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No matter if you are working in a hotel or are a frequent traveller chances are that you asked or heard this question over and over again. Many times it’s the question asked most upon check-out and your way out of the hotel. Continue reading How To Improve Your Guest Surveys The Fast Way
Working in the hotel industry just like any other service industry it’s all about people, it’s about one person respecting another person.
It’s about people trusting each other, because if there is no trust between people, efficiency and productivity will go down to zero.
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So how do you get people to like you, or better yet, how do you get people to want to work with you and for you? And I am not talking about a popularity contest, I am talking about respecting another person, respecting his or her values and beliefs. Continue reading How Do You Get People To Like You
‘Excuse me? I am running around the entire day putting out fires and getting things done!’ This would have most likely been my response to above statement just two years ago when working more than 12 hours a day and seven days a week. Two years ago I honestly believed that I added value every minute of all those extra hours worked.
As Tim Ferris describes it in The 4-Hour Workweek ‘Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action’, and what this means is that being busy is only a sign of not being able to prioritize tasks and being able to focus on the important stuff.
You are eager to get promoted and move on to the next step. You are constantly comparing yourself to your peers, are impatient about your own job situation and cannot wait for something exciting in your career to happen. You want to get promoted!
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Every once in a while when your personal life calms down a little and work isn’t as busy for a change, you’ll get the feeling that it’s time for something new… that you’re standing still and that something new and exciting needs to happen for you! Continue reading How to Get Promoted in 3 Steps
Giving and receiving feedback can be a gift, as it can help you build or strengthen a relationship, if done right, or it can damage a relation, or be career hindering and de-motivating.
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When receiving feedback our potential concerns are that we fear criticism or our reaction to feedback and that we are nervous about having to hear something that might make us feel uncomfortable. When giving feedback we could fear that we hurt the other person’s feelings or that the other person might get defensive… and just like when receiving feedback, we could be nervous about giving it. Continue reading How To Make Feedback Effective
Congratulations on being the CEO of what should be the most important corporation for you, congratulations on being the CEO of ‘You’! Understanding yourself as a business, that requires planning, investment and exercise is the foundation for a balanced and fulfilling professional and personal ‘career’.
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At 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, water starts boiling. With boiling water comes steam, and with steam you can power a locomotive. It is that one extra degree that makes all the difference, and it is that one extra degree that separates the good from the great!
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How often did you have the feeling of frustration and lost motivation because you couldn’t seem to achieve your goals, and that no matter how much efforts you put in and how hard you tried, nothing was going to change? … chances are that you were sitting right at 211 degrees, and all it would have taken for you to succeed was that one extra degree.
Much too often we give up right before that moment when we would have accomplished everything what we strived for, and we just needed to keep trying. If you want to get ahead, become great at what you do and be successful in achieving your goals you’ll need to keep going when it seems to be the toughest and not turn around.
It’s your 30 minutes lunch break! You either believed it to be an interruption of your day as you had so much work to be done, or the highlight as you were able to step out of your busy day for a moment to take a deep breath!
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But one way or the other, it turns out that you were wrong. Talking to my dear friend McKinley the other day, who follows this blog loyally from the beginning, and listening to him talking about the importance of not only never sitting alone while having lunch in the staff canteen, but also making a point of always sitting with different people, and use this half an hour to connect with people and build or strengthen relationships, opened my eyes. Continue reading The 30 most important minutes of your day
Things go wrong all the time and when they do, it’s important to recognize and fix the problem, to follow-up with everyone involved and learn from it so it doesn’t happen again and again. That’s easier said than done since most managers prefer to keep themselves busy by putting out fires and look like heroes, rather than to face the real challenges, the root causes of the fires, and to make the tough decisions that would really change things to the better. But one way or the other customer complaints are unavoidable and depending on how effectively your team manages them it will make or break your organization.
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Besides the obvious benefit of having a problem temporarily go away and the pain that comes with it, and turning an upset customer into a happy one, the 5 main benefits of effective complaint management are:
Question: Can you think of any other examples of effective complaint management?
