Mr. Albarran

Guest Service / Customer Experience Mgmt

Five Ways to Add Value with Service

By Marco Albarran, Founder & President, Remarkable Hospitality, Inc.

Customers perceive value depending on the type of hospitality entity they decide to either work with or patronize. The industry certainly has plenty of traditional ways of adding value with service. However, it is always important to consider different approaches that we do not consider using all the time, and executing these will add value via applying these service concepts to your hospitality operation. Below you will find five ways that you may want to implement in your operations to enhance the value of the services you provide.

Using technology consistently to add value to your guest’s service experience

Hospitality services have traditionally been more of a person to person connection. How can we incorporate technology to add value to the guest service experience? Most already understand what opportunities exist with technology, PMS databases and the Internet. For example, when your guest arrives, perhaps we can appoint a staff member to send IM or texts/emails to guests who checked in, and using a small expression like, “how is your room, can we be of further assistance?” or “can we set a wake-up call for you?” Perhaps post check-out, you can wish them well with a “have a nice trip”, or similar text/IM message, as a way to thank them and “wow” them, thereby leaving a positive impression on the service received.

Another example comes to mind. Who manages your social media sites for your establishment or company? If you have an appointed staff member, is the employee responsible for thanking guests who take the time to critique your establishment, whether it was a positive or negative (or both) remark? Is this being done in a consistent/timely fashion that you can capture that guest’s comment/concern in time? There should be a response time standard that should be able to be implemented and always met. This will show a high level of commitment to the guest, and they will certainly become/continue to be a loyal guest.

Give your staff education opportunities to enhance their value and knowledge of hospitality

As the industry improves and hotels are looking to staff up, the opportunity for employees who are considering a career in hospitality, perhaps in the management company or corporation that they may be working with, will indicate that this individual is worth investing in. This can be part of developing and molding this person for future management positions and perhaps other opportunities within the company. It is worth to invest and consistently prepare this individual as part of the long-term team of the company, as this person will certainly demonstrate loyalty and will show leadership in the position that they embrace, thereby maintaining high service and standard levels. Hotel management companies and restaurant management companies depend on human resources to reduce turnover and try to retain the best talent that they hire. What better way to do so than by offering them the opportunity for adding education to their resume? There are several ways that this can be done. For instance, one option could be to offer tuition reimbursement for local universities, either in local (on-ground) community colleges or private universities, online education, or perhaps courses that may be offered by other education entities, where they may acquire diverse hospitality certificates. Now, the next idea may also work, but it is up to the employee/student to verify this with a local college/university or online university. The American Hotel and Lodging Association, for example, offers employees in the hospitality industry self paces courses online. This may present great benefit with certificates, which perhaps may be used for college/university credits (again, always verify this before making the decision). They also offer these courses as a package to get certified as a department head, general manager or even a trainer/educator. However, there may be other ways of doing so. Perhaps you can gather a group of staff members you know would benefit from these types of certifications or courses, and hire a consultant to facilitate these courses for you. Upon finishing a course, staff can take a certificate test, which would be of great value and be used as professional development.

Timely communication in customer service and follow up

This particular concept is already applied by many; however I added some examples that will be of great service value not only to the brand which you are representing, but also to the client, patron or customer that you are focused on. Certainly, we have benchmark time ranges (or goals) in which certain things need to be done, for example, greeting guests by applying the 10-5 rule, answering the phone within 3 rings, or perhaps completing a meal order in a typical restaurant within 12 minutes. However, this can go above and beyond in many other ways. For instance, if we look at email response (or a telephone message), perhaps allowing for a respond rate of 90 minutes or less (you would had to pick your desired and reasonable time frame to return an email), or even a phone call, would be a standard, by perhaps returning it at a quicker pace, may exceed expectations. One can apply this concept to virtually anything now that we have smart phones, and small, to the point, messages can also be considered a response. This has worked for me in the following manner. As a hospitality online instructor, we are given a turnaround response rate of either email or quotations and answer of about 24 hours during the week, and 24-48 hour range on the weekends. I feel that if I want to excel at communicating with my future hospitality professionals (that is how I refer my students as), I return their email or question, even if it is an “I will check tomorrow when I am back online” response, within 2 hours. It is amazing what the service results, by means of positive feedback, they give in end-of-course surveys. I always get a response similar to, “Wow, I have never had an instructor that responds to me that quickly”. How valuable is that? If you think about it and you empathize with that student (client), perhaps there was a situation where they had a question that needed immediate attention, which perhaps may have helped the student complete their work in a timely manner. They truly value this. In addition, I have (continually) earned their respect, as well as having acquired a loyal student that will take future courses with me. Take this scenario and apply it to other similar situations and see how this will work for you. Not only does on feel that they have opened a positive opportunity of value for a student, but also for one self.

The Undercover Boss Concept

Talk about hands-on management. Hospitality entities such as Great Wolf Lodge, Inc, Choice Hotels and Hooters, have participated in this TV reality show, and I think that it has brought some value, as well as commitment, from each of their respective employees. This in turn, will certainly have a positive effect on your internal customers, thereby increasing service and value for your external customers as well. Perhaps executives of companies may want to start to do this in order to truly get a hands-on experience that may help understand their operations and front of the line numbers much better, as well as truly understand who are the driving forces in your front lines.

Using all staff as points of information

This particular concept may surprise certain guests, but something that I learned while traveling abroad was the use of employees as source of information, meaning, giving them the 411 on your hospitality operations. Give them reasonable facts that they can use to enhance service and communication with guests. This will create a personalized value and demonstrates that the hospitality entity is up to par and in line with the latest and greatest. Here is an example. I have had instances when traveling to lodging facilities or eating at certain venues, where I would ask questions about the property, history or any new items, such as remodeling or opening of new towers at a hotel, where an employee was not aware of the facts. It seemed to me that the establishments truly did not connect well with their staff. Furthermore, this indicates that communication is weak and this will eventually lead to negative moments of truth. How can this be remedied and turned into an opportunity to add value to the property and the guest experience? I will use the experience I had at a branded lodging facility in Panama City. I wanted to take a tour of the property and the only staff member available was a line staff employee from the rooms division department. As we toured the property, this employee was fully knowledgeable of the hotel, its latest remodeling, dates and also expected date of its sister property, as well as a new tower, being built on the adjacent parcel. I was amazed that this staff member knew all of this. I tested this with a housekeeper and little did I know that they also had this general knowledge as well as this employee also was able to confirm similar facts.

Give these service concepts a try, as they may help add value as indicated above.

Marco Albarran is the founder and president of Remarkable Hospitality, Inc., an international consulting, training and educational firm that specializes in assisting hospitality companies to perform successfully by developing and continuously improving service standards. He also serves as a hospitality instructor and subject matter expert for various universities. Before launching Remarkable Hospitality, Inc., Mr. Albarran was with HVS International, working on national and international consulting projects, including market and feasibility studies for proposed and existing lodging facilities. Mr. Albarran can be contacted at 561-542-6326 or malbarran@remarkablehospitality.com Extended Bio...

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