NB: This is an article from Sojern
There are a number of challenges facing hoteliers today, including managing guest expectations. Ensuring that guests’ expectations are set and met is an ever-increasing challenge in the digital age. With social media, review sites, and OTAs setting much of the messaging and expectations for you, how can a hotelier take control and ensure guests are impressed with their experience?
Sojern’s latest eBook, The Hotelier’s Handbook to Managing Expectations in the Digital Age, gives you the tools, tips, and expert advice to ensure you’re setting, managing, and even exceeding, hotel guest expectations.
Setting Expectations – Are They in Stone?
Knowing how and when expectations are set is crucial to ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction. If you promise one thing—like a mountain view—but don’t deliver, you’ve set, but haven’t met, expectations. If, however, you promise something more abstract like ‘luxury,’ different travelers will expect different experiences.
It’s important, then, to understand the different ways you are setting expectations. Only then can you truly manage them.
The Path to Exceeding Expectations
David Kong, CEO of Best Western, notes that the biggest issue for hotel guest expectations is that they’re ever-increasing. Matching, and even exceeding, these ever-increasing demands is not an impossible task. Rather, it’s one that requires a multi-pronged approach, including:
- Training all members of your staff to interact with guests
- Giving your staff the freedom to be creative with their guest interactions—like putting pictures of Nicolas Cage on guests’ pillows
- Creating a personalized experience
Our eBook digs deep into all the ways that you can work to set guest expectations, manage negative experiences, and delight even the most hard-to-please guests.
