Handling complaints of tourists = giải quyết phàn nàn của khách du lịch

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor Mrs.
Nguyễn Thị Tường M.A., who introduced me to the topic " Handling Tourist's
Complaints" and helped me very much to do this thesis. If I had not received her
valuable guidance, comments and criticism, I would not have completed my thesis.
And I would also like to express my indebtedness to all my teachers at
Foreign Language Department, especially Miss Sandy Gannon, Mrs. Vũ Thị Việt
Hương M.A., Miss Megan Hull for their advices along with their great help with
useful and up-to-date materials concerning my field of study.
My sincere thanks to all librarians and teachers at the Foreign Language
Department of Vinh University, teachers of English at Nghi Lộc I, Ngun H
high school, ASEM Việt Nam, ASEM Links and people from Phó Th¬ng company,
who helped me to carried out the surveys for my thesis..
I am in debt to my family, my classmates who were willing to help me
whenever I got difficult, and gave me the best conditions to finish this thesis.

Vinh, May 2009
Nguyễn Thị Tó Anh

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................................................................... i
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................................................................................ii
LISTS OF TABLES AND FINGURES .......................................................................v

PART A:

INTRODUCTION

1. Reasons for choosing the subject ..............................................................................1
2. Scopes of the study .......................................................................................................2
3. Methods of study ..........................................................................................................2
4. Aims of the study...........................................................................................................2
5. Design of the study .......................................................................................................2

PART B:

DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I: Theoretical background....................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Functions of language ................................................................................3
1.2 Conversation .................................................................................................5
1.2.1 Context .............................................................................................5
1.2.2 Adjacency pairs and exchanges ...................................................6
1.2.3 Turn-taking ........................................................................................7
1.3 Written discourse and spoken discourse .....................................................8
1.4 Speech act ..................................................................................................8
1.5 Politeness and strategies of politeness ...............................................10
1.5.1 Politeness and face ........................................................10
1.5.2 Strategies of politeness .................................................11
1.6 Summary.....................................................................................................11


Chapter II: Handling complaints of tourists........................................................14
2.1 Definition of complaints .......................................................................14
2.1.1 Definition .........................................................................14
2.1.2 Categories of complaints ...............................................14
2.2 The causes of dissatisfaction .............................................................15
2.2.1 Service quality ....................................................................15

2.2.2 Dishonesty ............................................................................16
2.2.3 Safety and Security ............................................................16
2.2.4 Hygiene problems ..............................................................19
2.2.5 Maintenance problems ......................................................19
2.2.6 Others ....................................................................................19
2.3 Types of customer's complaints ............................................................20
2.3.1 Oral complaints .................................................................20
2.3.2 Written complaints ...........................................................20
2.4 Handling complaints ............................................................................21
2.4.1 The value of complaints .................................................21
2.4.2 Benefits of successful complaint handling .................22
2.4.3 The common form for responses to guests'
complaints........23
2.4.4 Dealing with serious complaints .................................24
2.4.5 Dealing with complaints face-to-face ........................25
2.4.6 Dealing with telephone complaints ..............................31
2.4.7 Dealing with written complaints ...................................31
2.5 Summary .........................................................................................................31
Chapter III: Results, findings and suggestions ...............................................37
3.1 Objectives ...............................................................................................37
3.2 Participants ..............................................................................................37


3.3 Results and discussion ........................................................................38
3.4 Suggestions ..............................................................................................42
3.5 Summary ........................................................................................................42

PART C: CONCLUSION

............................................................................46

1. Recapitulation...............................................................................................................46
2. Suggestions for further study ..................................................................................46

References
Appendix


LISTS OF TABLES AND FINGURES
Pages
1 TABLES:
- The rate of tourists' ages

37

- The table of frequency of contacting with representatives

38

- The table of getting problems with transportation

39

- The table of in-resort service

40

- The table of accommodation's quality

40

2 FINGURES:
- Chaos of transportation in Hµ Néi capital of ViƯt Nam
- Chaos of transportation in Hå ChÝ Minh city of ViÖt NamPART

17

A:

