Today Customer Service is a dying art for Hotels and the Hospitality Industry.
If you are a Hotelie by heart, worked for a Hotel or in the Hospitality Industry you been positioned to believe that customer service is the key to success.
Customer Service has been the core of your role as a servant for the Hospitality Industry.
Providing support through all types and forms of customer interactions have been critical to helping customers with having an easy and enjoyable experience.
The whole notion of having customers to come to a Hotel for the primary purpose of customer service is outdated.
Time and real-time accessibility are what ignite customer interest today. Hotels have to start moving at the speed of the customer. And Hotels has to start taking charge of the disruption, if not the customer will take full control of it.
Social Media and technology have dramatically changed customers’ expectations today.
A Servants Confession
I have been a servant most of my working life in one fashion or another. To me, a servant is a person that is truly passionate about helping others and dedicate their lives to do so.
And I been driven by principles that focused on making it an easy and enjoyable experience for guests.
Like most service professional I had demographic data and insight from the Hotels Property Management system that gave us a good picture of;
- Who is arriving
- Who is leaving
- Who is staying
And from these aspects, we served guests based on their various needs. In some Hotels, you end up like a Jack of all trades. I work in Hotels that did not have a concierge and some that did have one.
Either way, all of us was trained to serve guest either during arrival, during the stay and at departure.
During my career, I worked in other service-related industries both in the government and private. When I stepped outside and became an entrepreneur I took time to reflect on the experience and knowledge I had gained.
Even though I worked in very different settings I discovered patterns and behaviors that were very similar.
In some settings, I served families that had either a disabled child or a child with a very specific impairment that prevented them to function as kids at their same age. And in the Hospitality settings, I served a guest with very specific needs.
But in both these settings, the customer service element played the most important role when there was a concern.
I discovered that in both scenarios’ humans behaved based on their perceptions of the information they had gathered. When their perceptions are disrupted that is when emotions come into play.
Delightful surprises would always trigger positive emotions, and I had guest send letters back both the Hotel Management and in some case to the chain itself.
But there was a negative surprise human tend to voice their opinions louder and more active.
And without exceptions, humans always anticipate some form of band-aid solution when the disruption comes in form of a negative surprise.
This is when the real job as a customer service representative started. My job was then to do my very best to make sure that the band-aid solution was a delightful surprise.
I don’t know about you, but I encourage you to take the time go to TripAdvisor and pick out 10 Hotels and read their reviews. Read both positive and negative reviews. And look at the difference in the pattern and behaviors.
It is all about perceptions! And these perceptions will influence how others make their decisions.
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And Online Travel Agencies understood this from the beginning that customers decisions were based on perceptions. They were able to build very effective perceptions around price and bundle.
These perceptions have impacted part of the important customer experience.
An experience will consist of three main components;
- Knowledge from Doing
- Seeing it
- Feeling things
Both Seeing It and Feeling things triggers important emotions. These are the primary triggers of the experience Online Travel Agencies focused on over the years. They left the Knowledge from Doing up to the Hotels.
And as Hotelie I learned that the Knowledge from Doing is the most powerful component of the customer experience.
Making Knowledge from Doing the most power Hotel Experience
No matter what your Hotel do to convince customers that #Directbooking is better than third party booking from an Online Travel Agency their perceptions is still no different.
The traveler will review your Hotel typically on a third-party website. It is important to understand that this behavior contributes to increased acquisition costs for Hotels.
As customer service representative you really have to work some magic to change perceptions that the guest has gathered from reading a lot of reviews.
Perhaps the single most important step that any Hotelie can take is to educate their Hotel Experience Ambassadors and team. Everyone involved needs to understand how and why revenue may be eroding, even at a time when business is booming.
It is all too easy for people at Hotel Management level to bury their heads in the sand and continue doing business as usual, assuming that customers still will require their service.
But if the Hotel team grasp the scale and scope of the problem, they can take those critical steps to be more discerning about new technology platforms, to make smart and strategic digital marketing decisions, and to generally be more thoughtful about their expenses.
Start implementing Hotel Experience Ambassadors at Hotels that emphasize tasks that are help guest gain Knowledge from Doing.
Hotel & Spa Tech Live is Europe’s leading event for the technology, systems, products, and services that are breaking new ground in the hotel and spa sector. The event takes place on the 25th& 26thof September 2018 at ExCeL, London. Register for your free ticket NOW here.
Research is showing that in just a few years from now the customer experience will be more important than price.
This is it my friends! Hotels can’t afford to sit on the fence and let this opportunity pass. It is an important shift that will require action.
I have been asked why I believe technology will build loyalty. And my short answer here is NO I don’t believe technology will build loyalty. I believe customer experience will create a new generation of loyal customer, and technology will help amplify this form of loyalty. This is why it is so important that Hotels start to focus on hire Hotel Experience Ambassadors with new skill sets that support both new technology and Knowledge from doing.
I have loved with all of my heart and soul serving customers, guests, and Hoteliers. As a Hotel Experience Ambassador, I gained a new passion for being a representative and messenger delivering new profound and delightful experiences.
If your Hotel wants to implement new effective success factors then now is the time to be part of a new initiative.
When your Hotel serves your community they will reward you back with serving you.
From a Hotel and Social Media Consultant’s standpoint, the Social Media Community can offer Hotels a one-stop-shop for managing their Social Media marketing such as the community infrastructure, database, listening functionality, profile management, collaboration, content marketing and management, and of course, the analytics.
A Social Media Community will help your Hotel to grow smarter and faster when you focus on the value proposition and collaborate in effective ways.
If your Hotel need help to put it all together then make sure to the let us know.
Today’s Social Media Management tools provide advanced options that will help Hotels with these tasks. If you need a quality team the help your Hotel pulls this off, then get in touch with my partners at Founders Media.
With the right team behind your Social Media efforts, it can become cost-effective and generate a new revenue stream for your Hotel.
Social Media Mastery for Hotels
Social Media Marketing Mastery for Hotels is NOW Open! Click Here if you are ready to take your Hotel to a new level!
To get your Hotel started here are a few FREE gifts and resources from me and my partners Founders Media.
1. FREE access to my Hospitality Gone Social Vault (Click Here to Unlock)
2. FREE ebook from Founders Media (Click Here to Unlock)
3. FREE 21 Days To Social Media Mastery for Hotels email course (Click Here to Unlock)
4. FREE access to #HotelPodcast — A Podcast about Social Media Mastery for Hotel (Click Here to Unlock)
5. FREE access to our Facebook Group — Hospitality Gone Social (Click Here to Unlock)
Are Morch is the founder and owner of Are Morch — Hotel Blogger and Social Media Consultant. Get more from Are on Facebook | Twitter | Google Plus | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Instagram
Originally published at aremorch.com on August 22, 2018.
