What can make a hotel stay, a night out to dinner or even a taxicab ride more memorable? The people you interact with along the way, and how well they’ve been trained, have a lot to do with it.
A friendly smile, efficient service and taking ownership of guest-related problems are huge. “Take care of me and I will come back again and again” seems to be how most people feel. You can’t make people care, but you can teach them how to master the critical soft skills that increase guest loyalty.
From hotels to cruise lines to F&B, over the years some patterns that define successful hospitality training initiatives have come into focus. By patterns I mean identifying the threads, that when woven together, create exceptional guest experiences on land or sea.
If you’re tasked with launching a hospitality-related learning program here are a few high altitude tips that may help you get off on the right foot.
- Be objective, or higher a research company to be objective for you, but step one is identifying those key moments where guests’ functional needs and emotional wants intersect. For example – A busy hotel guest needs to be checked in fast – that’s the functional side. That same guest may have had a horrible day and they want to interact with someone who cares about their happiness – that’s the emotional side.
When these key moments have been identified take your organization’s pulse:
- Do they agree the moments of interaction you’ve established are important?
- Do they agree that improvement is necessary?
- What obstacles are standing in the way of realizing improvement?
You don’t have to spend a ton of money or time gathering this information. In fact there are lots of free or almost free survey tools you can use- surveymonkey is a good one.
But you do need feedback from all constituencies. This helps build initial buy-in which in turn makes a big difference in how enthusiastically your program is supported when it roles out.
