Mr. Trump Jr.

Guest Service / Customer Experience Mgmt

5 Tenets Toward Building an Award-Winning Service Culture

By Donald Trump Jr., Executive Vice President Development & Acquisition, The Trump Organization

Co-authored by T. Colm O'Callaghan, Vice President & Managing Director, Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago

Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago debuted in January 2008 just two months after we launched TRUMP HOTEL COLLECTION. As the second property in the brand – the first had been unveiled in New York 11 years earlier – we approached the task of developing service standards with a larger vision: to establish brandwide standards that would live up to the promise of “the next generation of luxury hospitality”. In our corner was the legacy of the brand’s award-winning flagship hotel which had paved the way with its remarkably stable staff characterized by very low turnover and its loyal clientele boasting an unheard of 76% repeat guest factor.

Certain service standards, including the unique Trump Attaché program – an internal service department that identifies and records guest preferences so they never need repeating -- had been defined and honed over more than a decade at Trump International Hotel & Tower New York. Our goal was to build upon what our New York hotel had achieved as an independent property, applying standards in a different market and translating them into consistent service standards that would be relevant to the hotels that would follow in locations as diverse as Las Vegas, Waikiki, New York’s SoHo neighborhood, Toronto and Panama City, Panama.

Through an ongoing series of strategy meetings and discussions internally and with our fellow executives at Trump Tower and the New York hotel, what began to emerge is a service culture that is unique to TRUMP HOTEL COLLECTION and that has been tested and refined, as it will continue to be, as the needs of guests evolve over time.

Since Trump’s Chicago hotel opened just three years ago, it has received a steady stream of accolades and honors including Travel + Leisure 2010 World's Best Awards: #1 Large City Hotel - Continental U.S. and Canada; AAA Travel Guide Five Diamond Award; and the Michelin Guide Chicago Five Pavilion Rating 2011. More important, the hotel has excelled over its comp set in RevPar and by other significant metrics. Since we attribute our success to the hotel’s service culture, here are five tenets that can be employed as you evaluate this in your own properties:

1. Know Who You Are

Before being able to establish a service culture, we had to have a very clear idea of what it meant to be a TRUMP HOTEL COLLECTION property, what it meant to work at one, and what would attract guests to stay at our hotels over any others that they might be considering. Then we had to be able to deliver the kind of guest experience that would turn them from a single stay patron to a loyal repeat guest. Starting with the central brand pillar -- “next generation of luxury hospitality” -- we defined what our service culture would look like, feel like and, most importantly, translate to the guest experience. Every idea, every standard and every proposed program or operating procedure passed through that filter which serves as an ongoing reality check for the brand.

2. Attract the Best and Brightest

Given the brand’s genesis with Donald J. Trump and his adult children, attracting the cream of the crop to staff our hotels became mission critical from the beginning. While we boast unparalleled locations and iconic buildings, our people are the face of the brand. This is manifest in the attitude in which they approach their work, greet and handle guests and their needs, and relate to each other. Our call for interviews during the hotel’s pre-opening phase yielded many more candidates than we had positions for, allowing us to be very selective in finding individuals with the right combination of passion, drive and native intelligence – people who innately value excellence and can be trained to deliver high level service consistently. At management levels, highly experienced professionals from fine operations around the world were attracted and screened to determine the best fit for the brand and the operation.

3. Inspire Through Training

Orientation at our hotels begins with an inspiring video featuring Donald J. Trump with Don, Ivanka and Eric. This entrée to the company is meant to elevate each new hire to a higher platform from which to grow. Training is specific to job function while addressing all of the tenets of the brand so that everyone is instilled with the same service goals regardless of whether they are working in housekeeping, catering or the executive office. Because our hotels cater to the top end of the luxury travel market, our training takes into account the unique desires and behaviors of the high end traveler. Over time, TRUMP HOTEL COLLECTION has developed this brand-specific training into what we now refer to as Trump Hospitality Institute. It embodies our brand’s values and teaches staff how to manifest them through service. It incorporates the personality of our brand and service culture.

4. Engage in Full Spectrum Communication

Believing that continuous improvement is the purview of each member of the staff, at Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago, a regularly scheduled roundtable connects the managing director with associates from each department in a free-flowing discussion that addresses anything and everything that is happening in the hotel. Topics range from what’s working well, what might work better and how, insights, inspiration and ideas. Step two is a debrief with the hotel’s executive committee. These sessions are punctuated by a quarterly “Blue Sky Day” – an employee rally that addresses top and bottom line issues relating to the hotel, its performance and its progress.

5. Continuously Innovate

Because our service culture places a high value on getting to know our guests and their needs and desires, our services and programs tend to grow organically. During our first year of operation in Chicago, for example, we recognized a desire among area business owners to break from their daily routines to hold strategy sessions designed to propel their businesses forward. We developed a Trump Express Meetings package that made it easy and attractive for them to do just that. Soon, it became a brandwide program. Likewise, we developed Trump Kids and Trump Pets as signature programs that appeal to guests traveling with children or with four-legged friends. These programs, too, are now part of our company-wide offerings.

Beginning with a vision, propelled by passion and fueled by strategic thinking shared among a team of bright and capable individuals, a brand service culture, conceived and well executed, has a very good chance of resonating favorable among guests – the first time and for countless stays to come.

This article was co-authored by T. Colm O'Callaghan, vice president and managing director of Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. An Ireland native with a lifetime of experience in the hospitality industry, he took the helm of the hotel 14 months prior to its January 2008 opening. Mr. O'Callaghan had previously been general manager of the Conrad Chicago. Before that, he was hotel manager of The Peninsula Chicago for three years. Mr. O'Callaghan's earlier experience included serving as executive director of food and beverage at New York's St. Regis Hotel, and director of food and beverage at The New York Palace, Mandarin Oriental San Francisco and Merv Griffin's Beverly Hilton. Mr. O'Callaghan spent his early career working at hotels in France, Switzerland and England after earning a bachelor's degree in hotel management from Ireland's Shannon College.

Donald J. Trump Jr. is an innovator and leader in today's young business world. As an Executive Vice President at The Trump Organization, he works in tandem with his siblings Ivanka and Eric to expand the company's real estate, retail, commercial, hotel and golf interests nationally and internationally. His extensive real estate development experience, rigorous education and inherent business sense add a level of detail and depth to the management of all current and future Trump projects. Mr. Trump Jr. can be contacted at 212-832-2000. or donjr@trumphotels.com Extended Bio...

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