Field note
What belongs in a complaint tally (and what does not)
A complaint tally is a count of recorded notes, not a mood. Wall comments and a raised voice at reception are not the same as a dated line in the book.
We will draw a complaint plate only from a dated record: a book, a folder of slips, a column in the night audit. We will not count remarks on a public wall, messages in a phone, or a manager’s memory of a loud Friday.
That rule disappoints people who want the plate to “include the atmosphere.” Atmosphere does not have a date. A slip does. If the salon has no slip book, we omit the plate and say so on the figure list. Omitting is cleaner than inventing a bar for “several guests were unhappy.”
Returns and repeat visits are a different count. A guest who comes back in the same quarter is not a complaint. Mixing the two makes a plate that cannot be read in a sitting. If you keep both, we will ask which one you want on the opening eight plates.
Some operators ask us to drop the complaint plate because the month was awkward. We will drop it if you say so before drafting. We will not drop it after the sitting because a partner frowned. The method is built that way on purpose.