To not reprimand staff for not smiling?

[squashedalmondcroissant]

I work as a manager in a catering/hospitality business, small local chain.

I had a call from a senior staff member about a negative review we were given online that essentially said they didn’t feel that the staff member on duty (not me) was smiley enough. I have now been tasked with pulling up this staff member on this.

I am very much not someone who is easily offended or quick to jump to misogyny but something about this feels..irritating to me. (The person complaining was a man and all the staff are women). They didn’t say the staff were rude, unpleasant or ignored them, just that were weren’t smiley and ‘welcoming’. I know the staff member and they are always polite and helpful but they do have a bit of a ‘resting bitch face’ when not intentionally grinning like a Cheshire Cat!

Something about this is rubbing me up the wrong way. It seems the main complaint is the staff not smiling while doing her job perfectly competently. Should I reprimand her for this? I understand that when customer facing sometimes you need to fake it a bit but is just her natural face position so offensive to someone that she should be forced to plaster on a fake smile? I’m torn!

I have yes, more than once.

However, you keep leaving out the 'welcoming' part and (like the OP) you're just concentrating on the smiling.

They're both part of the same package.

However, if the OP remains determined to see this with blinkers on, she's unlikely to get to the bottom of it.

Hopefully she'll have a quiet word with the staff member, show her the review and ask for her side of it.

Please don't tell all the staff. Scatter gun management is so poor and breeds resentment. There's been a specific complaint about one person, so speak to them about it.

Did you work for NatWest? We had little notepads with that printed on and a big smile picture. 🤮🤣

The OP has said the women provides good customer service

I wouldn't say anything, wouldn't tell her off. If she was polite, did her job, smile is a personal thing. Perhaps said customer should've been a better customer and made her feel like smiling.

That doesn't mean she did on this occasion.

Which is why the OP needs to have a quiet word with a neutral mind, to hear the woman's side of it.

Love it!

im sorry everyone who is stating that the industry is in trouble - it doesn’t mean women have to pick up the slack

• more pressure

totally wrong

I think if you work in hospitality, part of making your guests feel welcome is greeting them with a smile whether you're male or female. If I go into a restaurant, I always smile and say hello, I've got a reservation for X and I would expect the person greeting me to smile and be welcoming. I don't think there's anything unusual about that.

Counts for more than you are allowing

and the OP immediately said it didn’t feel
right - all the customer could say was he didn’t get a smiley enough service 🤢

This reminds me of when I was a young woman and one of the things that men would shout at women just going about their lives and refusing to engage with them as you simply walked down the street was "Cheer up love, it may never happen so come on give us a smile". The male thing of feeling entitled enough to demand that the mere fact that they existed meant you should greet them with a great big grin. I used to respond with "But it has and I am on my way to the funeral"

I’ve been to places where the staff are “not welcoming enough” and it can feel like they don’t even care about your custom. Like you’re an inconvenience.

Ignoring the fact he said he didn't feel welcomed again?

Why?

It's not helping the OP at all if you don't consider everything she's said.

With a resting bitch face.

Customer service with a resting bitch face isn't good customer service.

I was returning something at M&S the other week. The sales person never smiled and barely acknowledged me. She went away to check something and came back exactly the same, no smile nothing. It was awful. I didn't complain as life's too short but I worked frontline NHS whilst grieving my mum and my husband during their final illnesses and after. You really do need to fake it sometimes and actually if you do you often feel better.

It is the sort of thing where you address the whole team and just as a reminder of how smiles matter.

Many people expect American style waiting. Hello, how can I help you, my name is this, blah blah. And feel service is lacking when the person waiting is not like this. It may be the complainer was like this and had these expectations.

European service is far more formal. Where the competence of the service is what matters. Not so much the smiles. They won’t tell you their name either. But it is revered far more as a career and as a real skill.

What the approach is of the catering/hospitality venue you work at only you will know. How relaxed or how formal.
But a good mix of the American and European style would seem a balance to work for in the UK depending on your venue.

Or maybe he should just spend his money somewhere else.

@Lifeomars exactly. Staff are people too and sometimes you just don’t feel like plastering on a fake smile even if you are doing your job perfectly well. My own DM is in hospital right now with MRSA and I don’t particularly feel like smiling. My DSis died earlier this year and I was back at work 2 days later, I still did smile at customers in between bouts of crying out the back because I’m trying to be good at my job and to set a good example but some days are worse than others and sometimes I just can’t. No one has any idea what others are going through.

During the 40+ years I've worked with the public I've faced some heartbreaking times.

But the customers don't know that and as you know, online reviews can make or break a business.

So you really do have to bring your game face to work, even when it's so very difficult.

Have the staff members back op. Feedback like that can really dent someones confidence. You know her. They customer doesnt. Your opinion of her matters more that a grumpy customer with too much time on his hands. Imo complaining over not smiling is petty. Save complains for things that matter.
Having said that it is easy/early offence if you are having a bad day. Maybe that was him. Still not your staff members problem. Live is short. We dont need to be overly critical of each other. We should see the best in people or give the benefit of the doubt.
I would not pull her up on this unless there was extreme pressure to from senior colleagues who didnt back down when I had spoke up for her. I would not want to make a bigger situation out of it so would have a very quiet word. But would heavily sugar coat. Ideally just move on. Ignore him.

Just to clarify, this is not the type of business where we are waiting on tables and spending extended periods of time with customers, it’s more like a shop. Customer interaction (depending on chat levels) is less than 5 minutes each. Said staff member is one of our best, never even has her phone on her or ignores customers (at least not that I’ve seen in her year of employment).

We’ve only ever had 2 negative reviews, and only this one has mentioned anything negative about staff attitude/welcome in fact it’s normally quite the opposite, hence why this doesn’t feel right.

If your upper management uses these reviews as a measure of how much bonus/pay your store or individual staff get paid then it's your duty to mention it. Not in a disciplinary way but just to keep kpi up.

Not in a way that singles out any one person. But do try and ensure that staff have a pleasant and welcoming manner. If it will affect you or their wages.

If it won't then just ignore the comment and carry on as you are. It mustn't be unusual to get slightly snarky 'complaints' which aren't really serious occasionally. Some customers are just dicks.

an older man said he didn’t feel welcomed because the female staff member
was not “smiley enough” - he had the time to complain!

it’s a thing - which is what OP
has picked up on

he got good customer service

He didn’t even say they didn’t smile - just not enough - it gets worse

And they said “not smiley enough” not that they didn’t smile

I think if you got good customer service that’s all that mattered

hating all these probably female posters on here pressuring women to be more smiley - women are carrying enough ffs

It isn't good customer service if a customer walks away feeling unwelcome, to such an extent that they spend time to leave a review about it.