INTRODUCTION
1. Reasons for Choosing the Subject
The higher standard of living is, the more people demand to raise their spirit
life. One of the best ways that people choose most is tourism. After a long,
hard-working time, everyone wants to relax by enjoying a travel to somewhere out
of their usual environment. There are many reasons for people to travel such as:
leisure, business, visit or other purposes.
Nowadays, many countries consider tourism as a top priority in national
economic development. In Vietnam, in particularly, there was 3,6 million
international tourist arrivals and 17,3 million domestic tourists and it earned 2,25
billion dollars. Currently, over 240,000 Vietnamese employed directly in the
tourism industry, about 470,000 indirectly for a total of over 700,000 jobs.
( The numbers above show us


the important role of tourism in national economy. Besides, it is also a means of
spreading the image of a country, raising the understanding among people in the
world. Visiting a country, visitors are able to discover the history, the culture,
people, beautiful spots, food and life style of it.
The development of tourism industry depends on many factors in which
service quality is one of the most vital ones. The quality of service is good, tourists

will be satisfied and of course, we will keep their loyalty and ensuring that they
will come back again. However, if there is something wrong during the time they
use the services that make them dissatisfied, they can complain that problem to the
representatives. The question is how to handle those complaints, it is not easy at all,
it is really an art.
During the time of learning tourism - major subject, pragmatics, discourse
analysis, we understand about the language in general and the politeness strategies
in particular, that is the way using language to make tourists satisfied after their
complaints. Facing with the complaints of customers, if we can handle them
carefully, we contribute to the development of tourism industry of Viet Nam. These
are the reasons why we want to choose the study "handling with tourist's
complaints".
2. Scopes of the study
The study focus on the types of complaints and the ways to overcome them.
3. Methods of study
The study based on the methods:
- Collective method
-Analysis of questionnaires and synthetic method
4. Aims of the study
We do the study with the following aims:
- To help the fourth- year- students in Foreign Languages Department in


Vinh University to understand more about tourism professional knowledge
- To provide a reference material for travel agents
5. Design of the study
This study is divided into three main parts:
1 A. Introduction
2 B. Development
- Chapter I: Theoretical Backgrounds

- Chapter II: Handling Complaints of Tourists
- Chapter III: Results, Findings and Suggestions
1 C. Conclusion

PART B:
CHAPTER I:

DEVELOPMENT
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter presents the theoretical background on which the study is based.
It concludes five sections in which: Section 1.1 presents the functions of language,
then conversations are analyzed in section 1.2. The differences between spoken and
written discourse are pointed out in section 1.3. Speech-acts, politeness and
strategies of politeness are presented in sections 1.4 and 1.5. Finally, section 1.6
briefly summaries some previous studies.

1.1 Functions of Language
In the history of Discourse Analysis, many authors have tried to find out the
main functions of language such as: Halliday (1970) with Ideational/ Interpersonal
and Textual, Jakobson (1960) with Referential and Emotive, Bubler (1934) with


Reprentative and Expressive, Lyons (1977) with Descriptive and Social Expressive.
However, Brown and Yule's division of language functions into Transactional and
Interpersonal seem to be the most suitable ways. They proposed that: "that function
which language serves in the expression of content, we will describe as
transactional and that function involves in expressing social relationship and
personal attitude, we will describe as interactional" (Discourse Analysis,
Cambridge University Press, 1983:1). In other words, based on the two functions

we can know the reason and purpose that the conversation is performed and we also
realize the participants' relationship as well as their thoughts and ideas.
Transactional language is that which occurs when the participants are
concerned with the exchanges of goods and services. In transactional language, the
speaker gives the information to hearer to get something (either goods or services)
or to offer goods/services together, called message-oriented. If he/she receives
directions to go to somewhere or of doing something, he/she gets the
services/goods.
Moreover, a prominent feature of transactional language is in written
language such as business writing like: letters, memoranda between two
companies, reports or bills to request and provide information to carry out business
dealing, etc. Transactional language is also realized by "turn" (speaker-hearer
take turns in conversation), "move" (ask and answer questions), "act" (use language
to request or complain). In daily life, people use language not only to express, to
inform or receive thoughts and ideas but also to establish and maintain social
relationship, called interactional or interpersonal language. In other words,
interpersonal language occurs when speakers are less concerned with the exchange
of goods and services than with socializing. Obviously, interpersonal language is
relationship-oriented.
For example: We meet our friends in the morning and greet them "Good
morning!", "How are you?", or "It is a fine day, isn't it?"


