Silver spoon or garden spade?

Tiffany & Company (known colloquially as Tiffany or Tiffany's), founded in New York City in 1837, is a multinational luxury jewelry and specialty retailer operating in 22 countries. Tiffany’s is renowned for its luxury goods, is known for its diamond jewelry and markets itself as an ‘arbiter of taste and style’. Unlike, many luxury hotels that wax eloquently on similar lines and yet fall woefully short when the time comes to ‘walk the talk’; Tiffany’s steadfastly deliver on their promise.

Here’s one example of how Tiffany not only do it right every time…but also do it right at the right time. Steve Curtin was in New York for a business trip, a week before his 10^th wedding anniversary. He stopped by at Tiffany’s flagship store to look at some anniversary rings. Salesman Duncan showed Steve an array of magnificent rings whilst explaining the nuances of colour, cut, clarity, and carat weight of each. But there was one particular ring (costing 25% more than the others), that Steve kept going back to look. Duncan too had noticed this. After about 30 minutes of inspecting many rings, Steve informed Duncan that he wouldn’t be buying the ring that day and mentioned that he had an appointment in two days, with the Sales rep at Tiffany’s branch in Denver city and that he wished to see what they had for sale, before making a choice.

When he arrived two days later at Tiffany’s in Denver, Saleswoman Cynthia proceeded to show Steve a wide selection of anniversary rings she had selected based upon Steve’s criteria. After introducing several rings, accompanied by a meticulous explanation of each ring’s characteristics, she produced the final ring, saying “Now this is the ring that you were especially taken by when Duncan was showing you rings at our New York store on Tuesday.” Steve was absolutely floored. Sensing his astonishment, Cynthia smiled and explained that she had received a call from Duncan shortly after Steve had left the NY store and that together, they had made arrangements for the ring to be shipped overnight from New York to the Denver location of Tiffany & Co. - in time for Steve’s appointment.

My friend Marcus and his wife from Germany visited Sri Lanka sometime in early December in 2017.  Having spent a couple  of days after arrival at a Colombo 5-star city hotel, they checked into a 4-star hotel in Kandy for a few days, before returning to Colombo for another two days, (at the same city hotel (2^nd visit). Marcus and the missus enjoyed the final week of their stay at a 4-star beach resort down South. The hotels Marcus used all belonged to a home grown hotel brand, and, prior to his arrival; he booked his accommodation requirements through the central reservations office of that hotel group. His local transportation during his trip, in a  chauffeur driven car, was also arranged thru the travel section of this hospitality-related  blue chip organisation. During the four occasions he checked into the three hotels operated under the umbrella of the same hotel group, Marcus was asked to fill-in the hotel registration card each time i.e. four times!

Hotel registration requires the guest to provide information such as Title, Surname, other Names, address, contact details, gender, date of birth, passport number and date of expiry, mode of payment and a few more details that includes the spouse’s name,(where applicable) etc. Filling in a registration card is sometimes tedious, especially after a long and tiring journey and it can leave a guest awesomely surprised, when a fully pre-registered card is thrust towards him or her with a “Just sign in, and we will have you immediately shown to your room” check-in.

In this age of technology, where one can swiftly transmit information electronically, it begs the question, why the personal details Marcus provided when filling the registration card upon the first checking-in, could not be ‘shared’ with the other two sister hotels? After all, someone within that organisation did know his entire itinery. Had these hotels, a ‘someone who cared’, (like a Duncan or a Cynthia of Tiffany’s, who working in unison ‘shipped’ an expensive ring from New York to Denver within 48 hours), faxing a copy of Marcus’s Registration card to the other hotels, would have been a walk-in-the-park.

Marcus’s birthday fell on a day during their 2^nd stay at the Colombo hotel. Whilst dining with him that very day at one of the hotel’s specialty restaurant, I casually asked Marcus whether he received a cake or anything for that matter, from the hotel in recognition of the occasion. To which he replied “No”. When I mentioned this to the steward who was serving us, he responded rather sheepishly, “I’m sorry but the management has now decided to do away with that practice’. Wonder why such hotels then bother to collect guests’ date of birth at registration?

So, what do the above two experiences tell us? It tells us that Steve received amazing customer service from Tiffany’s - literally with the 21^st century silver spoon, whilst Marcus got his from a garden spade!

Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier

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