Monscierge Blog
Experience a better way to Connect
Complaint Leaks: What are Guests Hearing from Staff?
I had an interesting service experience yesterday that led me to wonder what went into the training of the staff.
The young man I dealt with was efficient and polite, but the interaction was odd. His words were pleasant enough, and he even joked around with me a little bit, but he never once smiled. It bugged me a little, but the main thing I took away from it was that he didn’t like his job.
Why? Because he told me.
This is the third time in the last two weeks I’ve had service employees “leak” job complaints to me. Is this a coincidence or a growing trend?
The first time, I was in a store waiting for help. An employee noticed me, but asked the other girl to come assist me. She then turned back to me and said, “Sorry, she’s slow. None of us like her.” I thought it was an extreme, isolated event. I realized it wasn’t when I returned to the same store.
I thought the woman helping me had just had some kind of jaw injury, as she was speaking to me through clenched teeth. It took me a few minutes to realize that her set jaw and eye-rolling were directed at her co-worker, who was complaining about not having enough time off. It turned into a full-blown argument before I was able to escape, and my fellow shoppers and I were treated to quite the awkward experience.
The young man I dealt with yesterday (not from the same place) complained about a manager, the music playing, and how tired he was.
I’ve had more isolated experiences like this in the past, but this happening so close together made me wonder if it’s a bigger problem than it seems, and how to go about stopping it.
While I do believe that employee satisfaction has a direct tie to guest satisfaction, I cannot justify rewarding this kind of behavior with increasing perks to inflate the mood of the staff. It’s just too late at that point.
My first two examples were all different staff members at the same store, which leads me to believe there is a culture problem. Bad hiring practices, training, or employee retention methods are to blame. Perhaps new management is in order in that situation.
The other was an isolated problem (to my eyes, anyway). What would you do as the manager in that situation? Most companies already have policies in place for this kind of behavior, but how do you enforce them?
- Fire any employee caught complaining to guests. It is unacceptable.
- Listen to staff feedback in the meantime; on-the-ground employees often have great insights into operations.
- Be present as much as possible and pay attention to interactions with guests.
What suggestions would you have for these two companies?
It’s All Downhill from Bad Coffee
In my humble opinion, good coffee is an integral part of the guest experience. More than half of U.S. adults drink coffee every morning, and the majority of them say they are not themselves without it.
Most hotels have coffee pots available to guests in-room, which is fantastic for those (including myself) who would rather not face a lobby full of people before their morning coffee. I only remember one hotel stay that did not offer this amenity, but there was a very excellent selection provided right outside the elevator each morning. The better quality made up for having to leave my room to obtain it.
My point here is, at the very least, to provide decent coffee for your guests along with an easy way for them to get it. On my recent trip with my kids, I woke up each morning at least two hours before they did. My philosophy is to never wake a sleeping child (they are easier to keep an eye on that way), so I was happy to see that I would be able to brew a couple cups of coffee in the room without disturbing anyone. I was much less happy with the coffee.
Let me be clear. It wasn’t that the coffee wasn’t great, which I could have handled. It was awful. I’d put it in the top five most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted. Everything about it was bad, from the coffee itself to the powdered creamer that only enhanced the bad flavor, to the Styrofoam cup provided with it. To make matters worse, the nearest cup of real coffee was at the hotel diner – located in a different building.
In this case, it probably would have been better for the hotel to offer no coffee at all, but I think the following suggestions would go a long way to improving the guest experience.
- Be sure that coffee pots are cleaned regularly, and the water provided for them is drinking quality.
- If you’re a coffee drinker, taste the coffee yourself. Otherwise, enlist a staff member to taste the in-room coffee on a monthly basis.
- If you can provide non-powdered creamer, do so. If not, have your taster try that as well.
- Housekeeping staff should check the expiration dates on all in-room consumables.
- The old-school Styrofoam adds a weird taste to hot coffee. The newer type and the paper variety are much better if you’re looking for a disposable option.