In Western culture, it is very polite to start a conversation with topic like
weather. However, in Viet Nam culture, people concern more about personal
questions and a question may become a greeting like " Where are you going?",
"What are you doing?", "How about your family?". We can conclude that in a
conversation, participants should share the same knowledge backgrounds or
common point of view to achieve a successful conversation. In addition,
interpersonal language associates with conversation when language is used to open,

close and maintain conversation by the attempt to make a good impression on the
interlocutor of speaker.
Basing on those features, we can summarize the comparison between
transactional and interactional language in the table below:
Transactional Language

Interactional Language

-Message-oriented

- Relationship-oriented

- A prominent feature in written - Associated with conversation
language

- Formed by common background

- Formed by "turns", "moves", "acts" knowledge between speaker and
hearer

1.2

Conversation
Dictionary of English Language and Culture defines that conversation is

an informal talk in which people exchange views, feelings and thoughts. (1992:79).
According to Akmajian.A., Demers.R.A and Harnish.R.M. (1988:415),
conversation is usually constructed by sequences of expressions by more than a
single speaker. This structure is rarely consciously apparent to speaker.
There are many different definitions of a conversation but all of them define

a conversation as "an informal talk" and there are at least two people who exchange
information to each other.


When people interact with each other, each person will take part in the
conversation which happens in a particular context, interpret the situation, make
sense of it and act accordingly.
1.2.1.

Context
Let's take an example: "Where are you going?"

In Vietnamese culture, this question may be a greeting form when people meet
each other. However, this question is also used when someone wants to get
information from each other. This example shows us the important role of context
in interpreting utterances in conversation. Therefore, the functions of language
should be performed within a context and it is divided into two types:
non-linguistic context and linguistic context.
Linguistic context is the language that surrounds or accompanies the pieces
of discourse under analysis. That means when analyzing a piece of discourse, we
need to look at words, phrases or expressions before of after it.
For example: The red skirt left the room without saying a word.
When we read the sentence, we wonder whether the word "the red skirt" is a girl or
a skirt. We have to pay attention to the words "leave" and "say" and decide that it is
a girl because a skirt can not leave or say.
Non-linguistic context within which the discourse take place include the
type of communicative event (joke, story, lecture, greeting, conversation); the
topic; the purpose, the event; the setting ( including location, time of day, season of
year and physical aspects of situation); the participants; the relationships between
them; and the background knowledge and assumptions underlying the

communicative event.
In conclusion, context is the situation in which the conversation is carried
out. Therefore, to understand the meanings of an utterance, we have to put it in a
particular context.
1.2.2

Adjacency Pairs and Exchanges


In a conversation, there is a correspondence between utterance function and
expected response.
A

B

Greeting

Greeting

Congratulation

Thanks

Apology

Acceptance

Inform

Acknowledgement

Leave-taking

Leave-taking

The mutual dependence of such utterances is underlined when the function of the
first pair-part is contextualized with its response and vice-versa.
For example:
A greeting:

A: Hello
B: Hello/ Hi

Saying a word "Hello"

A response to a telephone caller to
identify themselves: A: Hello
B: Are you Mary?
An expression of surprise:
A: Hello! What's it?
B: It's yours!

Exchanges are independently observable entities utterances and an exchange
consists of many adjacency pairs. There are three functional moves of exchange:
opening moves (initiation), answering moves (response), follow-up moves
(feedback).
For example: In class, teacher can make the initiation and the follow-up moves,
while pupils are restricted to responding moves:
Teacher: Now, Mike, you ask Laura! 
Mike :

What did you do at the weekend?

Opening move


Laura :

I went to Wales.

Response

Teacher: Good, now Laura, you ask Peter... 
1.2.3

Feedback

Turn-taking
Turn is one speaker's utterance bounded by the utterance of one or more

other speakers. People take turns when they are selected or nominated by the
current speaker, they may speak of their own accord (self-selection) or if neither of
these conditions applies, the speaker who is currently talking may continue.
Turn-taking is the process by which the opportunities to speak are distributed
between two or more speakers. There are specific linguistic devices for getting the
turn. These vary greatly in level of formality according different situations (if I
may, Mr A; I wonder if I may say something; can I just come in here; hanging on a
minute; shut up will you; I can't get a word in..., etc.)
Besides, there are some devices to express that we are attending to the
message informed by speaker: back-channel response (mm, ah-ha, yeah, no, right,

sure, etc.), utterance-completion and overlaps.

