I am all about personalized service and believe that it becomes more and more important if you want your business to remain relevant. I never believed in online shopping until I started shopping at huge department stores like Bloomingdales or Macys. It’s a challenging experience and you feel like that you need to be thankful to receive good and caring service, forget about the customer is king, here it’s the employee who is king and you can trust they make sure that you know by their attitude. I try to avoid asking for help as much as possible and now switched to online shopping just to avoid their customer service.
It’s all about personalized service, and any hotel is striving to deliver the best service possible. I work at a 5 star property in Manhattan and all hotels in our comp set are beautiful, have luxurious rooms and facilities, and state of the art technology. So why should travelers spend their money at your hotel and not at the competition next door? Well, your answer is probably because your hotel provides better service, right?
Nowadays it’s not so much about the product anymore, and all about the service… personalized service to be more specific. Welcoming your guests by their name is the simplest and most effective way to provide this personalized service… but only in theory! What if I told you that every luxury hotel I ever worked at either struggled or the very minimum had room for improvement with using the guest name consistently? Do you think this is acceptable? Continue reading What Your Hotel Can Learn From Starbucks→
One of the key elements of being an effective leader is your ability to come up with solutions to solve problems and improve processes. Don’t get me wrong it’s ok to ask your boss if you need help finding a faster and better way to get things done, and I certainly don’t want you having to reinvent the wheel…
But with this being said you need to be resourceful and show that you can Figure It Out by yourself or with the help of others without having to ask your boss every single step of the way, if it’s not absolutely necessary. Continue reading Figure It Out!→
I strongly believe that constructive feedback is a must and I want my team to come to me with solutions to opportunities rather than just problems.
Most companies have a culture of complaining and I believe that it’s their leaders’ fault for accepting this. It’s essential to share feedback with your boss and I understand that sometimes it’s important to simple vent, but keep in mind that the goal is to make things better. Chances are that most problems are not news to your boss and that rather than being part of the problem you want to be part of the solution.
I attended a training this week with focus on rooms (front desk and housekeeping) operations within the hotel industry, and was amazed by what I learned. It was not so much the knowledge and expertise shared by the instructors, but the way how it was shared with the group. We had over 80 attendees in the training, and the instructors would divide the group into smaller teams of five to ten participants maximum and rotate them from one exercise to the next, so that the training would be much more intimate and personal, and everyone could try hands on what was discussed and learned just a moment ago. Continue reading What You Must Know Before Training Your Employees→
President Truman once said that ‘it is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit’, and it captures one of the main challenges within any industry – we hesitate to take ownership and go the extra mile, if we feel that others are not stepping up to the plate as well and that we do not get the proper credit for our efforts.
We want to do great and go beyond, but it’s important for us that everyone else does the exactly same thing too. How often do we complain about having too much on our plate, if the person next to us works as dedicated as we do? We usually don’t! We mostly complain that others are doing less than we do, and that this is not fair. Why should we do more than others? Continue reading Forget About Who’s Getting The Credit!→
You know how every other leadership article is always about change, and how we need to evolve and do things differently to stay relevant and competitive. It always made perfect sense to me, and it seemed the right and logical thing to do. Of course you need to be able to change, evolve and adapt as effective leaders.
Well I never really took a moment trying to truly understand why it would be so difficult for others to make that change, to adopt to new things and to evolve. I never really tried to put myself in the shoes of others who couldn’t seem to make that change. Continue reading We Have Always Done It This Way→
Making mistakes, being able to accept responsibility for them and learning from them, can help you grow and get better.
I remember when I was working within the butler services in Vienna, I had a family arriving to one of our Imperial suites for their vacation. The Imperial suite was the category right below the Presidential suite, the hotel had seven of them in total, and they differentiated in design and layout, from traditional to modern. Given that the family paid rack rate for the suite, I arranged for VIP amenities including flower arrangements, a majestic fruit basket, open bar and a bottle of Champagne. The suite looked incredible and it took me a couple of hours from start to finish to set everything up to perfection. Continue reading Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn→
My day as director of housekeeping usually starts the night before when I go over my Outlook schedule for the next day to make sure that everything that I wanted to accomplish the next day or week is covered. It’s important that I don’t overload my schedule and set myself too many tasks to accomplish. I try to stretch my goals and get as much done as possible, but if it’s unreasonable, I’ll only feel frustrated the next day when things don’t go as planned.
Now if you were ever working in operations before you know that things can and will change all the time, and fires can come up all day long that require you to put them out quickly and move your schedule around… and that’s expected! It’s fine to make changes to your plan, you just need to have one in the first place to make sure that you don’t lose focus and get off track. Continue reading My Day As Director of Housekeeping→
When I started in hospitality I believed myself to be an effective communicator and always made sure that my coworkers and superiors would be up to date with the information that I had so that everyone would stay ahead of the game. Once I moved to management I remember telling my director that he should improve his communication to the team and I was convinced that I could do a better job communicating if I was in his position. It’s not that he wouldn’t communicate what was going on, but I was mostly the one asking him for updates and trying to get myself involved as much as I could to get the information I needed in order for me to be effective…. and I still believed communication to be one of my strengths.
My wife and I are living in the West Village in Manhattan, and adore this neighborhood as of its vast variety of excellent and unique restaurants. We love to dine out, and excellent food and service doesn’t cut it anymore. It takes something more…
You’ve been reading posts after posts on how to become a great leader and how to motivate the people around you. Unfortunately bad leaders are more common than the great ones, and it can be very dangerous to work for people who don’t know what they are doing. It’s not only dangerous for your business, but for more selfish reasons, it can be very dangerous for your own career and kill the passion for what you are doing. While I strongly believe that you can learn from both, the good and the bad boss, you shouldn’t try to find excuses to continue working for the bad one.
