Hotel Business Review

Mr. Bowen

Guest Service / Customer Experience Mgmt

How to Prevent Your Hotel Employees from Becoming Another Steven Slater

By John T. Bowen, Dean & Barron Hilton Distinguished Chair at the Conrad N. Hilton College, University of Houston

Steven Slater bid farewell to the passengers on his flight, including an explicit message to the passenger who disobeyed his request to return to her seat. He then grabbed a couple of beers, activated the emergency slide, and escaped down it. And as if nothing had happened, he got in his car parked at the airport and drove home. The really incredible element of this story is that he was able to get to his car and drive home without being stopped. That does not speak well for airport security. The incident also has relevance for hotel executives.

This story ignited a national discussion about employees in the service industry. Bloggers were praising Steven Slater for what he did, whereas others claimed that he was not a hero, but rather a weak employee who could not cope with a rude customer. One blogger stated that if he could not handle a rude guest, he should not be working as a flight attendant. There did not seem to be a consensus on whether he was a hero or a jerk. There was, however, a lot of discussion on how employees should handle rude customers.

Stew Leonard became an icon for extraordinary customer service after opening Stew Leonard’s supermarkets in Norwalk Connecticut in 1969. He had two rules: 1. The customer is always right. 2. If the customer is ever wrong, re-read rule #1. I do not believe the customer is always right. In fact, in some cases, we have to fire our customers. This certainly differs from Stew Leonard’s message, and these two opposing opinions is one of the reasons why there is no consensus on Steven Slater’s role as a hero. This article offers suggestions on how to prevent your lodging employees from becoming another Steven Slater.

First, a good employee selection process is critical. Finding employees who are good at creating a positive service experience is a vital goal and major hiring criterion of lodging organizations. Customer contact requires service employees to display more initiative, cope more effectively with stress, be more interpersonally flexible and sensitive, and be more cooperative than their colleagues who work in the manufacturing industry. This means that service firms place more emphasis on personality, energy, and attitude than on education, training, and experience in their recruitment, selection, and training strategies.

Finding employees who can create a positive service experience is a vital goal and major hiring criterion of service organizations. Careful selection can also have a positive effect on the employees who are hired because they feel special. Adam Hassan, a Ritz Carlton boiler operator, explains: “When people take so much time to select you, you really want to prove they made the right choice. So if I see anything unusual I take care of it.”

Bell and Anderson, two service management experts, state:

"Selecting people for customer service roles is similar to casting people for roles in a movie. First, both require artful performances aligned with the audience expectations. Creating an interpersonal experience that customers remember as satisfactory, pleasant, or dazzling is like an actor’s mission of having audiences so caught up in the play or movie that they start believing the performer is the person portrayed. Second, both requirements need a casting choice based on personality."

Danny Meyer, a New York restaurateur and author of Setting the Table, sums up the essence of hiring in the hospitality industry by stating that he looks for people who have solid technical skills, but more importantly, they must also have solid emotional skills. These skills include optimistic warmth, a curiosity to learn new things coupled with the intelligence that enables them to learn, and a work ethic that includes attention to detail, empathy, self-awareness, and integrity.

The emotional skills that Danny Meyer mentions are important because lodging employees spend a considerable time interacting with customers. They are responsible for managing the customers, and the customers often try to manage them. This can cause role conflict and emotional labor, which can lead to employees exiting their jobs on emergency slides. Although Steven Slater’s case seems extreme, most of us have dealt with rude employees. Many of us faced with walking guests late at night have experienced situations similar to Seven Slater’s.

There are ways to help employees manage emotional labor. First, hire employees who have the ability to control their emotions. Certain tests have been developed such as the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivities that can be useful in selecting employees who have a high tolerance for emotional labor. Managers should also reduce the emotional labor that employees will have to exert. For example, never leave an inexperienced person on the front desk to walk guests. Ideally, a manager or supervisor should perform this task, with the front desk clerk observing to see how the manager handles the guest. The articles about Steven Slater included evidence that he had some personel issues that were upsetting him, including a sick mother.

Therefore, managers need to watch for employees who are coming to work stressed and try to relieve their stress. This includes allowing them to take the day off if they are unable to focus on their work. Providing a short break for employees who have had experienced a difficult customer interaction can help employees regain control of their emotions. Finally, if a customer has a history of acting in a negative manner, you should fire them. In the Jet Blue case, it would be prudent not to let the abusive customer back on another Jet Blue flight. Likewise, if one of your guests is creating undue stress for your employees or is abusive, it would be wise to fire them. Just as you do not want to keep poor employees, you also do not want to keep poor customers. The damage they create, including running off good employees, can be a lot more harmful than the value of the business they bring to your hotel.

Hotel employees are required to manage customers, which can also create emotional labor. Customer contact employees in hotels are expected to perform in a certain manner. They have a certain role to play and the customer is also expected to behave in a certain manner. When both the employees and customers are playing their roles as expected, the interactions are non-emotional. However, when one or both of the actors play their role out of character, the employees have to manage their emotions. Positive emotions such as showing excitement when customers share something good that has happened to them can have a positive effect on the relationship. When customers do not act according to their expected role, which happened in the Jet Blue incident, the employees must try to manage the customers back into their expected role, while acting in a rational manner. If the employees lose their ability to remain rational, an incident may occur that can be negative for both internal and external customers.

There are three major differences between managing customers and managing employees. First, employees are usually managed by managers who have received training on how to supervise employees. They are also able to develop a selection process to help ensure their employees will fit their organizational culture.

Furthermore, managers work with employees on a regular basis. Line employees often do not receive training on how to manage customers. For the most part, they cannot pre-screen their customers, and the employees often have no prior interaction with customers.

To help your employees manage customers more effectively, you should provide training on handling guests and guest complaints. As mentioned above, if guests are wrong, you need to support your employees. This will give them confidence and also help them manage their emotional labor, since they know that management will support them. In difficult situations, management should deal with the customer, providing a positive role model for employees.

The Jet Blue incident reminds everyone that employees’ encounters with guests can be stressful. Consequently, managers must hire employees who can handle the stress of dealing with customers. They must also support them by reducing or eliminating the source of stress, including firing abusive guests. In addition, you must also provide them with the skills to manage their guests. Keep in mind that the best run hotels have both happy employees and happy customers.

John Bowen is Dean of the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management. He has presented marketing courses and seminars in Asia, Australia, Central America, Europe, Mexico and South America, and has published over 100 articles on marketing. He is also the North American Research Director for World Wide Hospitality Trends. Dean Bowen's industry experience is in the area of food and beverage. He has worked in hotels, freestanding restaurants and as the corporate food and beverage manager of a hotel management company. For 15 years, he owned and operated Theodore Zinck's in downtown Dallas. Mr. Bowen can be contacted at 713-743-0209 or jtbowen@Central.UH.EDU

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