hall can correctly guide the guests to consume and remind the guests to pay attention, once a problem occurs, the staff on duty can immediately explain it clearly, which will greatly improve the work efficiency.