1.3

Written Discourse and Spoken Discourse
According to Halliday (1985), writing emerged in society as a result of

cultural changes which created new communicative needs. These needs could not
be readily met by spoken language. Written language and spoken language share
much in common, however, they also have some differences.
Both written and spoken languages perform a similar range of broad
function. That is, they are use to get things done, provide information and entertain.
Nevertheless, in terms of their differences, while spoken language is used to
communicate with others directly, written language is used to communicate with
others who are removed in time and place or for those occasions on which a
permanent or semi-permanent record is required.
Written language is used for many different purposes and these purposes will


be reflected in the characteristic of the text themselves: letters have different
characteristic from newspaper editorials, which have different characteristic from
poems, etc.
The differences between spoken and written modes are not absolute, and the
characteristics that we tend to associate with written language can sometimes occur
in spoken language and vice versa.

1.4

Speech act
John Austin (1962) has given out the definition of "speech act" and the

speech act theory. He categorizes them as: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and
perlocutionary act:
- Locutionary act is the basic act of utterance or producing a meaningful linguistic
expression. If you have difficulty with actually forming the sounds and words to
create a meaningful utterance in a language, you may fail to produce a locutionary
act.
- Illocutionary act is the function of utterance, which the speaker wants to express
from his/her mind. The act is performed by the communicative force of an
utterance is called illocutionary act. In our utterances we might promise, threaten,
inform, ask or greet, etc.
- Perlocutionary act refers to the hearer's understanding of the illocutionary act
that speaker intends. In other words, the perlocutionary act is what we achieve by
saying something.
For example: the speech act performed by the utterance: "open the door" has three
following related acts:
+ Locutionary act: an imperative sentence, speaker wants hearer to open the door
from him in his mind.
+ Illocutionary act: speaker utters the sentence.
+ Perlocutionary act: the hearer opens the door.


One general classification system lists five types of functions performed by
speech acts: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives and commissives.
- Declarations are those of speech act that change the world via their utterance.
For example: "I pronoun you wife and husband."
- Representatives are those of speech act that state what the speaker believes to
case or not (assertions, conclusions and descriptions).
For example: "You are jealous!"
- Expressives are those of speech act that state what the speaker feels. They

express psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, like, dislike,
joy or sorrow.
For example: "I'm really sorry!"
- Directives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to
do something. They express what the speaker wants (commands, offers, requests,
and suggestions).
For example: "Could you lend me $100, please?"
- Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to commit
themselves to some future action (promises, threats, refusals, pledges).
For example: "We will not let you down."
These kinds of speech act are classified according to their functions which can be
recognized through words or the context within which the words are said.
Basing on the structure of utterance, George Yule also proposes the way of
dividing speech acts into direct and indirect speech acts.
"Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we
have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a
structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act."
(George Yule, 1996:55)

1.5

Politeness and Strategies of Politeness


1.5.1

Politeness and Face

Let's compare two sentences below:
A: Get out of there and do me a favor!

B: I was wondering if you could help me, there seems to be a problem.
If we comment on two ways of offering a help, we can say that sentence B is more
polite than sentence A. How can we say that? What is politeness?
According to George Yule (1996: 60), "It is possible to treat politeness as a
fixed concept, as in the idea of polite social behavior or etiquette, within a culture".
It is also possible to specify a number of different general principles for being
polite in social interaction within a particular culture such as: being tactful,
generous, modest and sympathetic towards others. In order to describe politeness in
interaction, we use the concept of "face". Face is the public self-image (motional
and social senses) that everyone in the society has and expects others to recognize.
George Yule (1996: 61-62) divided face into two types: negative and positive.
Negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action and
not to be imposed on by others.
Positive face is the need to be connected, to be treated as a member of the
same group.
If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual's
expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face threatening act (FTA). If
the possibility that some action threatens another's face happens, the speaker can
say something to lessen the possible threat. This is called a face saving act (FSA).
1.5.2

Politeness Strategies
When we interact with others in society, it is necessary to keep one's own

face or to avoid threatening other's face. In order to avoid these face-threatening
acts, we try to apply politeness strategies in our conversations.
Many linguistics tried to specify generally principles for being polite in social
interaction such as Brown and Levinson (1987), Lakoff (1989), Leech (1983)

1

Brown and Levinson divided politeness into five strategies to minimize risk of
costing face corresponding to the degree of face-threaten:

- Strategy 1: Bald on record
- Strategy 2: Positive politeness
- Strategy 3: Negative politeness
- Strategy 4: Off-record
- Strategy 5: Do not do the face-threatening acts
They described possible strategies for doing FTA as following:
How to get a pen from someone else
Say something

Say nothing
(But search in the bag)

On record

Off record
(I forgot my pen)

FSA

Bald on record
(Give me a pen)

Positive politeness
(How about letting me use your pen?)

