If the caller asks for an extension, is there a response such as, “My pleasure to connect you,” or does that voice say, “Yeah.  Sure.  Uh-huh.  Okay.  Or, Okey-dokey.”  Or worse, is there merely a “click,” without comment? 

When your guest calls the Sales office, is the greeting a mechanical voice mail system? Can you imagine calling a hotel, wanting to book a huge piece of business and getting a recording? Or does your guest get a cheerful, real-live person who acts as if this call means everything (and sometimes, it very well might).  Voice mail in your Sales office should be used as a secondary – not the primary means – for customers to leave a message.

When a guest asks for a wake up call does the voice on the other end of the line act as though this is important?  Did you ever miss a flight because you didn’t get your wake-up call?  Did you ever have to appease a guest who did? 

When a guest calls someone in your hotel to request anything – an extra pillow; to order breakfast; asking how to make an international call, how are they treated?  Do your employees sound cheerful, helpful and eager to exceed expectations?  Or do they sound like they are in a hurry and this call is unimportant, mundane and ordinary?

Here are several principles of good guest service and proper telephone etiquette:
 

Establish a standard as to how telephones should be answered; train to this standard; reinforce it and make sure it is printed and placed at every departmental telephone in the hotel.  It should convey these four parts: (1) a greeting; (2) the name of the department; (3) identification of the person answering the phone, and (4) an offer for assistance.  For example:  “Good Evening.  Front Desk.  This is Edgar.  How may I help you?”  You don’t have to script this for your employees.  Allow them to use their own words and personality; but you need to ensure all four elements are incorporated into their verbiage.  Here’s one of Turner’s Axioms applicable here:  “If left unmanaged, moments of truth regress to mediocrity.”  That means that if you leave telephone etiquette to chance, you’ll usually get anything but excellence.

Try these Standards for guest wake-up calls.  When the guest calls to leave a wake-up call, the operator or desk clerk should always repeat the guest’s room number and time of the wake-up call.  This gives the guest a sense of comfort that the wake-up call information was received and understood.  The operator or desk clerk should also bid the guest “good night.”  This closes the call in a friendly way, much the same way you would bid a guest good night if they were staying in your home.

How about these Standards for Room Service? Room Service calls should always close with the order-taker first repeating the guest’s order and room number.  Then the order-taker should close the call by giving the current time and telling the guest at what time their order will arrive.  This is more concrete than simply telling the guest how long their order will take and gives a better benchmark for the guest to gauge the passage of time and when to anticipate delivery of their order.

Here’s another Standard for Guest Requests:  Maintain a guest request log and track the time the call comes in.  Enforce a Standard that whomever delivers on the guest’s request calls the operator or desk clerk back to ensure the goods were delivered. And then, just to make sure, call the guest and ask if everything was delivered to their satisfaction.  What a guest pleaser!

Here’s another Turner Axiom for you:  “People don’t always do what you expect, but they’ll do what you inspect.”  So call your hotel and its various departments often.  You may already do this and I’ll bet that when someone doesn’t give good phone, you let him or her know it.  Ah, but here’s rub! (And it’s far more powerful):  Let them know you notice when they do it correctly, too!  Positively reinforce positive behavior and you’ll get it more often.

Calls for directions:  This one might scare you.  Call your hotel (or have someone do it for you if your voice is likely to be recognized…and if it isn’t likely to be recognized by a member of your staff, well…. that’s another problem and a different newsletter).  Ask for directions from the airport or from a major highway.  Listen to what kind of response you get.  Not everyone knows how to give directions, which is why you should have them written down and next to incoming phone lines.  Write the directions from the airport and major highways, coming from opposite directions.  Don’t leave anything to chance.  Your customers will appreciate getting clear, concise and accurate directions.  Your staff will appreciate not being put on the spot.

Reservation Calls:  Are you listening to these?  Do you spend time next to a reservations agent or desk clerk while they are taking a reservation from a guest? No?  Why not?  These calls are money in the till; the most important call of all – a customer who is willing to come to your hotel and give you money for it!  IS your agent friendly and pleasant?  IS your agent courteous and cheerful?  IS the reservation information taken in a clear, concise manner?  Is the guarantee and cancellation policy explained to the guest?  Does your agent display pride and confidence in your product? Is a confirmation number offered?  Is the caller thanked for making the reservation?  The truth is, these small elements of a successful reservations call are absent fifty percent of the time in hotels we have personally surveyed.

Giving good phone isn’t hard, but it’s ll about the little things, setting a Standard and making sure your staff – and you live by it.
 

Specializing in diagnostics of under-performing assets, Turn Key Hotel Advisors will quickly and accurately assess a hotel's competitive environment and strategic positioning.  Their consultants then provide action plans for both owner and manager that will improve the hotel's RevPAR yield, increasing revenue and drive both profitability and owner cash return.  Turn Key Hotel Advisors guarantees their results.

For hotels undergoing refurbishment, repositioning or re-branding, Turn Key Hotel Advisors created the Delta Process™, which has been successfully used in assets, to date, undergoing $200 million in redevelopment dollars.  The Delta Process™ ensures the hotel's sales and service delivery teams have specific, concrete action plans to deliver on an owner's or lender's return-on-investment expectations.

The company also conducts due diligence exercises for assets undergoing ownership change, market assessment studies for new lodging development, as well as hotel sales training, account management tools and hotel marketing products.  It is affiliated with The Consortium - An Alliance of Hospitality Companies.  Turn Key Hotel Advisors also operates a subsidiary company, Integrated Selling Systems with innovative technologies for the lodging industry, including CD Business Cards, Web Designs and On-Line Customer Reservations Booking Engines.  Turn Key Hotel Advisors is an allied member of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.