Mr. Albarran

Guest Service / Customer Experience Mgmt

Recovering and Proactive Guest Services

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

The overall concern of guest issues, or guest complaints, is something of a norm in the hospitality industry. We should also add guest expectations, or demands, to the above. We see positive and negative scenarios in which we have an opportunity to not only learn from our guests, but also, to learn from our mistakes as hospitality professionals. At the end of the day, we see all of these items as challenges, and the chance to own them give us the power to develop a strong sense of being prepared in this journey, while learning from these moments of truths, documenting them and using them to educate and train our new and existing hospitality professionals.

Without a doubt, once your establishment gets into the flow of always giving that sense of service, anticipating guest needs, empathizing and having a solution ready for pretty much any situation, will add value to the paying guest. They will perceive that they have gotten an outstanding return on investment for their stay/experience. Additionally, with this given factor, you are able to retain rates at your establishment, because you can justify the attention that the competition is not capitalizing on, as they are concerned in cutting essential costs that in the long term, will put them in a detrimental position. This means that they focus on reducing hours, cutting training, or laying off key personnel, for example, rather than adding value to guests who choose to stay with you, and developing a good relationship, which will lead to return guests and positive feedback, which will entice others, and referrals as well.

So how do we identify certain guests services that will help recover a guest encounter gone wrong, and how do we twist it in order to retain that guest? Well, trust will be the key component in this situation. Let’s face it, not all things will turn out perfectly as planned. There is always room for improvement, because sometimes, things will fail, regardless of careful execution, even if we as a well known and established hospitality team, followed protocol. There are external and internal forces that we must learn to manage. At the end of the day, you will learn that this is normal, yet we will also consider normal to do something about it to prevent it, and use that example to teach to your employees, so that we minimize the situation from repeating itself, especially to the same guest.

You perhaps may have several scenarios that you could relate to just about anyone, yet they tend to be very “personal”, as far as them occurring in your hospitality establishment. However, it is always good to see the fundamentals that can be applied first, and then see where and how they fit when service needs to be executed. Interestingly, we can agree that in any customer service-related industry, we can apply these and make them work to our individual location.

Frankly, I tend to be more of a proactive person, and in theory, this is how we should always be. Maybe you are that type of manager and wish that the operation operates similarly. Now, experience teaches us that we will need to react to certain service situations and apply our knowledge to defuse the situation, while retaining the guest and creating an experience that will be memorable. This is not your typical resort paradise perfect vision, but in reality a sense that you trust the management team and the brand to be on top of everything, whether it was preventative or not. I am sure you have heard such comments from guests such as, “I have been coming here for years and I never had an issue like this”, correct? Here is the thing, the reason people truly complain is not to get something for free, it’s because they chose the brand for whatever reason, but mainly, because they know what to expect and what the brand/or management company, will do to either remedy or make a situation all better. They complain because they care about the place they like to eat at, or stay at for business or pleasure. If we look at it from this angle, we are already way ahead of ensuring that we, the establishment, are in control.

I will share here some examples that I am sure you will be able to relate to, and perhaps you can use these ideas to install upon your training and vision of your establishment. You will see that all these will lead to creating a true guest experience that will certainly be memorable, add value and be perceived as stronger than any amenity existing in your facility. Sure, they count too, do not get me wrong, yet the moment of truth is priceless when a well trained hospitality professional executes it. Also, make sure that the value given does fall under the expectations of the guest, yet parallel to what the brand can deliver, at its maximum capacity. By that, I mean, if you are a three-star property, do not try to be a four- star proerpty, if not, this will create issues and false expectations that will be costly to you if you cannot/should not deliver.

One example can be that a guest that regularly visits your establishment being the reason that they appreciate and value the overall expectations they receive every time they visit you, whether it is the type of room, amenities, menu items, spa, etc. You can immediately notice that this is an important guest that contributes to your revenues, so common sense tells us we need to keep a consistent service factor going for this guest. All necessary protocol is always in place. We use their name and approach them with their favorite item almost to the time of their arrival, so you receive that guest ready. On one occasion, communication from manager to employee failed to tell the newly hired employee about the typical practices we do for the guest who has arrived. Here is where proactive practices have failed and we are entering a reactive situation now. The guest approaches and is not received with a warm welcome, or addressed by name (even the smallest things can upset your loyal guest), or perhaps the table that they usually sit at upon their 3pm arrival is not available. Maybe the beverage that awaits him or her is not there on time. Whatever the case maybe, the guest will call upon the manager and complain, perhaps even speak loudly. What do we do now? Keep in mind the guest complained because the comfort zone they are used to has been suddenly altered. A quick apology, explanation and drink, table availability, or in a worst case scenario, a comped item, may help to defuse the guest, as we do not want to lose the guest to the competition, upset them further, or have him/her bad mouth our establishment. The process is simple, yet the overall perfect execution needs to be in place, done carefully and managed in a manner that will serve as a lesson to the manager and the new trainee. Additionally, we need to not repeat this as the guest may start viewing their preferred brand in a different way. We always say change is for the better, yet not in a situation of this caliber.

Earlier, I mentioned that even perfectly executed services may not work at a 100% level consistently. I recently stayed at a well-known branded hotel, which I tend to stay at multiple times a year. On day 2 of my stay, the Internet suddenly got disconnected. I explained the issue to front desk clerk, yet, I never got a response back regarding a solution (which would have been to contact the service provider immediately). I had to address my concern to a manager on duty (about 20 minutes later), who was able to connect me to this service. They fixed the problem and the clerk did proactively call me back to ensure I was back online. (By the way, I was to blame for the Internet having disconnected, as I was running too much of the line. In reality, I was testing a webinar I was going to host, which has worked just about any place that I have connected, so the explanation was not a good excuse). As a guest, I still have mixed feelings regarding this situation. I need the Internet to work, and I expect any internet from a branded hotel to work as fast as the one I have at the office or at home. The situation above, although it had a happy ending, and I can certainly trust management of the hotel, also indicated to me that the line level staff needs to be trained or educated on putting themselves in the guest shoes, as well as caring to ensure that they are a critical solution to resolving the issue at hand. Will management also use this experience for future ongoing training scenarios to train their staff?

There will always be these types of days and also, different types of guest that you will have to be a step ahead, so you can always either see what they may need (if it is a new customer), to always being ready to ensure that the long term guests get their typical items taken care of in every visit. Similarly, if one instance such as a negative reaction takes place, as long as you are confident, and put the guest at ease, no matter if it is a guest that is new to your brand or a loyal, long time customer, it is you the manager or employee who will be in power. Always start and end the conversation and demonstrate fully that you care. Empathize and you will see how positive your results will be at the end of the day.

One these instances occur in your establishment, I suggest you take these type of experiences and document them (perhaps give as a project to an employee you want to empower and develop into a future supervisor or manager), so that these can be incorporated into future training that can be ongoing. Perhaps these can be tweaked to apply to different times or scenarios as well.

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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