Ms. Zoba

Guest Service / Customer Experience Mgmt

Deliver a Legendary Customer Interaction, Every Time

By Holly Zoba, Senior VP of Sales - Hospitality, Signature Worldwide

The problem with delivering great customer service is, eventually, people find out about it and then they expect it every time.

In our training programs, we call it the value equation. To a customer, the value of your property is what they expect versus what they get. For example, if you run a mid-scale brand property, your customer expectations are probably about a seven on a scale of one to 10. They expect a clean room, nice people, efficient check-in, and decent in-room coffee. If that is what they get, they will generally be satisfied. If you come up short, the value of your hotel may go down to a five. If you exceed their expectations, they may go up to an eight. So the next time they arrive, their expectation has gone up to an eight and so to keep them satisfied, you now have to deliver an eight experience. To delight them, you have to up the ante even more.

Based on this theory, some hoteliers have said the key is to set basic expectations for our customers, and make sure we simply meet those expectations every time. Easier said than done, but here is the bigger problem. Our research has told us that 85 percent of customers who are merely “satisfied” will go to your competitor with little incentive. In addition, the minute you drop the ball and disappoint that customer, your value decreases.

Since it seems an almost impossible task to keep those customers loyal, you have two options. The first option is to give up, continue doing what you’re doing and hope your competitors opt to do the same thing and just trade customers back and forth. Or, you can develop a long-range plan for continual customer improvement and begin to build the long-term value of your property.

The good news is that many of your competitors will choose option one and with all of the chatter these days via social media, their customers will be vocal about their average, or disappointing experiences. If you are planning to choose option one, you can stop reading this article now because you need to figure out how to cut more expenses.

If, instead, you are a little tired of cutting expenses and would rather grow your revenues, we have some suggestions for you.

Since we are a training company, you may assume we are going to suggest doing training – but we have learned training alone is never the solution. You need a plan for before and after training. We have created this ten-step program to guide our clients in this process.

• Step 1: To borrow Stephen Covey’s terms, “you need to begin with the end in mind.” Exactly what value expectation do you want to create for your customers? Not just this year, but also next year and the year after. Think in terms of at least two years because to accomplish this, it will take time, planning and execution.
  
  While you are determining these expectations, involve your staff – department heads at a minimum, but ideally, the whole staff should be engaged. Getting buy-in for this plan from your existing staff is a key element to success.

• Step 2: Figure out where you are right now. Look at your guest service scores, your market share, your average daily rate, and then do mystery shopping – see exactly what level of experience you are delivering now, to warrant the previously mentioned metrics. Document all of this as your starting benchmark.

• Step 3: Set specific goals – two year, one year, quarterly. Put some thought into these goals, don’t just throw darts. Be realistic. If you are delivering a four right now, chances are good you are not getting to a nine in two years without a big influx of cash – for capital improvements and a staff overhaul. However, a six or a seven is certainly possible.

• Step 4: Ask your staff what your goal number looks like in their department. If you are the front desk manager and you are delivering a four, what changes need to be made to get you to a five, then to a six and so on? It is critical to involve as many staff members as possible, and people are more inclined to participate if they feel like they have helped to construct the plan.

• Step 5: Evaluate, within each position of each department, what the basic requirements or competencies are. For example, at the front desk, in order to get to a six or seven, you have to be computer proficient, a fast typist – because check in/check out needs to be efficient at a minimum. Next, you need to be friendly, good at multitasking, and a problem solver, resourceful and have a desire to serve.

• Step 6: Now put these competencies in place in every aspect of your employee experience. When you hire, interview for those competencies. When you orient new employees, reinforce those competencies. When you deliver performance appraisals, measure and communicate success of those competencies. If you create incentive or bonus programs, reward the employees based on those competencies. And make sure that your departments are constant role models of these competencies.
  
  By incorporating an ongoing communication plan, you will ensure all employees are aware of these basic requirements.

• Step 7: Finally, training. Training can be very effective at raising the skill levels of your staff, but only if they have those basic competencies. The real goal of training is to ensure consistency of great service delivery across all employees. If you have hired efficient, friendly, multitask employees, training should be focused on slowly raising the bar, and making sure all employees are working towards the same goals.
  
  In addition, the key to training is to realize it can’t all be done in one day. Identify long-term goals and break them down into priorities. Bring the entire staff up to a five in the first or second quarter, and then push them to a six in the second half of the year. Pushing them from a four to seven in quarter one is likely to fail – there will be too many changes they need to make, in addition to doing their job they will drop the ball more often, feel discouraged and eventually give up and leave. If instead you set some milestones they can accomplish, they will feel more successful and will be inspired to continue.

• Step 8: Ongoing measurement must be a part of your long-term plan. Once you deliver training, most of your employees will be excited to implement the new skills they have learned, but if you don’t measure the skills, they will eventually fall back into their old familiar habits. You measure for a few reasons. First, to track against your goals – are you honestly making progress or not? Second, to let your employees know you weren’t kidding. If you say it is important to answer a phone by the third ring but never measure it, and let employees know the results, they won’t believe it is really a priority for you and they won’t do it consistently.
  
  What do we mean by measurement exactly? Go back to your original benchmark data, set some numerical goals and report to all employees on your monthly progress towards meeting those goals – increased ADR, increased guest service scores, increased market share. Also, measure the behaviors that you determined will get you where you need to go. Do telephone mystery shopping calls with score sheets, have mystery shoppers visit your property and generate report cards based on the execution of those behaviors. In addition, share these results with everyone so they too can see where they have been, and how they are progressing. Celebrate successes, even small ones that are getting you to your goals.

• Step 9: Wash, rinse, repeat. Once you hit a milestone, start planning to get to the next one. Raise the bar, communicate it, train it and measure it.

• Step 10: Every manager and every department head need to be service evangelists for your service strategy. They need to model the behaviors, reward and celebrate when their staff members bring it to life and not tolerate contrary behaviors.

What results can you truly expect? When hotels truly embrace this process, we have seen steady revenue increases. Hotels have gone from three diamond to four diamond, average rates always increase because of that value equation we talked about – your customers perceived value of your property will increase as your service levels increase. You will create loyal customers who are not likely to leave you when a competitor flashes a shiny temporary object in front of them. They will recognize that choosing your property is not likely to cause them pain and in fact, they will likely enjoy the experience. Finally, when those customers are happy and loyal, many will become advocates of your property. They will tell their friends on Facebook, Twitter, and most likely TripAdvisor, which will lead to more customers and the cycle continues.

It seems like this is a lot of work and maybe it would just be easier to continue to cut expenses! However, the reality is, that course is just as much work – you can’t cut expenses today and be finished. Next month you will need to cut more and more.

So the choice is yours, how do you want to spend your time?

Legendary customer service doesn’t just happen overnight. If you decide to go the extra mile to keep your customers loyal, rather than just “satisfied”, you will find yourself and your team investing in opportunities to increase the value of your property. This decision requires a shift in your thinking, values, and training, but one that will definitely pay off as you make great customer service a part of your culture.

Holly Zoba is Senior Vice President of Sales for the Hospitality Division of Signature Worldwide, the leading provider of training solutions for the hospitality industry. Ms. Zoba has more than 20 years of sales and marketing management experience in the hospitality industry and is responsible for managing Signature Worldwide’s sales effort by determining best-fit solutions for hoteliers — helping them improve customer service and increase revenue. Ms. Zoba can be contacted at 614-766-5101 or hollyzoba@signatureworldwide.com Extended Bio...

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