Housekeeping

1. ADVANCE HOUSEKEEPING
IMPORTANT CONCEPTS OF HOUSEKEEPING – COMPLAINT
HANDLING, ECO-FRIENDLY HOUSEKEEPING AND PEST
CONTROL
IDENTIFYING AND HANDLING
COMPLAINTS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGknxVlmhkk&pbjreload=101
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3aR3yP4aKg
Created by- Rahul
Lohar

2. Introduction:-
When the guests are not satisfied with some services and
express their discontent to hotel employees, they are called
as guest complaints and hospitality being a service oriented
industry.
The hotel staff should always resolve guest‘s complaints immediately.
Guest‘s complaints should be handled considerately, exercising
patience, empathy and decision making skills.
If the housekeeping associate is not able to solve the
problem, she/he should call her superior before the situation
gets out of control.

3. Types of Complaints
Mechanical :-
Most guest complaints relate to hotel equipment
malfunctions. Mechanical complaints usually concern
problems with climate control, lighting, electricity, room
furnishings, ice machines, vending machines, door keys,
plumbing, television sets, elevators, and so on. Even an
excellent preventive maintenance program cannot
completely eliminate all potential equipment problems.
Effective use of a housekeeping log book and maintenance
work orders may help reduce the frequency of mechanical
complaints.

4. Attitudinal
Guests may make attitudinal complaints when they feel
insulted by rude or tactless hotel staff members. Guests who
overhear staff conversations or who receive complaints from
hotel staff members may also express attitudinal complaints.
Guests should not have to listen to employees arguing or
become a sounding board for employee problems. Managers
and supervisors (not guests) should listen and attend to the
complaints and problems of staff. This can be especially
critical to maintaining solid guest relations.

5. Service-related
Guests may make service-related complaints when they
experience a problem with hotel service. Service-related
complaints can be wide-ranging and about such things as
long waiting time for service, lack of assistance with luggage,
untidy rooms, phone difficulties, cold or ill-prepared food,
or ignored requests for additional supplies. The hotel
generally receives more service-related complaints when it is
operating at or near full occupancy.

6. Unusual
Guests may also complain about the absence of a swimming
pool, lack of public transportation, bad weather, and so on.
The Executive Housekeeper should alert his/her staff that on
occasion guests may complain about things the staff could
do nothing about. Through such orientation, staff will be
better prepared to handle an unusual situation with
appropriate guest relation techniques and avoid a
potentially difficult encounter.

7. Another way to identify complaints involves the
evaluation of guest comment cards or questionnaires.
A guest questionnaire designed to collect in-formation
about the hotel‘s guest services, mechanical systems,
property features and amenities, and other data
relevant to marketing. Guest questionnaires may be
distributed in the department, placed conspicuously in
the guestroom or mailed to guests after their
departure.

9. Handling Complaints
When a guest finds there is reason to settle a complaint, he
expects the resolving the complaint in return. Housekeeping
is servicing the guests and hence the department receives the
most of the guest complaints after the front desk. As hotels
aggregate a dominant segment of the hospitality division,
excelling in guest service for guests is an industry
benchmark. When a hotel offers an accommodation, it is at
the vigilance of the housekeeping staff to provide guest
services. These services also enclose the occasional
advantage to solve hotel guest complaints.

10. To handle hotel guest complaints, you will benefit from an intimacy in or with
Awareness of applicable hotel policy
Organizational resources
Maintenance approach
Customer assistance
Settlement facility
Retention skills
Acumen (the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions)
Patience
https://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g297608-
d455481-Reviews-or5-Fortune_Landmark-
Ahmedabad_Ahmedabad_District_Gujarat.html

11. 1. Obtain a note of the hotel guest’s complaint –
One of the important gestures of the hotel staff to make an
eye contact with the guest while listening to the guest. Staff
should possess a serious facial expression, and poise in
posture that establish attention. Avoid any blow off to cut
short or burst in while the guest is vocalizing a complaint.
This etiquette shows dignity to a guest that is displeased,
while it helps the staff to know the problem.

12. 2. Analyze the guest grievance - Rather than
giving all the reasoning, ―I am sorry‖,
sincerely acknowledge with a full apology for
the guest‘s inappropriate experience or
disturbance. Apologizing does not reflect a
desk clerk‘s image, though rather it shows on
the account of the hotel. When a hotel
representative defines with the guest, an
opportunity to create connection and
assurance is feasible.

13. 3. Check the complaint - In an anxious manner, justify any
action or issues that are adversely impacting the guest‘s
hotel stay. In an appropriate way,
anticipative communicate to guest that the corrective action
will be taken immediately. Show courtesy, and put in for any
comfort of the guest or convenience may satisfy while this
complaint receives attention. If it is possible, hand over on
what the guest may temporarily request for. In case the
provisional request becomes impractical to provide, suggest
other transitory alternatives that can be given.

14. 4. Recognize the guest’s complaint –
Immediately classify the complaints into—essential, amenity
or service. Find out the scale of the urgency of the
complaint. Select the best solution to resolve the complaint.
Consider the scope of solution towards the complaint
internally like within Front desk, or will it require a more
major or external option.

15. 5. Design the course towards good action –
Find out the root cause of the guest complaint. Analyze the
cause if it originates from housekeeping, maintenance and
amenity or service issue. Draw upon a responsible hotel
source that associate with whatever matter is at reason for
the complaint.

16. 6. Assign a complaint to the appropriate resource –
To resolve the complaint at the earliest, make all the
necessary communication to the right personnel in the hotel.
Once approached to the right personnel, explain the
complaint precisely. Communicate the respective person to
find out the best possible way to resolve the problem and the
required time will be taken to solve the problem.

