The Travel Surge Highlights the Need for Great Prearrival Communication
Larry and Adam Mogelonsky | August 31, 2022
Studies Show That the Guest Self-Service Era Has Officially Begun
Venkatesh Sakamuri | August 2, 2022
Guest Experience
The Clifton Adopts GuestCast by HIS to Address Growing Guest Demands for Modern and Personalized In-Room Entertainment
Hotel Internet Services, Inc. | November 29, 2022
Boutique hotel deploys GuestCast to ensure that guests can effortlessly and safely access personal streaming subscriptions on guestroom televisions. CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — November 29, 2022 — Hotel Internet Services (HIS), a full-service provider of internet services and solutions for the hospitality industry, has been credited with boosting guest satisfaction rates at The Clifton in Charlottesville, Virginia, with the adoption of its GuestCast streaming platform. A historic 20-room inn embodying the charm of its local surroundings, The Clifton with GuestCast can now also provide its guests with a modern and instantly personalized gue...
Three Ways to Be Amazing
Shep Hyken | November 23, 2022
By Shep Hyken Creating customer amazement is a foundational concept I cover in almost every one of my customer service keynote speeches. I’ve always preached that to amaze customers, we must simply be better than average all the time. While I’ve thought a lot about this over the years, lately I have been trying to make it even simpler for people to understand. To do that, you must understand the three ways you can be amazing for your customers, including your internal customers, who are the people you work with. Over the Top – This is about delivering an “above and beyond” experience. It is impossible to make every int...
Don’t Let a Process Get In the Way of Making Smart – Even Common Sense – Decisions
Shep Hyken | November 16, 2022
By Shep Hyken Here is another customer service horror story about a woman who was so fixated on a process that it almost cost her “customer” his life. My friend Jerry went to the emergency room of his local hospital. He was in excruciating pain. Something in his abdominal area was not right. He truly felt like he was going to die. Doubled over in pain, he limped through the waiting room to the registration desk and begged to see a doctor. The woman behind the desk said, “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. There are two people in front of you, and you’ll have to wait your turn to register. If you sign in with your na...
JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel Upgrades to Contactless Mobile Access and Enhanced Guest Security With ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions
ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions | November 15, 2022
Luxury Romanian hotel destination leverages future-proof door lock technology to seamlessly and affordably replace magstripe locks with the latest in RFID and digital key functionality. Stockholm – November 15, 2021 – ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions with its commitment to staying ahead of the latest security technology trends, has announced the successful upgrade of its VingCard Classic locks at the JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel to now feature both Mobile Access and advanced RFID security capabilities. A 5-star property situated in the heart of Romania’s capital, JW Marriott Grand Hotel Bucharest’s decision to upgrade its locks to ...
La Casa del Camino Selects INTELITY to Improve Their Guest Experience
INTELITY | November 14, 2022
The historic Laguna Beach hotel plans to deploy smart-room tablets and the INTELITY platform to enhance guests’ stays Los Angeles, CA (NOVEMBER 14, 2022) - INTELITY®, provider of hospitality’s leading guest experience and staff management platform, announced today a new deal with La Casa del Camino. The historic property will implement INTELITY’s smart-room tablets and guest messaging as well as GEMS®, INTELITY’s Guest Experience Management System, which includes a suite of rich staff-facing tools for streamlined service and engagement between the hotel and guests. Located in the heart of Laguna Beach, California, La Casa del ...
Three Powerful Ideas From a Former Amazon Exec
Shep Hyken | November 10, 2022
By Shep Hyken Whenever there is a chance to learn from an iconic brand like Amazon, I jump at the chance. Founder, Jeff Bezos, was an early adopter of a relentless focus on the customer experience. Did Bezos really believe that Amazon should be so good they didn’t need a customer service department? Did he really have an empty chair in his meetings to represent the customer? Those are questions I asked Bill Price, Amazon’s first global vice president of customer service and the founder and president of Driva Solutions. I interviewed Price on Amazing Business Radio, where he shared some powerful insights and lessons from his...
Enhance Your Hotel Team’s Autism Awareness
Rod Clough | November 4, 2022
By Rod Clough We at HVS have long valued the importance of embracing diversity, celebrating our differences, and building a better consulting team as a result. Exceptional teams do this: embracing, accepting, and understanding these differences to become more deeply connected and effective. When a hotel operations team is similarly understanding and celebratory of differences, guests can feel the difference and often become repeat guests as a result. Autism awareness is an effort HVS supports by engaging with Autism Double-Checked, an organization that provides education and training about this disability. We encourage you and your hote...
Five Ways to Make Customers Feel Special
Shep Hyken | November 3, 2022
By Shep Hyken An important goal of a good customer experience is to make the customer feel special. That special feeling can come in many different forms. I was reading an article about customer retention, and it prompted me to start a list of ways to make customers feel special, want to come back, and even want to share their experience with friends, family, and colleagues. I’ll bet there’s an entire book that can be devoted to this topic, but for today we’ll keep it to the first few that came to mind. With that, here are five ways to make your customers feel special: Stop selling and start nurturing relatio...