- Lastly, if quality in-room coffee is not an option for your property, provide a coffee cart in the lobby for the morning hours with a few flavor options, along with a good selection of add-ins.
Social Media for your Brand: 5 Tips on Scheduling Tweets
Anyone even moderately engaged in social media for business has read countless articles best practices. You have probably noticed that social media experts (of either the true or the self-proclaimed variety) often disagree on these points. I keep a running list of “rules” I follow, and adjust them if needed when I come across a better idea. That being said, my two biggest rules are stay calm and be flexible.
There are a few topics about which I feel very strongly, and one is scheduling tweets. I’ve seen passionate arguments for and against scheduling, and I believe there is a case to be made for both. Following are my personal guidelines for scheduling.
- Use a scheduling app for spacing out tweets and keeping up with things you want to remember. Sometimes, you find two or three excellent articles all at once but don’t want to spam your followers with multiple tweets within seconds. Scheduling allows you to space them out so you won’t forget to publish them later. I find this most useful when I need to focus on a project and don’t want to be distracted with the constant need to find more content.
- Do not add Facebook to your scheduled posts. This could be an article on its own, but suffice it to say that what’s good for Twitter is rarely good for Facebook. This includes frequency of posts, grammar usage, and links vs. photos.
- Monitor trends throughout the day. While scheduled posts do allow me to free up my brain for other projects, I still take a break at least once per hour to check trending topics. It takes two seconds, and can make or break you on Twitter. Whether it be a trend you can jump into with class and humor, or breaking news that requires you to back off, you need to keep track of what is going on.
- Stay engaged in real-time. Not every brand can have someone dedicated to Twitter 24/7, but every mention, reply, or re-tweet is an opportunity to further your connections. In a perfect Twitter-world, brands would treat social media interactions as if the conversation was happening face-to-face. So again, even if you have scheduled tweets for the day, remember to check in often to engage with your followers.
- Shut it all down when tragedy strikes. This should be a no-brainer, but every time a disaster happens, someone makes a huge mistake in social media. Be it hijacking a hash tag for promotional purposes, bad word choices on a scheduled tweet, or simply continuing self-promotion, you run the risk of permanent damage to both your business and personal reputation.
Some people advise sending one tweet noting why you are going dark (especially important if you use Twitter for customer service), while others say it’s best to be personal and offer heartfelt sympathies. If you are closely involved in the situation, this is the time to move to crisis communications (which should already be in place) and communicate as needed to keep people safe and advised of the situation. Otherwise, I feel it best to just stop for the day. Any use of a trending word could be taken as self-promotion no matter how well intended, so move to your personal account to offer your sympathies, condolences, or encouragement. No matter which is the best choice for your brand, do not forget to turn off all scheduled tweets, and be fully aware of the situation before turning them on again.
Infusing Energy into the Guest Experience
My favorite article last week was from Hotel Management about singling out a guest on arrival. The article talks about the Hilton Memphis, which chooses one guest and singles them out for room upgrades and other goodies.
What struck my in this story was the energy created for other guests just by being indirectly involved. “It costs nothing and creates energy, and a hotel is a hotel until somebody creates energy.” (Bill Spencer, GM of the Hotel Memphis)
Why does this happen and how can you recreate this phenomenon in your own hotel?
Humans are social creatures. We generally enjoy feeling more connected to those who surround us. As a bit of an introvert myself, one of the biggest travel stresses for me is being surrounded by people I don’t know. A hotel that facilitates even a small emotional connection between its guests by creating this kind of energy will make travelers feel more comfortable with each other, and happier with their stay.
Aside from what the Hotel Memphis is doing, here are some energy-infusing from my friend Tom Costello at iGroupAdvisors:
- Create a social space. Guests who are checking in to the hotel would be handed an ‘invitation’ to meet the GM, Director of Sales & Marketing, Head Chef, or anyone else who would be considered as a high profile representative of the hotel and/or the community. The ‘meet and greet’ would last 30 minutes and anyone who attends would be eligible to enter a drawing for a prize that would be given to one winner every 30 days.
