Writings on the Business of Hospitality

Some service mistakes by front desk staff are universal. Some are unavoidable. Some are amusing, but all can affect guest satisfaction and your AAA or Mobil rating.

The most common and frequent service flaw is the failure to acknowledge a guest waiting in line. A verbal greeting is not necessary, but a simple smile works well to let the waiting guest know he or she is not being ignored.

Another common mistake is the failure to use the guest’s name during check in or check out. In this instance, the guest’s name is readily available via the reservation, a credit card, the registration card, the folio or from pre-arrival messages. Despite all these opportunities, the guest is often checked in and out by an efficient, courteous clerk who did everything perfectly, except use the guest’s name. A small point, perhaps, but one that can significantly help to personalize your guests experience. It is also one of the AAA inspectors’ “hot buttons”.

Service inconsistency is very common at the front desk. It is not unusual for one clerk to give nearly perfect service while a different clerk performs at a substandard service level. This inconsistency in standards can be transparent from the morning staff to the evening staff, but it can also be experienced at the same time from different clerks. It is imperative that you outline your service standards within your training model to ensure that each employee understands them from the line level to the management.

Another common service mistake comes from an apparent lack of knowledge. An obvious mistake is when a front desk employee is asked about the hotel’s facilities or the surrounding area and they tell the guest to “ask someone else.” Why don’t they know? They work in the hotel, they should know about it. This is not an unreasonable expectation. To be fair, there is a lot to know about any property - its facilities, hours of operation, not to mention, the local area. You may not expect every employee to know everything every time, but you should expect more than an “I don’t know” or “ask someone else”. An acceptable alternative is for the service representative to gather the information requested by the guest.

Of all these service mistakes, it appears that the simpler ones, like acknowledging a waiting guest by name, are most difficult to correct.

While I have not yet found a guaranteed way to correct these common service mistakes, I have had success with a very basic approach:

1. Be sure your staff knows EXACTLY what your service standards are
2. Be sure they know these are REQUIREMENTS not OPTIONS
3. Require your management team to make on-the-spot corrections
4. Hold your managers and supervisors accountable
5. Set the example
Repeat steps 1 thru 5