Great service at hotels used to be based on high touch, highly personalized contact with guests – anticipating their needs and over delivering at every touchpoint. It still is. But in an era of online everything, guest needs and expectations have changed – and so have the points of contact.
Here are some guidelines for building a culture of superior service in the digital age.
The Link Between Great Technology and Great Associates
One of the areas where I spend most of my time is with clients, partners and my team on how to shift an organizations’ culture to embrace opportunities for service excellence created by technology. No matter which technology a hospitality company implements – whether it be guest messaging, reputation management, social or even a new PMS, the success is only as great as the capabilities and execution of the end associates.
Having worked with thousands of hotels and hospitality businesses around the world it has become very clear what it takes for a hotel to win: an agile, open and supportive team culture when it comes to technology.
Expectations from travelers are changing rapidly, particularly luxury guests who pay a premium for more attentive service. Add this to the fact that some hotel groups like Yotel are using technology as their core differentiator, the bar on digital service is always being raised.
I expect to only tell a hotel once that I like a hard pillow and I want you to share that information amongst your group. The sad reality is that with aging property management systems that are often siloed (even amongst hotels in the same group) this is no easy feat.
So in an industry steeped in tradition but with fragmented and often outdated technology platforms, how can we move the dial on culture to best take advantage of guest technologies?
Remove Marketing vs Operations Tension
One of the easiest ways to drive cultural change within a hotel is to begin removing the tension around who “owns” digital within a team. Everyone needs to own digital, just as everyone is responsible for the guest. For example, it still surprises me how many hotels quarantine social media feedback to a marketing or PR co-ordinator, or even outsource these interactions with their own guests to third parties. There are many reasons to have agencies support a hotel when it comes to their digital strategy, content creation and sales but outsourcing communication with an in-house guest doesn’t seem sensible.
