customer service
Pick Up Your Calls to Pick Up More Bookings!
Doug Kennedy | July 23, 2024
The more important the trip, the more likely they are to pick up the phone. Despite the pundits’ predictions, the phones continue to ring with incoming reservations leads even now in the mid-2020s, and yes, even at branded hotels across all segments. I’m sure some readers are thinking “Well not us. The majority of our rooms are booked online.” Yet if you listen to real phone calls from real callers, as KTN’s QA team does daily through our remote call scoring process, you realize that many people call with questions before booking online, whether at an OTA or the hotel’s direct website. Other guests book first and then call wit...
Don’t Throw Fellow Employees Under the Bus
Shep Hyken | July 18, 2024
By Shep Hyken I couldn’t hold back. I told an employee to stop complaining about her fellow employees in front of us, her customers. Here’s the story. My wife and I were at a restaurant. The server seemed pleasant and professional, but as our food was delivered, we saw a different side of her. There was a mistake in the order. The side dishes we received were not the ones we chose. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. She could either take our meals back to the kitchen or let us keep our meals and bring out the side dishes we ordered. But to the server, it was a big deal. She started to complain about how this happens “...
Training Customers to Do It Themselves
Shep Hyken | July 11, 2024
More and more, customers are open to using self-service solutions. Our customer experience research shows that while customers might prefer the human touch, some expect digital, self-service solutions. In certain cases, they even demand it. And it’s not just in customer service. Consider Amazon, the perfect example of a self-service retailer. From researching to purchasing a product, and even in most customer service situations, everything is a self-service experience. Each step of the process is logical and intuitive. For customer service issues, the customer is prompted through a process. Along the way, if the customer still wants ...
H-2B Visas as Quality Solution for Hospitality: Improve Customer Service With a Fully Staffed Team
Suzanne Sukkar | July 2, 2024
By Suzanne Sukkar and Najah Allaham Managing a hotel, keeping it fully staffed, and maintaining a high level of customer service is stressful. Whether it is peak summer travel, football season, skiing at the lodge in the wintertime, or Spring Training, labor shortages and seasonal workforce demands have hospitality managers constantly placing help wanted ads. There is another reliable (concierge level) solution that will put to bed at least one hospitality grievance and that is the H-2B visa program. This program allows hotels to bring in foreign workers for temporary, non-agricultural jobs precisely when you need them most. Whether you nee...
Some Customers Aren’t Worth Doing Business With
Shep Hyken | June 28, 2024
In some of my customer service speeches, I joke that some customers aren’t worth doing business with. The way I position it in the speech is funny, but in reality, it’s pretty serious. Sometimes, a customer isn’t worth doing business with because they are truly a bad customer. The result could be choosing to say, “Goodbye,” and sending them to the competition. While there are many reasons you might end your relationship with a customer, I came up with six obvious ones to get you thinking: Customers who repeatedly return products. This is often the result of a liberal return policy that some customers abuse. Repeat...
Change Requires Choice (and Work)
Shep Hyken | June 27, 2024
At the end of the CEO’s speech to his employees, he said, “And one other thing, we want to deliver better customer service.” Then he walked off stage. Delivering better customer service is a good idea, but just saying you want to do so will not make it happen. Most likely, it will remain just a good idea, because, without the right implementation, the idea will never come to anything. Nothing will change. A big part of my business is serving as a keynote speaker on customer service and CX for all kinds of companies and organizations. I always ask, “Why is this topic important to you and this audience?” Most of the time, ...
Start With YES … Even If It Doesn’t End That Way
Shep Hyken | June 13, 2024
By Shep Hyken It’s time to revisit the idea of avoiding the word “no,” but this time, I want to approach it from a different angle. First, let me tell you about my friend Dr. Nido Qubein, a devoted husband and father, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, president of High Point University, and mentor to many, who came to this country when he was 17 with little more than $50 to his name. Almost 50 years ago, he attended High Point University, never dreaming that one day he would be president of the institution, a position he accepted in 2005. Since that time, there has been incredible growth at HPU. In his first year, the universi...
Train Your Entire Guest Services Staff To Elicit Kama Muta (Commonly Called That “Warm, Fuzzy” Feeling); Complimentary Registration Now Op
Doug Kennedy | June 11, 2024
Sponsored By Travel Outlook, Better Talent, and Track Hospitality Software Register your team and participate live, or view the recording, of Doug Kennedy’s next 40-minute training webcast scheduled for Friday, June 21, from Noon – 12:45pm EST. REGISTER HERE “I’m especially excited about this month’s webcast, in which I’m going to share a new word for a feeling that pretty much everyone who has worked in guest-facing hospitality jobs has had, “said KTN President Doug Kennedy. “It happens when we make an authentic, personalized, and heartfelt connection with another human. It is a mutually experienced feeling, felt acro...