The List Will Make You Believe in Sleep Tourism
Adam and Larry Mogelonsky | November 2, 2022
By Larry and Adam Mogelonsky Hotels have long touted a good night’s sleep to drive bookings and to ensure guest satisfaction. But with the growing awareness for sleep science, hotels are staying to capitalize on sleep tourism – brands that use new technologies or other amenities proven to enhance a guest’s sleep as well as sleep’s health benefits. Why not your hotel? Programs like this are an arm’s race. Right now, there are examples of success including, but hardly limited to, Six Senses’ Sleep Doctor, Zedwell at Piccadilly Circus (on the economy end), The Belmond Cadogan’s Sleep Concierge and Viceroy’s Healing Experien...
CEO of the Moment
Shep Hyken | October 27, 2022
By Shep Hyken The Awesome Responsibility is a concept I came up with a number of years ago. It describes the role an employee has when interacting with a customer. In that moment, one person in the company represents everything about the company. When people walk away from doing business with a company, they will often say things like, “I enjoy doing business with them,” or, “They are so helpful.” Typically, the word they is used to describe the individual who helped the customer. That person was responsible for delivering the experience that represents the company. That’s a pretty important job, which is why I refer t...
P3 Puts the Key Into Kiosk to Provide Hotels With Completely Contactless Online Check-In Capability
P3 Hotel Software | October 25, 2022
New affordable feature means guests can avoid front desk queues October 25, 2022 — Dublin & Denver — Hotel software solutions provider P3 has rolled out a new service which allows hotel guests who check-in online to collect their room key at a kiosk rather than join a queue at the front desk. The ‘collect your key’ kiosk service was initially integrated into self-service kiosks at selected properties in the UK and Ireland, and is now being implemented at properties in additional regions. Using the new P3 solution, guests arriving at a hotel can independently check-in and collect their own room keys in less than a minute before ...
The Echo
Shep Hyken | October 20, 2022
By Shep Hyken There are many definitions of the term brand. One of my favorites is this: A brand is a promised delivered. Is what you’re known for delivered consistently? Consider Ace Hardware, whose brand promise is The Helpful Hardware Place. When you visit an Ace Hardware store, do they keep their promise? Are they helpful? Based on all their awards and the comments from happy customers posted on social channels, they deliver. Those comments and awards are what I refer to as The Echo. As you “shout” your brand promise, the feedback you get in return is the echo. And you want that echo to reflect your words. ...
GrayMatter Networks Partners With Tyme Global
Tyme Global | October 19, 2022
GrayMatter Networks maximizes SIP trunk power with Virtual Agent AI and live remote agents New York, NY – Today, telecom technology provider, GrayMatter Networks, and remote customer service company, Tyme Global (TG), announce their official partnership. GrayMatter Networks’ VoIP solutions will now be enriched with Tyme Global’s virtual agent and smart IVR system, “Skye.” This partnership allows both companies to offer a unique solution to the hospitality, transportation, and healthcare industries, by providing a comprehensive communications and customer service package. David Maayani, GrayMatter Networks’ CEO, said recen...
Quest Apartment Hotels Deploys Mobile Access for Enhanced Contactless Guest Convenience
ASSA ABLOY Group | October 18, 2022
Leading apartment hotel operator leverages strategic relationship between ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions and Liverton to introduce digital key services to New Zealand-based locations. Stockholm –October 18, 2022 – ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions, a leading provider of advanced security technology for the hospitality industry, has today announced the successful adoption of Mobile Access by Quest Apartment Hotels for several of its properties located throughout New Zealand. Implemented via an integration with the Quest mobile app and ASSA ABLOY Global Solutions’ Certified Partner, Liverton, Mobile Access is now able to ensure instant room acc...
2022 Top 25 Historic Hotels of America Most Haunted Hotels
Historic Hotels of America | October 17, 2022
Historic Hotels of America® offers travelers spectacular experiences and stories to take home with them, including the history of where they stayed the night. Every historic hotel has a story to tell and some offer more than what is found in a history textbook. For some hotels, the past is not only present in the architecture and authentic character, but also–according to legends–in the souls residing within it. The historic hotels highlighted in the 2022 Top 25 Historic Hotels of America Most Haunted Hotels are places where generations of staff and guests pass on tales of spectral Revolutionary War soldiers, smoky silhouettes of U.S. Pr...
The Best Social Media Channels for Customer Service
Shep Hyken | October 13, 2022
By Shep Hyken Social customer care may not be the most popular channel to deal with customer issues for most businesses, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. More and more customers are turning to social media to get help. More on why in just a moment. For now, let’s address why companies aren’t using social channels. When a company tells me they don’t want to participate in social media customer care, I ask why. They have explanations – notice I didn’t use the word excuses, but that is really what they are. The explanations are: We steer them to the phone, so we don’t need any other channels. We do...
