SOPs...friend or foe?
In terms of the product, the lobby in most luxury hotels is designed with intention; where no sooner you enter it, the air feels cool and different, and yet a warm feeling radiates from the walls and the ceiling. The lobby is also the one place that almost every single visitor to the hotel will see at least once. It will form the guests’ first impression, providing an instant snapshot of the overall image and atmosphere of the hotel - signaling whether the hotel is opulent, laid-back, and minimalistic or anything else. This in turn sets guest expectations for what is to come with regard to service, rooms, and facilities.
In plain terms, guests are willing to pay more and come back often for spaces that are designed well. While the first impression can be impressive, leading to genuine surprise, it is but half the battle won in the hotel’s quest to convert a guest’s single booking into repeated stays. While an imposing entrance creates a powerful first impression, sets a luxurious mood, and manages initial expectations, a stunning lobby is not enough.
Luxury in hospitality is undergoing a clear transformation. The focus is shifting away from infrastructure and increasingly towards the experience a hotel can provide. As the guest heads towards the front desk to check-in, the awe of a grand entrance fades quickly if the core elements of the stay fail to deliver. Room size, the level of facilities, or the numbers of amenities are no longer sufficient in themselves. Today’s guests seek personalisation, emotional value and authenticity – elements that transcend the physical space and its characteristics and enter the realm of lived experience.
From first touchpoints, be it over email, telephone or simple ‘welcome’ at reception, to troubleshooting during the stay, to final ‘goodbye’ – all of these is exclusively delivered by us humans. While design and artwork may attempt to make us feel overawed in a certain way, it is personal interactions that either cement or detract us from it.
The current standard of "luxury" hospitality was built on the foundation of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). This model assumes that excellence is achieved through absolute consistency, mechanical precision, and flawlessness of physical delivery. Unfortunately, this traditional SOP model, attempts to fabricate the guest experience through rigid, scripted behaviours. Staff are trained where and how to stand, what phrases to parrot, when to look at the guest in the eye and how to put together their facial muscles into a standardizing smile. It’s all aimed at ticking all the boxes on a checklist and in the name of achieving ‘guest satisfaction’.
When hotels approach the guest experience under a rigid maxim, assuming that if the physical product is opulent and the staffs follow the manual, the guest will be satisfied, it is blindsided to the energetic realities of human interaction. Because it relies entirely on external compliance, it produces an environment that is profoundly sterile. It forces employees to act as emotional automatons, suppressing their natural humanity and exuberance to conform to a corporate template.
It pains me whenever I walk into most 5-star hotels to be met with a invisible wall of artificiality, where I can immediately sense being welcomed with a scripted greeting rather than receive one that is genuine, warm and comes from the heart. The physical surroundings may be flawless, the marble gleam, and the amenities may be exquisite, but the energetic vibration of the space is completely hollow.
SOPs exist for good reason. Not only do they create consistency and protect quality, but they also provide new staff a foundation to work from. Nobody is arguing against them. But when the SOP culture goes too far – it programmes staff to follow steps rather than read people.
Allowing employees to be themselves while still delivering standards is no easy job. The skill doesn’t come naturally to most people. It develops through good coaching, the right management culture, and an organization that keeps the conversation alive day to day. Not only does it require fine-tuning, it’s also an ongoing balancing act.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Mystery Guest Auditor, Ex-Hotelier
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