It is essential for the hotel industry to possess a strong hospitality perspective, awareness, and intelligence for the type of guest experience they want their business to generate and execute for their guest. Many of the leading institutions that measure and rate guest experience and customer satisfaction performance have stated that the number one reason for a hotel guest’s loyalty was in the personal experience they received from that business.
In a recent survey, JD Power stated that there was a direct correlation with the hotel staff personally engaging the guest to the increase in the customer satisfaction scores from an industry average of 64 points to a high 77 points in the more personalized scenarios. Trip Advisor has stated that positive advocacy ratings and reviews translate into increased rankings position in the online OTA marketplace, which can enhance the ADR position for the business.
So, it’s become quite apparent that the hospitality industry is presently in an customer driven economy. It is critical for the industry to be present to this new business reality, in how they strategically design their business model value proposition for creating a differentiating competitive advantage. It is important if the industry has any hopes of positively influencing the KPI positions of their business, especially when it comes to the financial viability and the brand’s level of relevance in the marketplace.
The hospitality presence cannot be just at the front doorsteps or with the front desk staff anymore, it has to immerse itself into the entire hotel enterprise for it to have a positive impact in the way the guest perceives the value of the business. It’s in every department, employee, leadership position, business discipline, vendor relationship, decision making process, core values, hirer, expenditure, etc. When it’s not, it creates gaps that negatively impact the guest experience chain for influencing guest preference and trust factors in the business’s ability to provide them with an experience that gives them a sense of optimism about the business offering and themselves.
The going away party
I’d like to share an experience I had while attending a going away party that was being held at a very nice, national hotel brand. I believe by sharing this experience with the hospitality industry, it will open up a conversation in your businesses around the level of hospitality intelligence your enterprise may or may not possess.
My wife and I arrive to the hotel and were greeted by the hotel’s front door team in a very friendly manner. We also received the same level of greetings from the front desk, as well as the restaurant’s hostess where the party was being held. The hotel’s decor and the level of cleanliness were excellent. The food and beverage service for the party was à la cart style, so my wife and I decided to order an appetizer. We had noticed that everyone was ordering the buffalo chicken dip during the cocktail hour, so we decided to order one as well. Our waitress provided us with good service in a friendly and down to earth manner.
Now here’s where things became a little inhospitable, and you’ll never guess who the culprit was for delivering a poor guest experience. It was the buffalo chicken dip of all things! Let me give you the rundown on the appetizer experience. It was served with tortilla chips, in a classic casserole style au gratin dish, with melted mozzarella cheese piled on top. So when you try to dip your chip into the appetizer, the chip would crumble sending your fingers into the boiling hot dip concoction, and if you were lucky enough to break through the cheese gauntlet, you were then faced with another challenge, giant chicken strips that were more suitable for a Caesar salad than in a dip style appetizer with tortilla chips.
The appetizer was so difficult to eat and enjoy that it ended up turning everyone off who had ordered it, and I notice when it came time for everyone to order dinner they were somewhat sarcastic and cynical about the ability of the business to provide them with a good dinner experience.
So to summarize, it was extremely frustrating experience because the dip tasted pretty good, but you just could not make sense out of the way it was put together, i.e. poor customer design. There was no thought given to managing expectations or anticipating the customer’s needs both in the practicality and the customer engagement sense.
That was a very internally focused business approach by the hospitality enterprise. It was probably cheaper and easier for them to use mozzarella cheese. It took less time and effort to just roughly julienne up the chicken breast into large pieces. The taco chips were probably used with other appetizers. Essentially, the dish was designed on what was in the best interest of the business, not the customers.
A guest experience design recipe
A more externally customer focused approach by the organization might’ve been to dice up the chicken really small or even shredded (an empathetic approach for the guest experience). Maybe they should have considered using bagel chips or even a house made country style kettle chip that could handle the dips consistency (i.e. anticipating the guest’s needs). They could have considered using blue cheese crumbles, which would have perhaps better complemented the theme of the dish (i.e. managing expectations) and would have made the appetizer more manageable, as well as creating a more hospitable experience for the guest.
Now, I know we’re talking about an appetizer experience, but this is a great example for the industry to consider looking for chicken dip scenarios in their business. Where are you internally focused on the processes, policies and procedures that could be taking away from the guest’s enjoyment? Where are your blind spots in the guest journey that are hurting your effectiveness for creating a stronger connection with your guest for earning their trust, and showing how much your business truly cares about the experience they are receiving from their business?
The three missing ingredients
There were three main ingredients missing in this hospitality scenario: Anticipating the customer coming into the enterprise, managing expectations, and being or having empathetic perspective for the guest journey, and the experience they were receiving in every touch point of the guest’s encounters with the business.
The customer experience design take away is that hospitality can be felt in many ways by your guest. It can come through in the most unlikely aspects and encounters – a helping hand, a genuine heartfelt greeting, or the quality of the hospitality offerings. And when an enterprise does not manage the guest experience, it can really hurt the business’s ability to generate relevance, loyalty and a strong return on the business’s daily operational expenses and efforts. Understanding the emotional impact of one’s business on the guest and the guest experience elevates the level of performance in every discipline within the business.
About the author
Brett Patten is approaching 35 years in the hospitality industry where he has spent those years accumulating invaluable experience in a variety of leadership positions, and business enterprises. Brett has becoming known as one of the top executive leadership and organizational engagement coach on the subject hospitality intelligence, and customer experience design. Brett is also a feature writer for global hospitality, a national and international publication on the subject customer experience design.
Brett’s unique management and business approach consistently transformed hospitality enterprises with sustainable growth results from his days with the prestigious four and five-star hotel brands, such as the Stouffer’s hotels, Pan Pacific Hotels, and Le Meridien hotels, as well as working with prestigious five-star club resort enterprises like the very prestigious Longboat Key, to the launching of a nationally award-winning hospitality brand in 2007.
Brett then turned this business processes into a company called “Five-Star Customer Experience Design.” Today, after spending the last 15 years researching, studying and developing customer experience design strategies for the hospitality and tourism industries, he has become an industry pioneer and the foremost authority on the subject of Hospitality Intelligence. Brett’s company engages with some of the top hotel brands and hospitality groups both nationally and internationally in the industry.
