Movie Morsel: Get your complaints heard!

July 6, 2008 by Joe

Being in the service/entertainment industry, I thought I’d take a post and see if I could help people get their thoughts heard when it comes to making a complaint. There are many many many reasons why you, as a guest or a patron, would want to make a complaint. It could be bad service, messy environment, or an issue with another guest. However, when you make your complaint, it’s important to take a few things into consideration. If you take a second to think about these things, I think you’ll find your resolution to be much more favorable, and are much more likely to leave happy

Do I need to calm down?

If you’re asking yourself this question, I would assume that the safe answer is yes. Now how would calming down help you out in a situation where you feel really strongly about something? Well… that’s what I’m about to explain!

When you come up to someone and are visibly upset, it’s likely that the person you are about to approach is bracing themselves for your complaint. If you are not calm, and blow up on this person, they will probably try to defend themselves rather than be completely concerned with your issue. Why is this? Well, if you’re out of control, you probably won’t be able to control everything that comes out of your mouth, and even though the person you’re talking to shouldn’t get mad, they probably will if you don’t address it properly.

If you ask yourself this, it gives you an opportunity to get things worked out the way you’d like. A calm person will much more likely get what they probably deserve (in this case, a good resolution) than someone who is not.

What is the associate thinking?

This question is also very important to ask. Not many people would take this into consideration I think. This almost ties into my previous point, but let me try to illustrate this through an example.

If you come up to the person who may solve your situation angry and yelling, what do you think the associate is thinking? If it were me…. this is what would be going through my head:

Great, I really don’t want to deal with this right now. Why do they have to keep yelling at me? It just makes me want to help them less. :-/

I can’t guarantee that everyone will think the same thing, but I’d say there’s a good chance someone would. If you approach an associate nicely to try to explain the issue you are trying to have, there is a much better chance they will work hard to try to get your problem resolved.

And finally….

What should I get? Am I expecting more than I should?

Now I know that whenever there is an issue, you would generally expect to get compensation, or at least have it resolved. I’ve found that the more people expect to get, the less they may actually receive. For example, there was a guest who explained very nicely to me the issue she was having with her film. We actually took a couple minutes to try to figure out what I could do, what was actually causing the problem. After talking with her for a few minutes about it, I realized that she had helped me a lot. She had prevented this issue from happening to another guest, and wasn’t expecting anything. So what did I do? I made sure that she was compensated for the issue she had with her film, and she left happy. Yes, she probably deserved it already, but I felt good being able to offer that to her. I wouldn’t have felt so obligated to do so if she had demanded them in the first place.

Hopefully this article has helped you a little bit…. do you agree with me? What would you do in this situation?