1. Unit 4-Understand the impact of customer service at hospitality and tourism destinations
4.01-Understand customer service skills to ensure guest and customer satisfaction at hospitality and tourism destinations.
4.02-Understand fostering relationships with clientele for the hospitality and tourism destinations.

2. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

3. Characteristics of Hospitality and Tourism Employees
Empathy when handling hotel guest’s complaints
Treat all customers with respect
Provide good customer service
Exceed customers’ expectations
Active listening skills
Remain calm during complaints
Problem solving
Proactive
Building positive customer relationships through quality service

4. Service encounter
Service encounter: interaction between a customer and a staff member.
Example: a bellhop carries a customer’s luggage to their hotel room.

5. Service Service: activity that is done for another person.
Hospitality and tourism businesses monitor customer service satisfaction levels to remain competitive and to have customers recommend the businesses to family and friends through word of mouth promotion.
Some services may serve as a convenience for customers.
Example: Self-checkout kiosks

6. Ways to maintain customer service satisfaction
Comment cards
Training employees
Follow-up with customers to build clientele.

7. Critical moments
Critical moment: time when the customer's experience makes a bigger impact on customer satisfaction than at other times.
During critical moments, customers form impressions about the business.

8. Eleven critical moments
First phone call to the business
First view of the building entrance
Interaction with the greeter
Wait for a table or room
First moments at the table or in the hotel room
First encounter with bussers and servers
Encounter with the manager
Arrival of food
Visit to the restroom
Presentation of the check or bill
Last interaction with server or front office staff

9. Steps to handling customer complaints:
Listen with empathy
Allow the customer to vent
Be supportive
Do not blame someone else-Example: blaming the kitchen staff
Have a positive attitude
Offer solutions
Follow through
**It is very important that employees have a customer-service mindset to maintain a positive relationship with customers.**

10. Handling customer complaints
If customers complains, the best way to handle the guest would be to offer the guest a discount.
If an airline makes customers miss their connecting flight they should refund the passengers’ money for the flight due to the inconvenience and stress.
If a guest receives an incorrect food order the server should apologize for the mistake and correct the food order.