Getting a guest complaint is always an opportunity to turn an unsatisfied customer into a loyal advocate of your business. Understanding the value of focusing on training your employees on how to handle guest complaints and effectively manage guest expectations to prevent complaints from occurring in the first place does not only boost a customer focused environment, it also fosters a winning culture.
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While we hopefully always have the best intentions in mind when dealing with an upset customer, the outcome may not always be positive. Better understanding the 7 deadly sins of complaint management will help us to be more conscious of the do’s and do not’s when facing an angry customer the next time. Continue reading The 7 Deadly Sins Of Complaint Management
Are you just pretending that you want to know what’s wrong in your business that you can improve it, or do you really want to hear the hurtful truth and are ready to make the uncomfortable decisions that are necessary?
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Publishing your own blog or website as in AlexanderKellermann.com or HoteliersOfTomorrow.com couldn’t be any easier and if you’re interested in getting started within only 15 minutes just click on the image below.
I am sure you’ll find your own reasons to start a blog and hopefully will find it as enriching as I do.
Is work-life balance a loanword in hospitality?
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I took me about eight years to understand the importance of work-life balance in hospitality and that it’s not just a myth. Continue reading Who Else Wants to Achieve Work-Life Balance in Hospitality?
What’s my goal, is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself at the beginning of your journey and your career in hospitality!
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I am recruiting graduates from hotel management schools for the position of housekeeping floor manager now for years, and my experience is that many, if not most, do not have clearly defined goals and are rushed to get promoted as fast as possible, and definitely faster than their peers from school. Continue reading Do you know what your goals are?
Getting a review can help you develop and grow or be a complete waste of time for you and your boss.
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I remember getting my first reviews and I was eager to receive ‘exceed expectations’ for every single one of them without understanding the true importance of it. I must have received over ten excellent reviews since the beginning of my career until about four years ago when my boss at that time gave me a ‘met expectations’ only on my review, and went on to tell me that he believes in me and wants to help me to get better. He tried to explain to me the true value of a good review and that it’s not just a process for him. Continue reading How to Make the Most Out of Your Review
You’re conducting the daily pre-shift meetings and your employees cannot stop complaining about the other departments and venting their frustrations. You feel that the lack of trust between your departments makes progress and greatness impossible. No matter how well you’re trying to explain how the other departments work and what their challenges are, your employees don’t want to hear you.
If this sounds familiar to you, cross-training is the right solution for you! Continue reading 8 Reasons Why You Should Start Cross-Training Now
Everyone is talking about leadership, and how we need to evolve from managers to leaders, but only few really get the difference! It’s a beautiful word and the thought of leading people is very appealing, but how can you make the step from managing to leading? And how can you get people wanting to follow you?
Image courtesy by stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Continue reading What’s all the Fuss about Leadership anyway?
Does a truck full of money, a celebrity status, or a designer suit buy you happiness?… and if it does, how long does this moment of happiness last?
Anyone who says money doesn’t buy happiness should talk to a homeless person, and anyone who says money does buy happiness should talk to Bill Gates! The difference in happiness between a person making 5 k a year, and 50 k a year, is huge, as it is a matter of security and covering the basic needs. The difference in happiness between a person making 50 k a year and 50 million a year is minimal. Money does not buy happiness, but it’s a necessity to cover our basic needs as shelter, food, clothing, medical care and so on. Continue reading Who Else Wants to Know the Secret to Happiness?
Your bubble is your worst enemy! I am talking about your bubble of comfort, or simply put your comfort zone.
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This is the place that you feel most comfortable, and it’s the area where you know exactly what to do and what not to – chances for you to make mistakes are very small, if you just remain there! Continue reading If You Want to Grow Fast, Step Out of Your Bubble!
Most guest complaints can easily be prevented by managing expectations. I remember working the overnight shift as a butler being responsible for the guest and housekeeping services in the entire hotel all by myself during a sold out night receiving one guest request after another within only a few minutes… and of course everything was an emergency and had to happen right NOW.
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Having to wait ten minutes for a an extra pillow or blanket during the day can still be considered prompt service, but at 2 am in the morning when you are tired and have to get up early in the morning for an important meeting ten minutes can feel like an eternity… and it’s even worse when you don’t even know how long you have to wait. Continue reading The Key to Prevent Most Guest Complaints