Innovate or Risk Irrelevance: Redefining Hospitality’s “Personal Touch” for a Truly Personal Guest Experience
Alex Alt | October 12, 2022
By Alex Alt Hospitality is an industry whose quality of guest experience hinges on "personal touch". But after two years spent six feet apart, the definition of "personal touch" is being completely reconstructed. This comes at a time when hospitality operators are facing critical staffing shortages… and guests are feeling the aftershocks. In a recent survey by Oracle, travelers’ biggest complaints were staff shortages (33.7%) and long lines at check-in/out (32.8%). This creates a conundrum: how to deliver a seamless, personalized guest experience without more hands to do so. The primary way hospitality must respond is with the di...
IHG Hotels & Resorts Survey Reveals Guests’ Value Personalised Hotel Experiences
IHG Hotels & Resorts | October 11, 2022
New Delhi, October 11 2022: A pan – India survey commissioned by IHG Hotels & Resorts as part of the launch of their “Guest How You Guest” global loyalty campaign revealed insightful results, to better understand how consumers like to enjoy their time as a hotel guest. With a total sample size of 5000 respondents including male (52.7%) and female (47.3%) from age groups of 18 – 65, the survey aimed to explore preferences and desires of guests during hotel stays, critical to offering a world-class hospitality experience. It revealed how hotel guests value a more personalised experience that allows them to be totally themselves,...
When Sales and Customer Service Collide
Shep Hyken | October 5, 2022
By Shep Hyken Lately, I’ve been thinking about how sales and customer service combine to create an experience – hopefully a positive one. And then, by coincidence, one of our loyal subscribers, Heidi Reslow, shared a story about someone buying a new car. As I read the story, I realized the salesperson didn’t just sell a car. She created an experience for her customer. This is where sales and customer service collide. And by the way, you will enjoy this story even if you’re not in sales. Here’s the short version. Brian Knight, a professional speaker on team performance, posted the story on his blog. It opened with this state...
7 Tips for Successfully Embedding Customer-Centric Governance Into Company DNA
EHL | October 3, 2022
Today's business world requires companies to put customers in the driving seat. Nurturing customer relationships is the secret to boosting your customer lifetime value, cutting down churn, leaving your competitors in the dust, and catapulting your business growth. Usher in customer-centricity. We see you wondering, "What is it and how can you hack it?" This article lays bare all you need to put a permanent smile across your customers' faces☺. Read on: What Does Customer Centric Mean? Customer-centricity is a business approach where you prioritize your customer and place them at the heart of your business operations. The goal is to...
Posters on the Walls
Shep Hyken | September 28, 2022
By Shep Hyken I’ve been working with an amazing client. We have helped the client create a customer experience vision and define five behaviors everyone must exhibit to bring the vision to life. This makes me very proud of the work we do. Communication is one reason that their vision is coming to life. The CEO has sent out videos, regularly schedules town hall meetings, and shares best-of-the-best examples of how team members are creating amazing experiences and Moments of Magic® for their colleagues and customers. In addition, throughout their halls, you can find posters and signage with their vision, their five behaviors, and...
Introducing Whistle for Cloudbeds: The New Guest Engagement Solution Powered by Cloudbeds
Cloudbeds | September 22, 2022
Cloudbeds customers can now take advantage of a fully-integrated enhanced guest engagement solution for faster response times, tailored experiences and improved communication throughout the entire guest journey (SAN DIEGO) — Cloudbeds, the hospitality management platform powering more reservations and happier guests for lodging businesses around the globe, announced today the release of Whistle for Cloudbeds, an enhanced guest engagement solution powered by Cloudbeds. Whistle for Cloudbeds gives lodging businesses the tools to drive incremental revenue, increase guest satisfaction, streamline internal operations and deliver more meaningf...
Three Powerful and Easy Ways to Gain Employee Trust
Shep Hyken | September 21, 2022
By Shep Hyken Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about how to create trust with customers. No doubt, a customer who trusts you is more likely to do business with you. And while that is obviously important, creating trust with employees may be even more so. A company that is trusted by customers is first trusted by employees. With that in mind, here are my top three ways to create employee trust: Let employees do the job they were hired to do. If this sounds like the concept of empowerment, well, it is. After you hire good people and properly train them to do their jobs, don’t get in their way! Don’t block their capabilities ...
Sentipensante – The Perfect Word for Teaching the Spirit of Hospitality
Doug Kennedy | September 20, 2022
By Doug Kennedy Having written hospitality and sales training articles for over two decades now, I’m often asked “How do you continue to come up with new ideas every month?” Truth is that it’s actually quite easy when you’re out on the road conducting training just above every week, spending time with the real experts in this industry such as the frontline superstars who make it all happen for guests. Recently, I found my latest writing inspiration while I was back at one of my favorite stops, the amazing Nizuc Resort & Spa in Cancún, Mexico. During one of my classes, we were discussing what I have always called “the lo...
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