Managing Drunken Customers

Managing drunken customers requires essential customer service skills as we have to deal with drunk people from all walks of life and within all industries. In one of the recent hotels that I audited, I found that there was a heated argument that turned into a brawl between drunk customers with waiters.

A report presented by Alcohol Focus Scotland’s ServeWise stated that ‘As drunkenness affects balance, judgement and sometimes the state of mind, there are many accidents and crimes where alcohol is a contributory factor’.

Being tough against drunk customers may not necessarily resolve a drunken case argument as it usually makes things worse and resulting into being harmed. The customer service personnel should be confident in exercising his duties because poorly trained personnel’s may give an upper hand to drunken customers. Techniques such as slowly ushering away one party from the scene may diffuse the situation as it calms down the aggressor whom do not have potential target to shout. Approaching the drunk sobers friend in tackling the situation is ideal too as the drunken customer prefers to listen more to his personal friends rather than an authoritative personnel. Applying friendly but genuine approach when dealing with customers is requisite to ensure situation remains under control. Alternatives drinks such as coffee, fruit juice or tea may do the trick in handling overly drunk customers. Customer service personnel should recommend the use of cabs when customers’ level of drunk has reached beyond control. Truly calling the legal enforcers may resolve the situation as the siren sound sends fear among the drunken aggressor. If the drunken customer is aggressive, escort him outside till the arrival of enforcer officer whom can look after the customers’ safety. Organizations can stop serving drunk customers immediately if they found them being intoxicated at a point of madness. It is profound that such act is done solely to be responsible to customers’ safeties.

Employers especially in hotels, restaurants, convenience stores, bars, transportation companies and service centers should provide a set of training programs for their employees with relevant skills to interact and engage with drunken customers. Even the recent riot in Serangoon, Singapore was attributed to a drunk individual that resulted death. But for me, I believe the incident could have been thwarted if the bus driver had used the right technique in handling the drunken passerby that came into the tour bus. The right training enables employees to initiate learning paths as well as insert liable service especially in serving alcohol that promotes social responsibility.