Service

I have always believed that the front desk staff played a critical role, now more than ever they truly are the first impression makers, for better or for worse. Chances are that hard evidence for this is available online every day in your guest surveys and/or your online guest reviews.

Services that fail to change with the times, fall out of use: Robust, third-party QA programs are, surprisingly, one such otherwise valuable service that we may see disappearing as social media are increasingly used by guests and management alike, to determine the state of affairs and rankings of hotels and resorts. The replacement of professionals by amateurs, who are armed with a little knowledge and the full confidence of their own particular experience, is not necessarily an improvement; but it is certainly a reality.

Don Quixote tilted his lance at windmills: we tilt ours at service standards that do not meet expectations, which is why I am spending a perfectly beautiful Florida spring Sunday inside, banging away on the keyboard when sensible people are beaching, sailing, golfing, etc.

The reason I train everyone to love guests’ ‘buts’ is because when we can manage to get a good ‘but’ out of a guest, that means that we have shown the guest we are asking because we truly care and want to know. Let me explain…

In the hotel industry we all know how important it is to deliver hospitality, which is the key to a positive guest stay. Otherwise we are simply in the ‘room rental business’ and our guest rooms devolve into a commodity like a seat on an airplane.

Traditionally, the guest experience with a hotel is defined by their interaction(s) with hotel staff, the upkeep of the property and amenities, and the provision of a room which meets or exceeds expectations. However, as any savvy hotelier knows, the current hospitality landscape has outgrown that tradition to make room for improved technology and an enhanced, personalized guest experience. Where guests previously expected to be greeted with cheerful front desk staff, they now prefer mobile check-in, allowing them to bypass lines and interact with the hotel freely (and immediately).

The purpose of this paper is to offer a different concept approach of a corporate objective by turning it into what we call a neuro-objective, aimed at generating the appropriate behavior in the workers to achieve and materialize such goals

As hospitality industry trainers know, using symbols and models can help trainees grasp abstract concepts and make seemingly-complex paradigms easy to understand. Seems like is a good time for the hotel industry to update its model, so let’s get your team onboard The Tricycle of Guest Service.

As a hotel industry sales and guest services trainer, on average I experience six or more hotel stays each month. Although I have clients across all segments of lodging, many of my clients are in the ultra-luxury five star or five diamond categories. Once thing I have learned is that the level of authentic and genuine hospitality, which travelers treasure the most, has little to do with the number of stars or diamonds hanging on a plaque behind the front desk. In fact, I’ve experienced some of the most memorable service encounters at economy lodging properties, whereas I find that hospitality too often falls short at ultra-luxury properties and instead feels scripted and robotic.

To their credit, most hotel operators seem to be working hard to improve the overall quality of the ‘physical product’ such cleanliness, amenities, F&B offerings, and comfort of the guest room itself. Perhaps this is due to sincere concern for guests, but I suspect it is also out of an awareness of the impact of online guest reviews and social media postings. That being said, as a frequent traveler I still experience inconveniences just about every time I stay in a different hotel, which for me is usually about 6 different times per month.