News for the Hospitality Executive |
Hoteliers Should Utilize New Tools For
Measuring Hospitality
and Guest Service Efficiency
By
Doug Kennedy
November 30, 2010 Most hoteliers I meet these days seem to be
well-aware of
the importance of providing great service to each and every guest. Given the proliferation of online guest
reviews and social media posting being made – often by guests who are
in-house
– most managers already know that the level of hospitality and guest
service
your hotel staff provides is now transparent for all on the outside to
see by
typing a few words in a browser bar. Yet as much as they think having great guest
service is
important, too many hotel managers are still relying on the traditional
means
of measuring guest satisfaction, such as by post-departure guest email
surveys
and even traditional comment cards. The good news is that the emerging
technology which is
continuously being introduced by innovative entrepreneurial companies
now
provides some effective new ways to measure hospitality, service
efficiency,
and guest satisfaction. One such example is a new system called
ExpressWay® from a
company called VOC Systems which allows guests to leave their comments
and
concerns by voicemail. Guests are
notified at check-in and by in-room displays and in-lobby kiosks that
they have
the option to dial a voicemail extension and simply speak a recorded
message
conveying their compliment or complaint.
Their system them immediately forwards their message to a
distribution
list of manager(s); the message is forwarded both in text form and also
as an
email attachment, so that the manager can take appropriate action
immediately,
while the guest is still in-house experiencing the problem. Interestingly, early results show that over
50% of the messages guests leave are positive in nature, such as
complimenting a
service provider. www.vocsys.com Another great new tool for measuring guest
satisfaction is
offered by a company called Revinate®.
Their system monitors all the major online guests review
and social
media websites, allowing managers to log-in to see all of the postings,
versus
having to call the different networks. More
frequent monitoring of these websites
sometimes reveals postings that have just recently been made, perhaps
by a
guest who is still in their room who can be contacted right away for
resolution. Best of all, it also
aggregates the feedback posted online so that managers can easily
identify
reoccurring problems guests are experiencing.
Managers also can respond to online guest reviews from
Revinate, which
most electronic marketing consultants highly recommend doing. www.Revinate.com
Besides tracking guest comments and online
feedback, there
are other new systems now available at much lower price points than was
imaginable just a couple of years back.
For example, the Call IQ system provides hotel managers
with a tool for
automatically recording all of their inbound 800 calls.
For a monthly fee that is probably less than
most hotels pay for their current inbound 800 service, this system not
only
records all calls, but also indicates phone numbers and addresses for
most of
the calls (unless blocked by the caller.)
This allows managers to monitor and assess how their hotel
sales
department staff, hotel reservations or front desk, and other guest
contact
personnel interact with real callers daily.
The service even provides a customizable scoring form that
managers can
use to assess their team’s performance against the standards. Even without using a scoring form,
managers
will gain invaluable insight by simply listening to what their agents
are saying
to real guests. www.MyCallIQ.com
Beyond these systems there are many other
new tools being
introduced to the hospitality industry every month that allow managers
to
measure guest satisfaction and service efficiency (response times,
processing
times.) There are even companies
providing hidden-video recording technology that allow a mystery
shopper to
videotape their interaction with the hotel
employees, whether at the front desk, room service, the
restaurant, or
elsewhere. By harnessing the new technology systems now
available,
hoteliers can better-understand what guests really want and need daily. They can better identify the root causes of
service deficiencies, which are often a result of deficient operational
systems
and procedures. And
managers can better identify those
hospitality superstars on their team who go above and beyond for guests
every
shift. Armed with this information,
managers can tie-in real world performance with employee recognition
and
incentive programs in ways never before possible.
|
Contact:
Doug Kennedy
|
Also See: | Training
Your Team To Master “Channel Conversion” Techniques / Doug Kennedy
/ November 2010 |
Upselling
Strategies For Your Front Desk and Reservation Teams / Doug Kennedy
/ September 2010 |
|
Training Is Key To Turning “Desk Clerks” Into Front Desk Salespersons / March 2007 | |
It’s Time To Give Hotel Guests What They REALLY Need and Want Daily! Key Basics Some Hotels Still Fall Short On / Doug Kennedy / September 2006 |