The Risks and Rewards of Service Innovation
by tgagoAs the travel industry continues to grow more competitive hoteliers are constantly trying to find ways to separate themselves from their competitors. This roundtable discussion among partners and senior partners of the Center for Hospitality Research offers ideas on service innovation.
“Regardless of how the innovation is implemented, it must be embraced by staff and management, and guests must see the changes as valuable.” When innovations are meant to cut costs, for instance, both employees and guests may need an explanation of the innovation. One example that roundtable participants cited is the addition of self-service kiosks in some hotel lobbies. Employees regarded these with suspicion and guests were slow to adopt kiosks in some cases. Several participants suggested that the moral of that experience (and of other technological innovations) is that technology needs to be balanced with personal service innovations.
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CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE »Common Service Mistakes
by bvargasSome 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”.
CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE »Is Anyone Home?
by tgagoPart of my job as Manager of Client Services for ResortsandLodges.com is to periodically review phone calls to a client’s property. In reviewing these phone calls, I have found a few simple things that you can do to drastically improve the performance of your property and bring in more reservations.
I was recently listening to several properties’ phone calls out of California and I noticed a consistent issue. In this instance, two properties of similar size, received a similar number of phone calls. One property had over 35% of their phone calls dropped. The other property had only 7% of their calls dropped. When I listened to the calls it was easy to see why. The second property was answering their phone in one or two rings whereas the first property let most of their calls go to voicemail (after six rings).
You definitely don’t want to give a potential client the impression that your staff is too busy to handle their phone call. If the phone rings four or five times, it is likely that the caller will hang up after this time. If the call goes to voicemail, the caller often hangs up without leaving a message. In some cases this can be as many as 40% of the total number of calls. Talk about leaving a lot of revenue on the table!
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