1. Persuade the guest to not make any official theft complain to prevent a bad reputation

It takes years to build a good reputation and only a moment to tarnish it. Credibility only comes with a good reputation. In case of a theft try as much as possible to persuade the robbed guest from making any complain officially. As this will cause harm to your market image. Assure the robbed guest that you will take the matters in your own hands and find the guilty and try to bring back the robbed item. Try offering discounts, or shopping vouchers or something of that sort to make up for it.

2. Check CCTV cameras to find the “real” thief

First and foremost check the CCTV cameras to find the guilty. Sometimes it so happens that its not the staff who robbed but may be an outsider pretending to be a guest at the hotel, or actually another guest at the hotel, or may be the person is wrongfully claiming to have been robbed to get out of paying the heavy bills. Check the claimant’s baggage too after checking the staff’s lockers and all possible places where the stolen item could have been kept hidden. As own owner interrogate your staff personally and find out who was working near the robbed premises at the time.

3. If the robbed guest is adamant to register the complain, then provide full cooperation

If the robbed guest refuses to budge despite of  offering heavy discounts or a free stay, keep calm and provide 100% support and cooperation to the angered guest. Let them be a part of all the investigation and interrogation. This will instill their lost faith into the hotel and help to prevent spreading of  a bad word about the hotel through the angered customer.

4. If possible, offer to reimburse the robbed guest

If you want the customer to visit back, try offering some discounts or free stay/free dinner/free takeaways offers to make up for the mishap. Also make a sincere apology for the lack of safety and try offering something or anything that will convince them of how sorry you are for their unlucky incident.

5. On finding the thief, set an example so as to prevent repetition of such an act in the future

Once the guilty is found, set an example by reimbursing the robbed guest from the guilty’s salary, give a final warning to the guilty and demand a sincere apology from him or perhaps even blacklist him from the hotel/ restaurant to send a message to all the other workers if the situation demands for it. While doing all of this, try keeping the robbed guest around all the time, to reinstore his lost faith in the hotel.