According to a recent survey by J.D. Power, staff service was the No. 1 complaint of those staying at luxury hotels. Apparently, luxury lodgings have mastered the art of room maintenance, appearance and cleanliness. However, they have failed to provide the level of service that is expected when one checks into a high-end hotel. This means that service is becoming a key differentiator in this competitive sector of the lodging market.
The real cost of bad service
Guests checking into four and five star hotels have much higher expectations than those who select budget properties. Disappoint them once and you will not get a second chance to please them. Then there is the “small” issue of your star and diamond ratings. Who in this economy can afford to lose a star over something that can be controlled? Certainly not 5-star hotels whose guests tend to be less exposed to recessionary events. Those people do not stop traveling and do not generally decide to move down the food chain to the economy sector.
It appears that many hoteliers have forgotten they are in the service business. This is your wake-up call. Here are five things you can do to create a memorable experience for your guests:
1. Hire the right people
Before you start complaining how difficult it is to even find employees consider the following. The Ritz Carlton puts all candidates through a thorough selection process, regardless of how challenging the labor market might be. Only those with customer service potential make it through. The Ritz understands competitors can replicate a lot of things, but few are prepared to only hire the best.
2. Invest in training and development
Few people show up knowing everything they need to know to be successful in their jobs. That is why it pays to hire people who have potential and train them in the way your hotel does business. Begin by connecting with new hires, even before their first day of work, and continue to provide ongoing training to accelerate their assimilation into your organization. This type of program is usually referred to as Onboarding. Participants who have gone through onboarding report feeling welcome and prepared. You can guarantee this type of investment will translate to better service for your guests, even from newly hired employees.
3. Skip the scripts
Walk into any budget hotel in America and you will hear employees reciting a script memorized from the employee operations manual. Having a standard line front desk personnel can use when they finish helping guests increases the probability your guests are being addressed properly. However, certain situations require different responses. For example, telling a guest, who has just asked for directions to a funeral, to have a nice day just doesn’t seem right.
Encourage your employees to rely on their judgment when communicating with guests. If this is a scary proposition, reread the section on hiring the right people.
4. Empowerment
It is hard for managers to trust employees when they are operating in an environment where mistakes can cost them their jobs. But this is exactly what you must do in order for your employees to go out on a limb for your guests. Who hasn’t experienced a rise in their blood pressure when having to wait for the manager to arrive to handle a simple problem?
At the Ritz, employees are empowered to spend up to $2,000 per day, per guest to take care of a service recovery or to enhance a guest’s stay. They can do this without seeking approval from their supervisor. Employees are trusted to do the right thing, which is to make the guests happy. Can your employees say the same?
5. Ship your employees to the Ritz
How many people on your staff have actually stayed at a five-star hotel? The answer to this question is probably not many. How can you expect your employees to provide guests with a memorable experience when they themselves have never experienced this level of service? It is like trying to get someone to understand how delicious your favorite ice cream flavor is without offering a taste.
Ship them to a place like the Ritz for a night so they can experience first-hand what luxury feels like. Who knows, they may even return with ideas for service that you have not even thought about.
It is simpler than you think to enhance the customer experience throughout your property. All it takes is commitment, patience and the willingness to challenge those who tell you this cannot be done.
Roberta Chinsky Matuson is the President of Human Resource Solutions (www.yourhrexperts.com) and has been helping companies align their people assets with their business goals. She is considered an expert in generational workforce issues. Roberta publishes a monthly newsletter “HR Matters” http://www.yourhrexperts.com/hrjoin.cgi which is jammed with resources, articles and tips to help companies navigate through sticky and complicated HR workforce issues. Read her new blog on Generation Integration http://generationintegration.typepad.com/matuson/. She can be reached at 413-582-1840 or Roberta@yourhrexperts.com.
