front desk training
Train Your Hotel Staff to Show Hospitality When Enforcing Mask Requirements
Doug Kennedy | July 14, 2020
By Doug Kennedy With most hotels around the globe requiring guests to wear facemasks in all public areas these days, it has fallen upon the frontline hospitality staff to enforce this policy, which in many cases is also municipal ordinance or decree. Although most guests comply voluntarily, a small minority are voicing their displeasure but still complying. An even smaller, but very vocal minority of hotel guests are challenging our staff’s authority to require compliance in a way that is confrontational and often demeaning. From what I am hearing, it’s the front desk staff who are most often the receptors of a verbal barrage, as th...
Train Your Reservations and Sales Team to Show Compassion for Cancellations
Doug Kennedy | March 19, 2020
By Doug Kennedy As a hotel sales trainer, it seems very odd to be writing a train-the-trainer article about how to manage cancellations, yet this is absolutely necessary as the lodging industry has been turned upside down temporarily. Imagine how strange it must be for those who are tasked (and incentivized) for securing revenue are now dealing with a flood of calls and emails about reversing the flow. I’m sure it is time consuming, stressful and heartbreaking, especially when such staff are surely worried about their own job security and health concerns. It’s at moments like these when we all need to remember that we are in the ...
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...
5 Easy Ways to Reduce Turnover at the Front Desk
Cathy Cook | February 11, 2019
By Cathy Cook With one of my main roles at KTN being to conduct front desk hospitality training worldwide, one issue that always seems to surface is turnover at the front desk. Turnover everywhere in the hotel staff is a major challenge in tight labor markets most hotels operate within, however it seems to especially be an issue at the front desk. Certainly, working at the front desk can be a stressful job as we are dealing with guests who are arriving after a long day of travel disruptions and frustrations and therefore prone to over-reaction to even the smallest challenges. Also, regardless of where any gap in service occurs during a ...
At the Front Desk, Voice Inflection Can Change the Entire Meaning of What We Say
Cathy Cook | October 15, 2018
By Cathy Cook It has often been said that as much as 80% of communication takes place non-verbally. It is certainly true that facial expressions such as what we show with our eyebrows, our smiles (or lack thereof), and body language, which is what we show with our posture and gestures, all are essential for communicating. While communication is an important topic for all guest services departments, it is especially essential at the front desk because more often than not, they are the main point of contact for all guest requests. Although non-verbal communication is certainly essential, it is also important to focus on the subtleties of ...
TSA Enables Marriott Moscow Novy Arbat to Achieve Close to 4% RevPar Impact in Less than Two Months
TSA Solutions | February 9, 2016
TSA Solutions Upsell Programs Support the Hotel with Dramatic Increases in Revenue, Conversion, and RevPAR MOSCOW — February 9, 2016 . . . Continuing its accelerated expansion worldwide, TSA Solutions has implemented its Front Desk Upselling program to support the 234-room Marriott Moscow in enhancing upselling revenues, building RevPAR and promoting increased guest satisfaction. In less than two months since implementing the program, the hotel has seen tremendous results – including 1.7 million Rubles in total upsell revenue, and a close to 4% impact on RevPAR. Management attributes the results to the breadth and flexibili...
Hotel Front Desk Training Checklist Circa 2015 by Doug Kennedy
Doug Kennedy | May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 If someone would have surveyed hotel managers 15 or 20 years ago about the future role of their front desk staff, my guess is that most would have predicted that their jobs would have become much less relevant by now due to all of anticipated technologies. Yet when we look at the position today, it is easy to see that ironically with all of the high-tech advancements, nothing has yet to replace the personalized service experiences delivered by today's front desk colleagues. Certainly it will be interesting to see how the latest push towards automated, self-check-in options now moving to smartphones will be received over the...
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