Customer - centricity and customer obsession
Undoubtedly, there are several other hotel brands in the same city where your property is located - all aiming to win the same customers you are trying to reach. Competition in the hospitality industry is both fierce and continually changing. With rapidly evolving technology and changing customer expectations, organizations in this field must constantly innovate and develop in order to remain ahead of the competition.
Understandably, hotels which are innovative outperform their non-innovative competitors owing to their ability of providing segregated products and services.
Unfortunately, even then, this is no longer enough. Because within the very same cluster of innovative hotels, there are countless hotels - all offering similar services, locations, and amenities…making the extraordinary, ordinary.
How then do you stand out from the rest? The answer lies in providing a level of personalisation that is hard for others to emulate. That is one sure-fire way of winning the battle.
In the past, personalisation in the hotel industry meant adding guests' names in the emails. Then it shifted to knowing from where your guests come from and remembering their birthday. While this was a step towards making guests feel valued, it really didn’t give the hotel a competitive edge; because pretty soon, everyone began doing it and it became a common approach.
Imagine your hotel this year will surpass 2023 results in terms of occupancy, ADR, profitability and other key metrics. All this augurs well… so far. Predictions are that next year’s International visitor volume to the country is likely to exceed the 2018 / 19 (pre-covid) levels. However, there are ominous signs of your hotel’s occupancy easing off (flat lining), including shrinking footfall through the door. In such a situation, how can you, as the hotel manager, grow demand and meet the owner’s growth expectations?
Put simply; with new guests hard to find and retaining existing guests becoming even harder – how do you increase year-over-year performance? Why not consider positioning your guests at the centre of all operations?
Staying ahead of the competition requires understanding and adapting to the ever-evolving needs of your guests. Imagine walking into a place where they remember your name, your preferences, and even those small details you mentioned offhand during your last visit. Feels like magic, doesn’t it? Yes, that’s the magic from ‘personalisation’.
When one combines personalisation with customer obsession, meaning; putting your guests at the centre of all operations, it can drive a powerful business philosophy that consistently delivers high ratings on NPS (Net Promoter Score), CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) and CES (Customer Effort Score).
Some hoteliers believe customer-centricity and customer obsession to mean the same. While it may sound alike, there’s a critical dissimilarity. As Nitanshah Tanvar explains, “In a customer- centric approach, the customer is important, and their satisfaction is a priority. However, it coexists with other business goals, such as profit margins and operational efficiency. Simply put, companies focus on meeting customer needs but balance them with their internal goals. Customer obsession, on the other hand, goes a step further. Under this mindset, the customer isn’t just important - their needs and expectations drive every business decision and action, even if it means sacrificing short - term gains or making changes that are difficult but necessary for customer satisfaction.
I recall an Amex card “Companion dines free” promo at a Hilton hotel on ‘Valentine’s’ day a year ago. My son and I held Amex credit cards and together with our wives, we decided to book a table at the hotel’s restaurant. The dinner went well until when we called for the check - requesting it to be split as my son and I wished to pay separately, and to avail ourselves of the companion dines free offer. The server refused to honour the promo, claiming that as we had sat at one / the same table, only one person gets to dine free. The head waiter when summoned sided with his server on the same grounds. Fortunately, the hotel’s PR manageress who happened to be around intervened and settled matters to our satisfaction…kudus to her.
In the above scenario, the service staff was focused on the table which was at the centre of determining the outcome of the promo. They were looking at a short-term gain, whereas The PR person was hyper-focused on satisfying us (the customers’) and gaining our faith and long term loyalty.
The perspective of the modern consumer has shifted. Expectations have become more complex and today’s customers expect to receive more than habitual customer service protocols. It’s about relentlessly focusing on what’s best for the customer in order to win their trust.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Customer Service Trainer and Ex-Hotelier
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