Be a better person than your word
The pursuit of been labeled a good hotel is a common desire although not all hotels are created equal. Been ‘good’ though, is no longer good enough. In a market where there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other hotels that could be as good as yours, you have to be different. Breaking the ‘good to different’ barrier requires going beyond meeting… to exceeding guest expectations. In other words living up to expectations alone, isn’t enough. So how does a hotel go from being good to different?
To begin with, hotels must ensure that key-guest focused tasks are performed well, some of which, one may consider all basic stuff is fundamental, particularly during these turbulent times where service quality among other things, matters.
Thereafter, the hotel must reach an elevated level of consistency and quality across all elements of the guest experience that meets customer expectations in the Holy Grail of hotel operations. This is when the hotel can be considered as having reached a ‘good’ level. Unfortunately, this is also the point where most good hotels stagnate at – with owners and managers spending all their time battling to ensure that staffs work to comply with the required standard at all times. Getting to level ‘Different’ then becomes that much harder – more so, when management effectiveness to tackle issues such as engagement levels and productivity is low.
‘Take my word for it…’
Think about it. You buy a flight ticket and board a plane to go on a trip. All you ask of the airline is to get you to where you want to go on time. When that happens, well and good… because that’s what you paid for and expected to happen. No big deal huh?
Say you take your car to the nearest garage for repairs and you desperately need it back as quickly as possible. The garage foreman informs you that he can get the job done in 3 days at the very earliest. You reply “Great… are you certain about completing the repairs by then?” He says “Take my word for it”. On the morning of the 3rd day, the foreman calls and tells you that you can collect your vehicle in the evening. What you expected is happening – well and good. Now what if the foreman called you on the 2nd day that the car was in the garage to inform you that you can have it back fully repaired that same evening? You are bound to be overjoyed, because not only is what happened pleasingly unexpected – but it also exceeded your expectations.
I once booked rooms at a resort hotel to take a well earned break with my family. Coincidently, my birthday fell during the stay, which I did not tell the hotel though. The hotel forwarded me an online registration card a few days prior to our arrival, requesting me to fill in the details so as to ensure a speedy check-in on arrival. Pre- registration included providing my date of birth among other required information. I filled that in, hardly giving it a thought.
When we arrived at the hotel, the check-in was as swift as expected. The hotel kept to its word. On my birthday, whilst dining at the restaurant, the manager comes by after we finished our meal, with a cake on the house to celebrate the occasion - a pleasant surprise indeed. On enquiring how they came to know of my B’day, I was told that they picked it up from my pre-registration details and seized the opportunity to exceed my expectations.
When hotels work hard to carefully set expectations for their customers, and then do everything they can to exceed them, they will find themselves recognised as been different.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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