Negative Politeness
(Could you lend me a pen?)
(Cited in Geoger Yule (1996:66)

2 Lakoff described three different rules that a speaker might follow in choosing to
be polite:
- Rule 1: Do not impose. It means that a speaker avoids mitigating or asking
permissions or apologizing for making addressee do anything which he/she does
not want to do.
- Rule 2: Offer options. These mean expressing oneself in such a way that one's
opinion or request can be ignored without being contradicted rejected.
- Rule 3: Encouraged feeling camaraderie/ making a feel good.


3

Leech listed the politeness principles in order to minimize the expression of
impolite beliefs:

- Tact maxim: minimize cost of the other and maximize benefit to other
- Generosity maxim: minimize benefit to self and maximize cost to self
- Approbation: minimize dispraise of other and maximize dispraise to self
-Modesty maxim: minimize praise of self and maximize praise to other
- Agreement maxim: minimize disagreement between self and other and maximize
the agreement between self and other
- Sympathy maxim: minimize antipathy between self and other and maximize
sympathy between self and other
In conclusion, the theory of politeness strategies is still controversial and it is
very important in interaction. Different languages may have different politeness
strategies, seeking an effective one can decide the success of communication.

1.6 Summary
In this chapter, the two main functions of language are transactional and
interpersonal languages, which were reviewed. In addition, conversation and all of
its aspects such as: context, exchanges and turn-taking were presented. Moreover,
the differences and similarities between written and spoken discourses were
analyzed and categories of speech act and the types of functions performed by
speech act were mentioned. Finally, politeness and strategies of politeness were
described clearly and deeply.


CHAPTER II:

HANDLING COMPLAINTS OF TOURISTS

Chapter II consists of four sections in which section 2.1 considers the
definition and categories of complaints, section 2.2 analyses the causes of
dissatisfaction. Next, the value of complaints is presented in section 2.3. Then, the
ways to handle complaints are pointed out in section 2.4. Finally, section 2.5
briefly summaries the previous studies.

2.1

The Definition and Categories of Complaints

2.1.1

Definition of Complaints
In daily life, not everything happens as we expect. We want to be happy, to

feel relaxed and comfortable but in fact, we can not. A person has bought a new
computer but sometimes, it does not work, he spent a mount of money to buy a
thing but its quality is not really good, how can he be happy? Instead, he feels
dissatisfied, angry and that he was cheated. Later, he may tell that problem to the
producers, his act in this case, we say that he is making a complaint.
According to Sally Wehmeier (2005:295), "a complaint is a statement that
somebody makes saying that they are not satisfied, annoyed or unhappy about
something or someone". In tourism, if tourists feel dissatisfied with something
during their tour, they can tell that problem to a travel agent, a tour operator, a tour
guide, or a hotel manager, etc. Therefore, they have to apply a suitable policy to
handle complaints in order that tourists can feel satisfied after the problems are
solved.
2.1.2

Categories of Complaints


There are four kinds of complaints: mechanical complaints, service
complaints, attitudinal complaints and unusual complaints.
1 Mechanical complaints: They are complaints about the equipments
malfunction: electricity, T.V, air-conditioner, illumination, water supply, power
supply, furniture, elevator and so on.
2 Service complaints: They are complaints about problems with services such
as: room service, beverage service, etc.
3 Attitudinal complaints: They are complaints about the rudeness or abruption
of staff members, rude language, irresponsible reply, icy manner, indifferent
manner, or over-enthusiasm and so on. Such cases include that attendant does not
follow the principle of “ first come , first served” in serving the guest , distributes
the wrong room, not delivering the mails to guests in time, not carrying the luggage
for guests, and not giving morning call on time, etc . All these will lead to guest

complaints about the hotel service quality.
4 Unusual complaints: They are complaints about the absence of swimming
pool, lack of public transportation, bad weather, etc.