17. 7. Announce the guest plan of action –
Keep posted the guest about the action taken to resolve the
undesirable situation. If at all the given solution is taking a
excessive time to resolve then choose another course of
action and accustom the guest.

18. 8. Recoup for the hotel’s affliction –
Though the guest complaint has been attended and solved it
should not go without entitlement. With respect to
dereliction, this guest should be offered with extra amenities,
service, upgrade, or even an additional night‘s stay. With
such an exalted act of hospitality, both guest restraint and
contentment are achieved.

19. If conditions are at an extreme, then
practice equivalent options. Should the
complaint, upon justification, be to the
extremes that outpace a reasonable
remedy, transfer the guest to similar or
greater accommodations—without any
further charges.

20. How to handle unreasonable complaints:
Unreasonable complaints are ones that you can do nothing
about as it is caused by an external factor and is beyond
your scope of control. Here are some ways of dealing with
guests who come up with such complaints:-

21. It is raining. (I‘m on my one vacation to Hawaii this year,
and it is raining.) The housekeeping staff can reply like this:
"yes, and that's really too bad, especially if you are here on a
special vacation this year. Are you?" and now give the
customer a chance to talk about him or herself. If the staffs
have a similar experience about you, then share it. Many
people get over their feelings of disappointment simply by
talking about them. Suggest some alternatives for the guests
when it is raining, and if the receptionist has not talked
about this in the meetings, then bring the subject up so that
everyone at your hotel or resort has a good answer for this
type of complaint. What alternatives one can suggest to the
guests when it is raining? One might suggest some indoor
entertainment, or indoor games like squash, badminton etc.

22. My package didn't arrive. (There‘s a major blizzard
that has closed down shipping operations across
India.) To this complaint the staff can reply - if the
customers are complaining about packages that
haven't arrived because a blizzard has shut down
transportation operations, they do not know about
this. Believe it or not, but not everyone watches or
listens to the news. Tell them what's happening, and
how everyone is in the same boat, and you're really
sorry this has happened. When you apologize for these
kinds of situations, you aren't assuming responsibility
for it. You're sympathizing for their inconvenience.

23. We're just trying to make conversation. It is not the best attempt at conversation, but
nonetheless it gives us something to say.
We're upset for some other reason than the one we have just communicated.
We don't really know that nothing can be done.
We're looking for sympathy.
We're looking for alternatives.

24. Follow-up Procedure for Handling Complaints
The housekeeping management may use the logbook to
initiate corrective action, verify that guest complaints have
been resolved and identify recurring problems. This
comprehensive written record may also enable management
to contact guests who may still be dissatisfied with some
aspect of their stay at check-out. After the guest has
departed, a letter from the Executive Housekeeper
expressing regret about the incident is usually sufficient to
promote goodwill and demonstrate concern for guest
satisfaction.

25. Procedures for Emergencies
Fire in the hotel
The first thing to do is to inform the Housekeeping
Control Desk (after informing the telephone
department at the front office) as soon as a fire is
detected and intimated to the front desk, the telephone
department in the hotels play the pivotal role of
alarming the hotel. The Control desk in, smaller hotels
are merged with the front office operator should call
the fire department in the city for help.

26. The Control desk should alert all employees and
guests and inform them to use the staircase and not
the elevator. The Control desk should always be
manned during the fire to facilitate communications
from one point to another. If the housekeeping staffs
have to get actively involved in the fire procedures
then they should search each room thoroughly,
especially in closets or bathrooms to ensure that no
guests are left behind.
They must guide the guest through the staircase,
And with the use of fire extinguishers help extinguishing the fire (foam for electrical
fires and oil fires, water for general fires, and so on).

27. Death
Staff should inform the duty manager, the security
supervisor on duty and call for the hotel doctor. The
important thing for all the staff is that an alarm
should not be raised or any guests should not be
informed of the fact. The general manager may decide
to call the police. The body must be removed by the
staff till the entrance and the room should be sealed
till all police formalities are over. People known to the
deceased are contacted through addresses entered on
the registration card

28. Accidents
The house doctor should be called immediately on phone
and informed of the nature of the accident and the condition
of the guest. The doctor‘s instructions must be followed
immediately. Bleeding must be stopped by swabbing wounds
with cotton wool and applying a coagulant such as iodine,
alcohol, spirit or just plain after-shave lotion. If a fracture is
suspected the guest is not moved at all till the doctor arrives.
Burns are to be treated with creams meant for the purpose.
Water is never poured on burns as this will surely lead to
blisters. Hotels train their staff in first aid for emergencies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ynlaWUwMsA

29. Vandalism
The staff must call the hotel security and order the main door to
be locked. If things get out of hand the police must be called.

30. Damage to property by resident guest
The staff should immediately inform the
Housekeeping Supervisor on shift and the
Duty Manager. The front office is then
instructed to raise a charge for the same. A
responsible guest will never argue but should
he object he must be referred to the Duty
Manager or the Executive Housekeeper

31. Drunken guests
A guest in a drunken state may trouble other guests by
being noisy. It is very embarrassing for the hotel staff
to handle such guests. To avoid making it an issue or
the guest from creating a scene , the hotel staff should
politely move the guest from the lobby at the first
instance and should take him to an isolated place ,e.g.
back office. If the guest is out of control, hotel security
should be called for.

32. It is important for the hotel staff not to panic. The
employees should remain calm as far as possible to
avoid providing a cause of panic in other guests
They should skillfully handle the situation
and try to defuse the threat to the security of
guests till help arrives.