The Customer Is Always Right: The Hospitality Industry And It's Morals.

From the very beginnings of my time in hospitality and events I've always been told that 'the customer is always right'; it's a phrase that is used across a number of customer facing industries but nowhere is it more apparent than in the hospitality industry.

Have you ever entered a branch of your bank and clicked your fingers at the bank manager for service? Have you ever asked the lady cashing your cheque at the counter what her relationship status is and what she's doing after work? Have you ever sworn at the person responsible for approving your new business banking account?

The answer to all of the above is more than likely a no, mainly because all three would be deemed totally unacceptable and would probably see you being told never to enter the bank again. It seems in that instance, the customer is not always right.

There seems to be a mindset across the hospitality sector that certain things are acceptable that wouldn't be in any other environment. The perception that the because the customer is paying a large sum of money, then we forget the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not; it is something that has long being ingrained in the mindset of the hospitality industry. What we're observing here is not poor quality staff and it's often not a poor attitude from the guest; what we're witnessing it's what I feel is a very worrying cultural norm that has become accepted in the industry over time.

Every guest enters into such an environment being told to expect to be given everything they request. This in itself creates a level of fear from the staff and from the venues that if each and every need is not met then the guest will quite simply go elsewhere.

The staff training programmes in such exclusive venues also do not sufficiently address this cultural issue within the industry. The programmes look at how to accept certain situations rather than how to actively deal with them and spot what is right and what is wrong. There are a number of hospitality areas that train their staff to 'never say no to a guest', again only furthering the idea that a guest in entitled to do as they wish and behave how they please, something that would not happen in any other industry.

What if a guest is saying something or asking something wholly unacceptable, should each staff member still never say no? And if not how can we expect them to know how to react when this is the culture we not only work in, but seem to actively encourage?