by Osvaldo Torres Cruz, July 2010

I had the opportunity to participate in an event which grouped well known luxurious Five Star Hotels worldwide. When visiting their stands I realized that all of them, in one form or another, offered personalized services; however, when asked whether they have a Butler Service, the matching answers did not cease to amaze me: 

We do not have it because our guests do not need it. 

This response made me think this matter over and I want to share the outcome of my experience as Hotel Butler with you. 

The guest is undoubtedly the most important Hotel customer, without whom the Hotel couldn�t survive as an enterprise in the increasingly competitive hotelier market. This fact makes the Hotel to focus on meeting all the requirements that the guests may have. Thus the Hotel needs to obtain a thorough knowledge of their main client to duly provide what he needs.

Each time the number of traveling tourists looking for satisfaction of psychological needs that make them live experiences closely related to emotions and feelings, is increasing. This fact has made the Hotel to open a wide range of questions aimed at decoding the clients� emotional algorithm, among which we have: 

• What motivates the client to choose the Hotel? 
• Which are his emotional needs? 
• Which services can meet those needs and how can we adapt the attributes of the services to make them triggers of stimuli in order to cause identifiable and hence differential perceptions? 
• How can we design holistic experiences that may influence the differentiation and positioning of the Hotel in the guest mind, making him to come back?

Therefore the Hotel must design strategies of intelligence to find answers to the previous questions. The majority of responses will be determined by the life style of every guest in particular, so that his characterization has an impact on the proficiency of deciphering his emotional code. The greater and more accurate psychographic segmentation of the guests, the better results will be achieved in markers of success as loyalty, positioning and differentiation.

One of the strategies of intelligence is the use of personalized service as a service of relationship, which permits  to establish a system of emotional bonds Hotel-guest of a new kind, and the Butler Hotel Service is precisely the cornerstone of same.

 Through his daily assistance (based on traditional home butler services such as: packing and unpacking, personalized wake, laundry attention, shoes polishing, secretarial assistance, baths preparation, etc) we can achieve to be present during the majority of the true moments that a guest goes through and typify important parameters as: acquired needs, patterns and preconceptions inherent to every guest life style individually and use them to design experiences and events to be lived through, specially the emotional ones. 

The implementation of Hotel Butler Service grants a new definition to the concept of personalized service by adding new properties such as:

• Relationship 
• Differentiation
• Impronta   

In other words, the Hotel Butler Service brings to the Hotel the advantage of establishing such a level of relationship between Hotel and guest that allows us achieving the identification of the guest emotional needs by adjusting the attributes of services to same.

The Hotel Butler Service allows to use the services as generators of stimuli whose interpretation brings to mind perceptions identifiable with patterns and preconceptions of every guest life style in particular, giving a differential nature to his perceptions, so that the experienced service highlights, excels and distinguishes from other services rendered in any other occasion. It permits to typify the guest lifestyle, his habits and customs so, one can learn his acquired needs and  they can be anticipated, pleasantly surprising him. 

According to my experience I have no doubts to say that the Hotel is the one that needs the Butler Services the most, because it is the best way to  leave indelible traces in the guest´s  memory and to conquer and  to prevail upon conscience and heart of guest.