customer service training
Hotel Sales Habitudes for the Long Ride to a Slow Recovery
Doug Kennedy | October 15, 2020
By Doug Kennedy Now that we are beyond six months into this pandemic era, most hotel salespeople and their leaders have come to accept that it is going to be a long, slow ride to a full recovery. For those of us who have experienced loss, the emotions may have felt similar to moving through what grief counselors call the “Five Stages of Grief.” Although losing a loved one or going through a divorce is of course much worse than suffering a career disruption, the salespeople I speak with about this analogy seem to agree that their emotions have followed similar patterns. First, denial and waiting for something miraculous to happen to ...
There’s Magic in Managing the Details
Shep Hyken | April 23, 2020
By Shep Hyken “Detail is no detail.” I’m not sure where I heard this first. I even did a Google search and couldn’t find it. Maybe I made it up. If I did, this is what I meant by it: details are important. They must be purposeful. Some of the “little things” that seemingly don’t matter can actually be very important. An example of this comes right out of my recently released book, the updated and revised version of The Cult of the Customer. On page 163, I wrote, “Our perceptions of the organizations with which we choose to work are inevitably shaped by a sequence of seemingly little experiences that can go either...
The Boss Can Kill the Customer Service Buzz
Shep Hyken | April 2, 2020
By Shep Hyken Back in my high school and college days I worked at a gas station. We were a self-service station, so our role was that of cashier more than anything else. One very cold morning I noticed an elderly woman drive into the station. She was probably 80 years old. When I say it was a cold morning, I mean it was record-breaking cold. I walked out to her car and asked if I could fill her tank with gas for her so she could stay in her warm car. She was happy to stay warm and I was happy to help her. Once her tank was full, she paid me, I thanked her, and she drove off. I hustled back into the warm building where my manager a...
Customer Service Training Is Not What You Think It Is
Shep Hyken | March 26, 2020
By Shep Hyken Many companies have a great focus on providing an excellent or, as I like to call it, amazing customer service experience. They do customer service training during the onboarding process. Once every year or so, they have some type of refresher. Good for them, but there’s more to it than just that and it’s easier than you think. Communication is a big part of keeping the “magic” going, and to do that you must consider ongoing training. By ongoing training—and this is important—I’m not referring to pulling everyone away from their normal responsibilities for a half-day or full-day (or more) once a month or o...
The Problem Didn’t Start When Your Customer Told You About It
Shep Hyken | March 18, 2020
By Shep Hyken The phone rings. A customer service representative answers the phone and hears about a problem a customer is having. It may be the first time the company hears about this particular problem, but it isn’t when the problem occurred. It occurred before the customer called. The big question is… how long before the customer called did the problem occur? Maybe it happened two minutes ago—or maybe it was two days ago. Regardless, the customer called at that moment and the customer service rep has no idea, unless they ask, when the problem occurred. This gap in time is out of the company’s control—it is the customer’s ...
The Employee Experience Starts With the Hiring Process
Shep Hyken | March 12, 2020
By Shep Hyken Every company wants to have good employees. More importantly, they also want the right employees. There’s a difference. The smartest person in the world may not end up being a good cultural fit for a company. Every company has a personality, and the people they hire must possess the right skills, character and behaviors to fit in. This differs from company to company, so what works for one may not work for another. I recently interviewed Teri Yanovitch for Amazing Business Radio, and she talked about her job at Disney World. She had just finished high school and remembered walking up to the “Casting Center,” where...
Coronavirus: Train Your Front Desk & Reservations Team to Respond to Guest Comments & Questions
Doug Kennedy | March 9, 2020
By Doug Kennedy Much has already been written about the impact of the Coronavirus on the travel and lodging industry, and I’ll leave it up to the experts in each field to talk about how this impacts revenue, distribution and cleaning procedures. Right now, I’m in the middle of two straight weeks of delivering workshops on hospitality and sales training throughout Hawaii, and so I’m going to address a question my participants are asking. “What should we say when guests mention coronavirus?” This question comes in various contexts, but it’s the most challenging when guests are calling about booking, or when they are calling t...
The Cult of Amazement
Shep Hyken | February 19, 2020
By Shep Hyken In the updated and revised edition of The Cult of the Customer, I cover the concept of amazement. This may be old news to my followers, but it is worth repeating. Amazement does not come from a WOW or over-the-top experience. Those happen on occasion, especially when problems are handled well. But on a day to day basis, amazement happens when you deliver experiences that are consistently and predictably above average. They could even be just a tiny little bit above average. What makes that amazing is that it is always predictable. The customer owns it because they know it’s going to happen. What happens when there’s...
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Today's News
Vista Hospitality Group Completes Multimillion Dollar Renovation of Maryland’s Sheraton Hotel BWI Airport
Remington Hotels Assumes Management of New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott
Confidence Is Growing for a Return to Business Travel
STR: U.S. Hotel Results for Week Ending 16 January
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