Handling Guest or Customer Diversities

Introduction
As tourism professional, handling our guests or customers is the
most important responsibility we perform day in and day out.
Our customers or guest are, first and foremost, the people who are
paying our respective companies for a service, be it an airline ticket,
a hotel room, a limousine ride, a buffet lunch, or a package tour.
These customers or guest are as diverse as there are stars in the
heavens. No one customer or guest is like the other. We must live
with this reality in our professional lives.
There is nothing wrong with having to deal with multitudes of different personalities daily in the
first place, As a matter of fact, tourism professionals are among the most blessed workers in the
world for this unique situation. Therefore, we should be grateful that we exist in a multicultural
diverse environment every minute of our working day. It is a blessing not a curse.

10 ways how to handle diverse guest or customers.

1. In everything, the first rule is to always be professional in all your dealings with everyone.
Being professional is a basic requirement in the workplace. Being professional should be an
attitude from within each one of us. This not need to be taught. You do not require mentorship
to become professional. In the tourism industry, in instances when a staff member becomes
unprofessional toward his customers or guest, it is taken very seriously. Depending on the case,
unprofessionalism can be a cause for termination of employment or, at the very least, a long
suspension of 30 days. Some companies go to the extent of blacklisting this kind of staff,
making it difficult for erring staff to find new employment.
Most customer-driven companies always promise their clients the highest professional
handling of their needs and requirements. Companies, therefore, cannot compromise on this
basic attitudinal requirement all their staff must display consistently.
2. Know your job with passion. Knowing exactly the why, what, how and when of your job will
give you the required confidence to be able to be of service in your customers or guests. Many
foreigners can be intimidating in their approach. Some can be the exact opposite. Either way,
knowing your job well is the best tool to address all kinds of people. Try to imagined a situation
when you are confronted by a highly aggressive and demanding person, someone in a hurry. If
you are not familiar with all the tasks you are expected to know, That aggression will become
worse. Whereas, if you are confident of what you are supposed to be doing in all kinds of
situations, including the careful handling of aggressive customers or guests, that aggression can
be turned around into a well-handled situation, and therefore, a satisfied customer or guest.

5 tips on how you can always have an excellent

understanding of your job.

 Know and understand your detailed job description by heart.

 Familiarize yourself with the standards and procedures pertinent to your
section and department.
 Read and remember all current memoranda pertinent to your section and
department.
 Always attend and be present for operational meetings, regular training
program and other special program.
 Do your research and study the current trends pertinent to your job and
industry.

3. Learn how to be a good listener. In our world, which is full of diverse

personalities, a tourism professional is expected to lead the way
in bringing people from all parts of the globe together. This
becomes even truer if you are working as a crew member of the
leading cruise liners in the world. These cruise liners, which
travel the major capitals and tourism destinations, can accommodate thousands
of passengers in a single cruise, and these passengers are a mix of nationalities
from the seven continents. Passengers in cruises know that, once on board,
meeting other passengers and having fun together is part of the experience. A
cruise line staff will have to be a good listeners to be able to catch even the same
sentence in English be spoken differently by 25 different nationalities. A question
like “ Where can I buy some books on the ship?” can be said differently depending
on who is asking. The art of good listening goes a long way. Cruise line staff who
are good listeners will always know what is being asked. Passengers can easily
irritated by staff who do not easily understand their statements much less their
questions. In extreme cases though staff should tactfully ask the passengers to
repeat their statement or question.
Here are five techniques of a good listener:
 Maintain eye contact with the speaker.
 Listen very carefully with sinere interest.
 Empathize when necessary.
 Seek clarification to ensure complete understanding.
 Always keep an open mind.

