SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES OF EXPERIENCED AND TRAINEE RECEPTIONISTS IN HANDLING GUEST COMPLAINTS

Abstract

Effective communication plays a crucial role in hospitality services, particularly when hotel receptionists respond to guest complaints. However, limited attention has been given to how syntactic structures are used by receptionists with different levels of professional experience. This study aims to compare the syntactic structures used by experienced and trainee hotel receptionists when handling guest complaints. The research employed a qualitative descriptive approach. Data were collected from 120 complaint-response utterances produced by 12 receptionists working in star-rated hotels in Bali, consisting of six experienced receptionists and six trainee receptionists. The utterances were obtained from receptionist–guest interaction transcripts and analyzed based on syntactic structure classification, including simple, compound, and complex sentences. The results show that trainee receptionists tended to rely more frequently on simple sentence constructions, while experienced receptionists demonstrated a wider variety of syntactic structures, particularly compound and complex sentences. These findings indicate that professional experience may influence the diversity of syntactic patterns used in complaint-handling interactions. The study highlights the importance of developing varied syntactic structures in hospitality communication to support more effective responses to guest complaints.