Dealing with difficult
and demanding guests after the initial thought of 'where is the
cellar key!'
One of the many
challenging roles of being a General Manager or indeed a Duty Manager
of a hotel, and unfortunately or maybe fortunately in my case I/ we
are not on duty 365 days 24/7 hours of the day, is dealing with the
demanding.
You must also realise
that in our industry we command little 'respect' amongst
professionals however you must also understand that we do deal with
humans, children, alcohol, families and a few other subjectives that
may not be appropriate to mention – oh and by the way we have to be
experts in the fields of nutrition, health and safety, sleep
patterns, psychology and what colour the duvet needs to be!
I could tell you a
story or two of 'professionals' when they are clocked off but I
better not.
Thankfully they tend to
be few and far between but there is always one or two.
A challenging guest
could be a celebrity or a VIP, they could just be an ordinary person
like you and me. You also have those regular normal humans that
whilst on the coast of Eastbourne really feel the need to let it all
out and colour one of my bedrooms with red hair dye which is really
not acceptable in a 'blue rinse' area but as they say no day is the
same in hospitality!

We can occasionally be
our own worst enemy and so it is important to manage our guests
expectation where we can. People handling is not for the feint
hearted and it is therefore possible that you misread. For example,
we use the BRA theory (Best Room Available) which means, if we have a
better room available when you check in, we will upgrade you
automatically which should put you in a good mood. This goes down
well and helps create advocates for us, however there are those that
then expect it to happen on all future visits, and of course if we
can't the guest can turn into a bit of a sulker. This is where the
unrealistic bit steps in. We have in the past had an offer that the
guest would be happy to let the situation drop if we turn their room
in to a deluxe whilst they wait. Quite a serious suggestion that took
us all by surprise!

*With thanks to our guest writer Mark Cotman for helping with this blog.