Hospitality/Hotel/Restaurant Management

On the first job, students find themselves "on the other side of the counter" dealing with customers who range from polite to puzzled, from indecisive to just plain ornery. This program teaches skills to deal with people-as-customers.

What makes great customer service? -- Body language and voice -- The customer isn't always right -- Choose words wisely -- Handling upset customers

CONTENTS: First Impressions, Observation and Information Gathering, Stereotyping, Workplace Stressors, Credibility, Assertiveness, Mental Flexibility, Dealing with Anger, Verbal Instructions, Communication, Body Language and Culture, Voice Quality, International Communication, Influencing Through Listening, Optimizing Resources, Memory Ticklers, Time Management, Problem Interpretation, Creative Action Planning, Win-Win Negotiation, Service Strategies, Exceeding Expectations, Service Attitude, Telephone Etiquette, Customer Comment Cards, Acknowledging Customer Concerns, Letters of Complaint, Internal Customers, Individual vs.Team Performance, Team Member Trust, Peer Recognition & Feedback, Constructive Competition.

What distinguishes America's Service Meltdown: Restoring Service Excellence in the Age of the Customer is its striking originality and applicability to businesses of nearly every type and size. Based on the author's extensive personal and professional experience, the book offers a straightforward, no nonsense model that clearly explains how to organize the modern enterprise for the delivery of service excellence.

This course will demonstrate communication techniques that build customer loyalty, and how to defuse customer anger with attentive listening and empathy, focus on the customer's needs without blaming, and respond to personal accusations without becoming defensive. Customers are your most important assets, but sometimes they get upset. It's critical to learn what steps to take to address the situation quickly and tactfully, and what can be done to keep the customer coming back. You will learn how listening, nonverbal communication, feedback, and management all help to deal with an unhappy customer, and turn the situation into a positive one.

Putting together a social media team -- Examples of how it doesn't work (and what happens) -- Before the explosion: winning your customer -- Customer service is a way of life -- Social media damage control: stopping small problems from becoming big ones -- Making customer addicts online: best practices that work! -- Keeping the addiction going -- Monitoring your successes and failures -- Putting it all together: what did we learn?