- Allow visitors to collaborate on the guest experience. If and when the hotel is discussing a change that would impact its future guests, the GM could pick a day, say 30 days in advance, check scheduled reservations for that day, select a handful of guests who are members of the hotel’s loyalty program, and invite them for a 30-minute cocktail reception to share the thought process and solicit feedback.
- Invite local crafters and artists to showcase their work at your hotel. This is a 365 day program featured at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee, WI. Here is a link to their “Artist in Residence” program. I have seen it and it’s pretty cool.
- Some hotels are adding short classes to the guest experience, complete with take-home items to remember their stay. If the hotel has a bar, select a patron each hour, bring them behind the bar, and teach them how to make the hotel’s signature drink and provide it to them on a complimentary basis for their participation.
- Any of these ideas are great AND should become a photo op or video that the hotel could leverage (with the consent of the guest) for its social media initiatives.
The Guest Journey: Check In
Today, I want to take a look at what was the make-or-break moment of my recent family trip: Check-in. I said in my post after booking that the check-in process would be the time for this hotel to shine. It was an opportunity to go beyond expectations and create loyal guests. That did not happen.
After traveling for six hours, with 12 children between our two families, we arrived ready for any distraction from being cooped up in the car. I checked in first, and while the front desk agent wasn’t as pleasant as possible, the process went smoothly and quickly. When our companions checked in, something was wrong with their reservation, and the situation devolved very quickly.
They told us the problem. Nothing else. They didn’t say how to fix it, what they could do about it, or what we could do about it. They argued with us when we suggested solutions, yet never came up with a solution of their own. After waiting in the lobby for half an hour, with kids and grandparents still waiting in the car, I had enough. I asked what they were doing to fix the problem, and they answered that one agent had gone to call a manager to find out. Meanwhile, my friend got on the phone and had it taken care of before the phone call to the manager was finished.
When she approached the desk again, two agents refused to make eye contact with her and helped every other guest in the lobby before completing our check-in. Any shred of friendliness or welcome on the part of the staff had disappeared, and no apology for the mix-up or the wait was offered.
My friend mentioned this incident on the in-room comment card on our last day. I received a call from the manager before we had left the parking lot, which I have to say, I did not expect. He was very kind and friendly, understanding of the situation, and said all of the right things. I appreciate the call and his concern, and my guess is that this guy knows hospitality well, but has missed the connection to pass it on to his staff. While I plan to make this trip a yearly event, I will not return to this property.
Guest satisfaction is a sort of sliding scale – a very happy guest is more removed from unhappy than a guest who has neutral feelings, so it takes more for them to move all the way down the scale. Due to our experiences before arrival, we were feeling pretty neutral when we walked in.
The hotel had an advantage at that moment. A simple smile and welcoming attitude would have been enough to move us all the way up to happy before the fallout, giving them ample space in which to fix the issue when it arose. Instead, my check-in, while efficient, was not accompanied by any kind of welcoming attitude. This didn’t move us on the scale, because it was a neutral experience.
At the moment the problem was encountered, any willingness on the part of the front desk staff to fix it would have gone a long way. I felt like they just wanted us to turn around and go home. My point is not to blast this property, but to point out how nuanced customer service can be. A smile, an offer of help, an ounce of concern – all small things that can make a huge impact on the guest experience. I’ll also mention that the phone call from the manager could have made a return guest out of me if the lack of concern from the rest of the staff hadn’t been so pervasive; we were neutral enough during this experience that any one positive moment would have turned the entire situation around. Unfortunately, the negative interactions continued to pile up in such quantities as to block any thought of returning.
It makes me wonder how such a huge discrepancy between the capability of the manger and the lack of it in the staff is possible. Is it bad hires, lack of training…just a bad day? What could have been an opportunity for this property to showcase what hospitality is all about, and make loyal customers out of 15 people, was a disaster instead. My suggestion would have been to allow us all to go to our rooms to settle in while they called the manager to fix the problem. What would you have your staff do in this situation?