Why settle for crumbs when you can have the whole banquet? (Part 1)
The wedding functions, the year-ending corporate events, the Christmas parties and the New Year’s Eve dance are all over. December’s monthly revenue was high as hoteliers bid adieu to last year, exclaiming ‘All’s well that ends well’. Soon that euphoric feeling will ebb as the challenges in the coming year unfold. That’s when it’s time to re-group and re-train your staff. If you think your Banquet Sales Executive or Coordinator (or whatever you call him/her), is promoting your function rooms, up-selling menu options and recommending value addition features - think again. These people are paid minimum wage, and unless you invest time and professional training for them, you will get minimum results from them. The key to getting and keeping good service people is to recognise them as sales people hired to do a professional job. Treat it as the number one job requirement. Otherwise, you will never have professionals selling your product. Instead, you will have disengaged employees carrying out the job in a perfunctory manner. With International brands such as the Shangri-La and Mövenpick now in operation and the likes of Sheraton, ITC and others on-the-pipeline, now is the time to separate the order takers from the sales professionals in your Banquet Department. Unless you do that…be prepared to settle for the crumbs on the table!
Not too far back, sometime in early January, my wife and I visited four 5-star city hotels to select a suitable hall for a private event to be held on a Monday, later that year. For starters, booking a venue for a function is not the same as reserving a room for an overnight stay. With today’s technology, one can reserve a hotel room with a few clicks – a clear indication, that the hospitality industry is slowly but surely moving towards a ‘technology-based self service’ gateway, to replace the traditional ‘human touch’ (or ‘voice’ in the case of room reservations) services. Booking a hall for a function however, is a bit more complicated. There is the hassle of making several visits and follow-up calls before the deal is closed. The dividend to a hotel that has large function rooms to sell is that a single ‘walk-in’ potential customer, can book business in excess of Rs. 3 Million, for one event, for just one night. On the contrary, the hotel will need to sell anything between 100 to 125 hotel guestrooms to derive that kind of revenue.
The physical ‘customer Journey’ usually begins with driving into the car park and the walk to the hotel entrance. Parking at the hotels visited, was not a problem - except at this one particular property where good intentions can lead to bad inventions. I was stopped by the guard at the barrier to the car-park and asked in an accusatory manner ‘where are you going?’ My reply ‘to the car-park’ was challenged with another question ‘going to the hotel? And when I nodded, he grimly asked me my name, before dismissively waving me past. One interesting shift in hotels is the ‘outsourcing’ of security and other services. While potentially advantageous to a hotel's immediate bottom line, the result can be disastrous from a long term guest loyalty and profitability point of view. If an outside source is not seamlessly integrated in the hotel service promise, relationships can turn sour. When first impressions get bruised, hotel staff will need to work harder to get guests back on board and in the flow of a good experience.
As a prospective customer, the moment I walk through your door, I will be discovering many aspects of your business. Staff in the banquet offices of all hotels visited was well dressed and presented a neat and professional appearance. However, as a customer I also want to hear words of greeting and see a smile when entering. None of this happened in any of the visits! Those who looked up from their tiny cubicles simply gazed at us as if we had accidently stumbled into ‘no man’s land’. At one hotel, (Hotel X), three members of staff were talking together as we entered and stood hesitantly at the door. Giving us a cursory glance, they continued with their discussion, indeed a powerful demonstration of how to downplay or ignore the importance of a customer!
All hotels barring one, met our initial enquiries with a scripted monologue; about what’s available and how the booking process worked. At every hotel we received an attractive banquet folder, inside which were several inserts laying out catering options, what’s included in the rate and what is extra. Prices too were clearly defined including the applicable surcharges (service charge and plethora of government taxes). None of the inserts carried any terms and conditions. Everyone we spoke to explained it verbally including what deposits are needed and by when. All of them said more or less the same thing, concluding with ‘once you confirm with us, we will tentatively hold your booking in our books for X number of days, within which time you need to pay the required advance deposit’. Incredibly, we were asked key information such as contact name and number only at one hotel.
To be continued |
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