2.2

The Cause of Dissatisfaction
There are six main causes will be analyzed in this part: service quality,

dishonesty, safety and security, hygiene problems, maintenance problems and
other problems.
2.2.1

Service quality
This relates to the attitude of the people providing the service. A lot of

tourists coming to Viet Nam felt dissatisfied after their trip because of service
qualities. In their tour, they can meet such situation as: their tour guide paid little
attention on them and reacted slowly to the emergency, for instance, not taking
care of senior and children, not companying with the group closely. Many times,
tour guide refused to talk with them and left those who have not joined the


additional activities solely on the bus. Viet Nam is the country of rice and people
use chopsticks to eat in meals. Foreign tourists in Viet Nam wanted to enjoy
Vietnamese traditional food, try eating with chopsticks, they need the tour guide
who have deep knowledge about Vietnamese culture will explain for them the
origin, the process of making and speciality of each dish. However, local tour
guides and drivers do not often eat with them, they use the time while tourists are
eating to do their own works such as: shopping, chatting or taking a nap, etc.

Moreover, tourists often say that they could not find the tour guide when they need
his/her help.
Besides, the attitude of hotel staffs also make them dissatisfied. Customers
sometimes complain that when they arrived at the hotel, the room they have booked
in advanced is not as required and the receptionists do not have an apology, even
after the complaint. In addition, the waiter just ignored them when they complained
that the food is not good enough.
2.2.2

Dishonesty
Tourists sometimes may feel that they were cheated by the agencies. During

a tour, travel agencies can delete the tour or itineraries or adding new activities to
the original trip, asking for extra money without their agreement.
Besides, the hotel management by travel agencies is also a problem.
Customer can be arranged to a lower standard hotel compare with the original one
that advertised by travel agencies. Even sometimes they can not arrange the car
according to customer's demand, for example, they booked a 36-seat car but the
travel agent arranged only a 24-seat one. Similarly, some customers want to buy air
ticket with cheaper price but eventually, the travel agent told them that only
expensive air ticket were available.
Another popular phenomenon is that tour guide is often in cahoots with
sellers of souvenir shops at the destinations to cheat the customers by increasing
the price of goods by 3-4 times as much as usual.


2.2.3

Safety and Security
Tourists usually come across safety and security issues with the destination

and the transportation. In Viet Nam, for example, many foreign tourists are scared
by the chaos of transportation here. According to some illustrating pictures below,
we can understand why so many foreigners do not want to walking in Viet Nam's
streets.

Chaos of transportation in Ha Noi Capital in Viet Nam

Chaos of transportation in Ho Chi Minh City in Viet Nam
Moreover, tourists are also threatened by some local robbers when they want
to across the roads or afraid of being stolen money by the pickpockets at the
destinations.
2.2.4

Hygiene Problems
Some customers said that the hygiene of environment and food in the trip

made them unhappy, for example, lots of rubbish was thrown in the street, at the
sea sides. It also relates to the cleanliness of the property, consumers expect a high
level of cleanliness for all standards of accommodation. They can complain about
the bathroom and kitchen areas which are not cleaned or dusty blanket, mat,
curtain, etc.
In addition, tourists also worry about the food processing procedure in hotels
or restaurants. Because of running after the profits, some of these businesses do not
care much about food safety standard and customers' health. During the meals,
customers may complain such problems as: the vegetable are not refresh, clean or
there is something strange in the soup, etc.


2.2.5

Maintenance Problems
These problems often relate to such transportation and hotel property as: the

old car is running in a slow speed, has poor seats and the air-condition was broken
during the hot summer, sometimes it is broken on the way. In a hotel, customers
can get such situations as: the door can not be closed properly, the bed is too loose
to sleep, the air-conditioners are too noisy or lights, fans do not work, etc.
2.2.6

Others
There are some other factors that make tourists dissatisfied with the travel

experience, they are weather, influence from the other travelers and tight schedule.
Sometimes, the weather factors: rainy, cloudy also make tourist' mood very bad.
The schedule arranged by the travel agencies was so tight that they feel very
exhausted.