Complacency is your worst enemy! It can damage your business or your career, and the worst thing about it is that you’ll probably be the last one to find out that you became complacent yourself!
From the outside it’s always easy to judge, if someone is falling victim to complacency. The person doesn’t believe in change anymore, or cannot see the need for it, loses his passion for excellence at every single step of the way, believes that he’s the victim of the incompetence around him, and is not willing to step out of the comfort zone anymore and take risks. Pretty obvious, right? Anyone from the outside can see it.
But what happens if you’re the one who is struggling with complacency without even knowing it? Did you ever had the feeling that it’s not just not right that you have to do all the work, and that people around you should step up to their plate as well, that you’re tired of always going the extra step without seeing the direct impact or outcome of your efforts? Complacency is a slow dead and you need to watch out for the early signs of it:
You’re not taking risks anymore
You’re too comfortable stepping out of your comfort zone
You’re not striving to do your best anymore
You’re not trying to think out of the box anymore
You’re not taking initiative anymore
Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, said that ‘success breeds complacency’, and ‘complacency breeds failure’, and he’s so right. You look at all the companies and businesses that used to be so initiative and great just a moment ago, and are not even relevant anymore now. But what happened? Well they stopped changing and evolving because of complacency, stood still for a moment, and the world passed by them.
Just have a look at most of the great hotels from the past. Try them and you’ll be surprised by how their service and hospitality lost its edge.
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Luxury is changing, and what mattered most to us only a decade ago, isn’t even attractive anymore. Guests don’t rate hotels by its amenities and luxurious settings anymore, they’ll judge them by the experiences they provide them… experiences and memories that last long after they depart.
Experiences cannot be measured in money, but are so much more valuable in adding meaning to our life. An experience is invaluable, not subject to inflation, lasts for a lifetime, and is the new and most stable currency ever. Continue reading Experience Is The New Currency!→
I recently happened to watch the WestJet Christmas Miracle video on YouTube and I was impressed by how simple yet powerful this idea was in building an emotional connection between an airline and its customers. The video went viral, has over 26 million views on YouTube, and the cost for the Christmas presents is nothing compared to the return on investment this campaign will have for WestJet.
What concerns me is that the hotel industry who claims to be all about its guests and their well-being didn’t come up with this first. It feels like that we keep holding on to our glamorous past by thinking that we can still impress our guests by sending up a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries to their rooms, while other industries figured out a way to move on and to connect deeply to their customers.
The exact same thing that the airline did for its customers any hotel could be doing for its guests staying over during the holidays by asking them prior to arrival what they want for Christmas and delivering these gifts on the 25th. Continue reading Is The Hotel Industry Losing Its Hospitality?→
Jeff Bezos takes customer service to the next level, and is planning to have packages delivered within only 30 minutes of ordering! How is this possible? Click on video below and you’ll find out how. For more details read the related article in the Washington Post.
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The value of acting promptly and making a mistake requiring forgiveness is greater than the value of delaying to get permission! Let me explain you why…
Most companies fail to deliver excellent customer service because their employees are not empowered to make the right decisions the moment it counts most to make the customer happy. They need to check with their managers first delaying any helpful response, and making it frustrating for the customer to do business with you. Empower your employees to make the customer happy the fast and uncomplicated way. Your customers have a choice to do business with you, or the competition across the street.
If it’s the right thing to do and in the best interest of the customer, your company and colleagues, go ahead and do it. You’re not going to be 100% right all the time, but we’re working in the service industry and are not performing heart surgery, so trust me most mistakes can be sorted out later. We need to go back to the roots and focus all of our energy and efforts on making the customer happy. This is the only way to differentiate ourselves from the competition and ensure that we stay relevant. Continue reading Why It’s Better To Ask For Forgiveness Than For Permission→
Years ago hotel management graduates would mostly apply for a position as front desk agent or sales coordinator at the beginning of their journey in hospitality. Why? Because this is what everyone else applied for and because it seemed to be the most promising path for a successful career in hospitality. Now this is changing…
Making things simply for the customer is the essence of great and prompt service! How often do you get frustrated by unnecessarily complicated and difficult service?
Our policy states… I need to ask my manager first… No, I am sorry… You need to… Please hold… let me connect you to…
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Trust me it is happening at your company as well! Our customers do have a choice, and if we don’t strive to make it easy for them to do business with us, one of our competitors will sooner or later!
Listen to your guests and put yourself in their shoes!
If you want to learn more from Richard Branson and his secrets to provide excellent customer service you must watch video below. My favorite customer service tip to empower your employees to do the right thing the fast and uncomplicated way is ‘it’s better to ask for forgiveness than asking for permission’.
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No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes! Our guests expect perfect service, and are unforgiving to any service breakdowns, correct?
False, our guests expect perfect service, but do understand that mistakes can happen, and it’s important that we recognize mistakes, when they do happen, as opportunities to get it right. Guests who have a complaint that gets resolved to their satisfaction are more likely to return than the ones that never had a complaint to begin with. It’s because we understand that no one is perfect, and if something goes wrong, we want the service provider to take ownership and turn the experience around to our satisfaction. Continue reading Stop Pointing Fingers and Turn Your Complainers Into Brand Advocates!→
