By
Doug Kennedy
January 3, 2012
Like most
trainers, I frequently engage participants in interactive activities
that
hopefully shift their paradigms. With
one such activity, I give participants a list of like-hotels in a
location they’ve
never been to, and then have them each place a group sales or
reservations inquiry
call. Afterwards, each participant
reports back to the overall group on their experiences and
observations.
Recently, while
training the reservations team of a four-star hotel, the results were
especially interesting when two participants in particular described
their call
experiences. The first participant had a
glowing report for the agent she’d spoken with, and raved about how he
was so
enthusiastic and hospitable that the participant actually felt bad
about not
booking with him! Interestingly, the
second participant reported the polar opposite experience in calling
another four-star
hotel in the same area, as her agent did little more than check dates,
quote
rates and described rooms as being “your basic hotel room with one or
two
beds.”
It is
interesting to see how two different hotels within the same location,
serving
the same hotel market segment, recruiting from the same labor pool, and
probably paying about the same base wages can have such
extraordinarily different
levels of hospitality and guest service.
How was it that
these two employees of similar hotels performed so differently that
day? Was it luck? Did we just happen to catch their
best employee at their best time of day?
Or was it a factor of the choices the employees made that day?
Two alarm clocks
went off at approximately the same time of morning. Two employees
woke up and readied themselves
for their workday. Both traveled about the same distance, to work about
the
same shift, for about the same pay. Yet
one employee made the choice of delivering hospitality excellence to
the best
of their ability in every guest interaction that day. The other
made the choice to do their job
exactly as it is outlined in their job description; doing nothing more
and
nothing less.
So why is it that
associates at some properties make the choice of hospitality excellence
while employees
elsewhere choose to be average, or to put it another way at the risk of
being
blunt - mediocre?
Is it that one
hotel has a better luck of the draw when hiring new staff? Do
they have a better applicant screening process
complete with pre-employment testing and peer interviewing? Or is
it more a factor of the overall culture
that starts with ownership and executive level management and is
reinforced
daily at the supervisory level?
Based on my
observations as a hospitality industry trainer, it is more than a mere
coincidence that some hotels can succeed in even the toughest labor
markets,
while others squander in mediocrity even where the unemployment
languishes in
double digits. Instead, hotel guest
service teams that make “extraordinary”
guest services experiences an “ordinary” and daily event tend to have:
- Owners who are willing to
invest in the physical product and the technology systems
necessary to facilitate service efficiency. It is hard to deliver
hospitality knowing you are about to sell a guest a sub-standard
accommodation, and just about impossible to satisfy guest needs without
the proper systems support.
- Engaged, involved leaders
who lead by example under the tightest of scrutiny.
Real-world operational standards don’t exist in training manuals; they
are set by managers who can be observed in action themselves creating
hospitality excellence daily! Interestingly, these same managers
treat both employees as well as their guests with authentic warmth and
generosity, the hallmarks of hospitality. They know that
hospitality starts in the heart of the house when they greet their
first staffer in the back hallway upon entering the
building.
- Managers and supervisors
who coach versus command. Great hotels have supervisors
that closely observe each employee transaction, and who know the job
well enough to help each staff member tweak, revise, and maximize their
performance. Even the greatest so-called “superstars” all need
continuous coaching to maintain hospitality excellence.
- Visionary leaders who see
the actual level of hospitality and guest service as it really is being
delivered daily in the lobby. They don’t relay on the
opinions of one quarterly mystery shopper inspection report, nor
post-departure guest surveys, nor TripAdvisor reviews alone, nor any
one metric to tell them where service is at. They observe
firsthand how guests are treated and how efficiently things are working
(or not).
- Managers and supervisors
who pitch-in during inevitable bottle-necks. The best
managers always seem to appear at just the right moment when the staff
is nearly overwhelmed; they not only provide that extra set of hands to
get you caught up but help you gain confidence that things will work
out. I can still recall how over two decades ago as a bellman of
a golf resort I greeted the PGA Senior’s Tour Bus only to watch all the
famous golfers parade off the bus and directly into their rooms,
leaving the absolute biggest pile of luggage and golf bags imaginable
for our team of just two bellmen. Minutes later there was our
Resident Manager taking off his suit jacket and humbly asking our bell
captain “How can I help you guys get through this?”
- Leaders who honor and
understand the frontline perspective. You can always
distinguish visionary leaders in the field of hospitality by the way
they talk about their frontline employees. Those who appreciate
them the most speak with respect, admiration, and appreciation.
Those who don’t just complain about how hard it is to find good people
these days, and that “Millennials just aren’t motivated.”
Indeed, it is a thin
line – a razor thin line - between hospitality excellence and
mediocrity that
employees in our industry traverse every day.
In the end the same number of hours are worked, the same number of
calories are burned, and the same wages are received. Yet those
who choose to walk the path of
hospitality excellence are rewarded daily as well. While their
counterparts elsewhere go home
each night complaining about how many rude and nasty guests there are
out there
these days, those who make the choice of hospitality excellence enjoy
their
work everyday, and mostly go home raving about how many nice,
interesting, and
appreciative guests they met that very same day in the very same area
as the
competitor down the road.
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Doug Kennedy is
President of the Kennedy Training Network, Inc. a leading
provider of customized training programs and telephone mystery shopping
services for the lodging and hospitality industry.
Doug continues to be a fixture on the
industry’s conference circuit for hotel companies, brands and
associations, as
he been for over two decades. Visit KTN
at: www.kennedytrainingnetwork.com Read his travel blog at ontheroad.kennedytrainingnetwork
or email him directly: [email protected] |
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