4. Go beyond the basics of being friendly. In our industry, being courteous and
friendly is a basic requirement. Some staff take this a little bit too naively. If they
greet a customer or guest with a smile, they are doing what is expected of them
at the minimum. Good tourism professional should know how to engage their
customers or guest with some conversational banter. They generally appreciate
talking about their countries, their nationalities, or some prominent people you
know from these countries. The advantage of Filipino tourism professionals is that
we have the facility of speaking English and, are by nature, friendly, talkative
people. We should use these advantages to our benefit. A word of caution
though: be sensitive when it is time to stop the banter and allow the customer or
guest some privacy. In hotel specially, we teach the art of unobtrusive service.
This should be our benchmark: knowing when we talk and when to keep quiet. It
is very easy to be friendly.
Here are five reminders to ensure you remain consistently friendly.
 Have a friendly, welcoming demeanor all the time.
 Listen before talking, do not grab the spotlight.
 Do not use your devices when having a conversation with
people.
 Be in tune with everyone around you.
 Show sincere interest by asking questions.
5. Be efficient. Customers or guests judge our service by our efficiency first and
foremost. Courteousness and friendliness are just important but still come second
to being efficient. In the developed countries, which include many of our
neighbors like Japan, Hong-Kong, and Singapore, efficiency is King. In Switzerland,
punctuality and efficiency are basic to their population. In France, they have
mastered excellence in the culinary field. In the Philippines, we still have many
issues about being efficient. The challenge is that in our country, efficiency is
wanting in many services, both in government and private sectors. The demand
for efficient service, Is something that companies sincerely endeavor to provide
their customers or guests as best as possible.
Five ways to remain efficient all the time:
 Focus on the task at hand, do not multitask.
 Learn how to delegate.
 Communicate accordingly, using the right media to do so.
 Time all tasks, taking downtime into consideration.
 Plan ahead.
6. Embrace all difference. Multicultural diversity is about
embracing everything we are not. We do not necessarily
have to love or to agree to anything that is not us, but we
can be respectful of other religions, languages and dialects,
customs and traditions, and sexual preference. We live in a
world where diversity should be able to bring us together to live in peace despite
these differences. In the Philippines, we work side by side with Catholics,
Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, among other several religions. We
work with foreigners from the four corners of the globe. We work with the LGBTQ
community. The tourism industry allow us the unique opportunity to be able to
embrace these differences and learn to become better at our jobs by doing so, or
better yet, by being so.

7. Understand to be understood. When diversity is the norm in your workplace,

being understanding of the faults or shortcomings of others, especially your
customers or guest, is a very good way to opening the doors to a mutually
beneficial interaction at any particular moment. This could lead not only to
mutually beneficial interaction, but also long-term relationship. When customers
or guests feel your sincerity, some of them decide to make you their friends,
especially in this day of facebook, twitter, and Instagram. The bigger aspect of
deciding to become more understanding of others is that it makes you an even
better person and a better industry practitioner in general.

8. Become a walking Wikipedia. Regarding knowledge about countries,

nationalities, cultures, traditions, and religions, tourism professional should learn
as much as possible. By so doing, you will be able to have a meaningful
conversations with your customers or guests when these conversations are
merited. In our industry, this is quite often the case especially for tour guides,
cabin crew, hotel guest service officers, butlers, and bartenders. The worst thing
that can happen to a tourism professional mentioned is when then cannot
contribute intelligently to a conversation the customer or guest is hoping to have
with them. These conversations can extend to other things like politics and your
personal family life. Prudence in these discussions is important as you are
officially representing your company while you are in uniform.
9. Observe the basic rule of engagements. In all the instances previously
mentioned, you are engaged in a conversation
or interaction with your customer or guest;
therefore, you must be able to observe the basic
rules of engagement. The first rule is to look at
the customers or guest in the eye at all
appropriate times. This will make the customers
or guest feel they are the most important person you are engaging with at the
moment. The second rule to greet the customer or guest not by calling them “Sir”
or “Ma’am” but by calling them by their name. There are many ways to get to
know the name of the customer or guest and this is taught during the training
period before you are even exposed to these customer or guest. The third and
final rule is that at the end of the conversation or engagement, you thank the
customer or guest and wish to see them again, soon. Remember, do not just
thank the customer or guest. Sincerely tell them you wish to see them again.
10. Be yourself. In everything, be yourself. You are microcosm of the bigger
version of yourself, which is supposed to be your company. Even though
companies are clear about their vision, mission, and values, you, on the other
hand, as an individual, will have to see how your individuality can complement
your company’s brand identity. Do not try to be someone else you are not. It
does not work that way. This industry is not a theater. It is not the movies. It is
real life, real time. Your customers or guest look at you, stare at you, and observe
you all the time, but that does not mean you have to wear a mask or a façade.
Customers or guests are smart enough to conclude that perhaps your smile is
fake, or your eye contact disengaged, or your handshake ie weak. When you are
yourself always, the true spirit of your persona will exude the confidence and
sincerity customers or guest appreciate and look for in tourism professional.

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