2.3. Types of Customers' Complaints
There are two main types of complaints:

Oral complaints

Spoken

words
Phone calls
Written complaints

Letters

Emails

2.3.1 Oral Complaints
For oral complaints, customers can explain by spoken words to employees and
over phone calls.
1 Spoken words to employees: it is the most common form of a complaint; this
could take the form of a passing word or gestures and can be for small or large
problems. There is no official complaints in most cases, spoken word comments
can provide information on the everyday problems that customers are experiencing
and provide an opportunity for employees to solve these problems both for these


customers and for future ones.
2 Phone calls: there are another common form of complaints, generally it is
used for informal minor complaints, but can also be used by a highly dissatisfied
customer who does not wish to write. Phone complaints allow business to look into
the problems but do not usually give them as much time to solve it as a letter or an
email.
2.3.2

Written Complaints

1 Letters: letters are a very common form of complaints; they are generally
seen as the most official way of complaining. This means that most customers will
only use a letter of complaint where they feel there is a serious dissatisfaction.
Letters have an advantage to the business as customers allow them to look at
problems, solve it and reply to the customer hopefully ensuring they are satisfied
enough to remain customers.
2 Emails: emails are similar to letters; however, they tend to describe smaller
problems that are expected to be solved in a much quicker time.

2.4

Handling Complaints
It is a fact of business that not all customers will be happy, problems,

mistakes or even bad lucky can cause people to be dissatisfied with their products
or services. Many businesses tend to try and ignore complaints or pass them off as
irrelevant. However, if we dealt with those complaints well, they can actually
provide the business with a strong advantage.
2.4.1

The value of Complaints
As we have said above, when customers do not receive what they thought

they should have received, in other words, their expectations were not met, they
will complain. Failure to solve their complaint that may lead to the dissatisfaction
of these customers and of course, they never come back again. When you loose a
customer, you loose not only his or her business but also any future repeat
business. Moreover, you may loose business through these dissatisfied customers


telling others about their experience. We can give an example to explain this point:
Mrs. Lan has stayed in hotel A but she was not unhappy about the service quality
there. She came back to home and said her experience to Mrs. Huong: "It's
imaginable! The service in that hotel was very very bad. You know, servers'
attitudes are very impolite and aggressive, I always argued with them. Dirty room,
noisy air-conditioner, I told problems to the manager but she only ignored. I was
very angry!" Do you think that Mrs. Huong will want to stay in that hotel anymore?
We think that she will not. However, if you fix all problems well, you will keep the

customers who made the complaints and may help to bring new customers to your
business.
Besides, your business will also have to pay a lot of money for attracting new
customers to replace the ones you have lost. For a business, you really do not want
to loose customers by failing to deal with complaints effectively.
Another value of a complaint is that if the complaint is the result of a mistake
by an employee, a complaint will help you to know where the problem is.
Complaints are, therefore, very valuable to tourism business.
2.4.2

The Benefits of Successful Complaint Handling
Even the most efficient tourism business is likely to receive some

complaints about its facilities, products or service provided to customers by
employees. Other customers may dissatisfy with some aspects of what is provided.
However, there are some benefits to any tourism business from identifying
dissatisfied customers and dealing complaints effectively:
1 Providing an opportunity to correct mistakes or solve problems
2 Obtaining valuable feedback on what customers want, need and expect of
your business which can be used to improve the customers' experience.
3 Stopping minor difficulties leading to major problems
4 Increasing levels of repeat business
5 Generating favorable word-of-mouth recommendations from customers who


are satisfied with how their complaints have been dealt
6 Providing an opportunity to stop the same problems occurring again.
Handling complaints successfully can lead to customers who are as loyal as
they would have been had the problem leading to the complaints not arisen.
7 Improving service delivery and quality

8 Improving the business reputation
9 Less time and money spent attracting customers
2.4.3

The Common Form for Responding to Guests' Complaints
Facing with customers' complaints, firstly, we have to say something to

express that we concern it. Below is the most common form for responding to
guests' complaints:
Response to Guests' Complaints

Apology

+

Solutions

+

Time-setting

(Lê Thị Mai Hồng, 2008:05)
For example:

I'm sorry sir, I'll inform the house keeper
Apology

at once.
Solutions

Time-setting
2.4.3.1

Giving an Apology

An apology is the first thing you always have to say, even if you did nothing
wrong. From your customers' perspective, they have a proper complaint and they
expect an apology. A sincere apology will partly reduce customers' angry because
it show that you care about the customers and that you are aiming to put right any
problems they have said.
We can say: - I'm sorry/ I do an apology, (Sir/madam).  for a small problem