Guest Relations: Strategies for Safeguarding and Using Customer Satisfaction

Distilled to its essence, there are three reasons accommodation businesses need to ensure customer satisfaction:

1. To encourage repeat business

2. To ensure new business through reputation

3. To profit by providing personal satisfaction and pride for managers and employees, flowing through to #1 and #2.

Here are some thoughts on how to re-invigorate a focus on the customer and their experience of your property.

Think customers, not systems. Do you have complete regard for the needs of the customer? Sometimes systems, protocols and routines can get in the way?

A case in point is the visit of my wife and I to a Queensland island resort. We were looking forward to a week of relaxation and comfort. On arrival we were taken to our room, located at the farthest point from the resort facilities. Only the floor broke our jaws’ fall. The room was sparse, devoid of even a single lounge chair.

When I enquired about alternative rooms, we were shown two options. The first was a spacious and palatial family room that we could take for an extra $100 per week. The second was ideally situated, a room ideal for a couple with comfortable furniture, offered to us at no extra charge which we gladly took. I enquired about occupancy rates for the week and was told it was at 40%! We had an enjoyable week despite the initial reception.

I don’t have complete information on why the original room was chosen but I would suspect that a system somehow allocated the room to us. Systems are fine and often necessary to manage room bookings, particularly when there is near full occupancy. However there’s a terrific opportunity to make a difference for customers at times of low occupancy, by contemplating the needs of individual customers.

Why not ask customers what they are looking for in their stay and then let them know you have chosen this room to meet their needs? Make them feel special.

Consider employing an “outside in” approach to everything you do. George Day at Duke University explains companies that have adapted an “outside in” strategy, focus on creating and keeping customers by delivering superior value. He says they do that by standing in the customer’s shoes and viewing everything the company does through the customer’s eyes.

I can imagine many of you rolling your eyes and thinking: “as a hospitality business, customer satisfaction is at the heart of everything we do”. I’m sure that’s the original intent of most properties, however over time there can be a tendency for properties to become inward looking, as illustrated by my experience above.

Do your managers truly consider the impact on the customer of changes in what are often regarded as internal systems such as human resources, finance and OHS?

I recently spoke with caravan park managers whose property is a tourism hall of fame winner. They employ extra staff just to be around, answer guest questions and generally ensure they are enjoying their stay. How many hospitality businesses have this mindset, rather than looking to employ the minimum number of staff to manage reservations, clean the premises and so on?

Obviously cost is an important consideration however long-term active decisions to improve the business can pay for themselves and return a profit increase.

Take my brother’s example. His check-in process at Hayman Island recently was memorable because it was different – a staff member met them on arrival, took them to the room with a welcome tropical juice cocktail and proceeded to complete the paperwork in the guest room with relaxed, friendly one on one advice about the features and facilities of the room and the resort. Such a process has an additional staffing cost but my brother, along with surely many other customers, must now be advocates for Hayman Island as a destination.

An outside in strategy may include as Best puts it, drawing actionable ideas from market insights. In practice, for accommodation businesses this means constantly reviewing the effectiveness of feedback mechanisms and the information they gather. For example, does your survey go beyond room cleanliness and reception efficiency and explore the purpose of guests’ stays? This could deliver information on how you can improve the quality of information you provide guests on local attractions, a deeper understanding of why your customers use your facility and guide capital expenditure towards facilities that guests will value.

Understand that customer satisfaction is playing an increasing role in bringing business. Word of mouth about good and bad experiences, is moving from “one to few” to “one to many”, through social networking applications such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare.

Due to the impact of communicating with many people, customers are more and more using these tools to get personal recommendations. There would be rarely a day pass when I don’t see a tweet or Facebook customer such as “Where should I spend my next holiday?”, “What’s a good chick flick I should see?” or “What’s good to do in town today?” Simply, pull marketing is having an impact.

So how does your property rate with customers? Are they likely to promote your business or punish your reputation?

One way to measure this is to include a question in your feedback mechanisms. For example, “Would you be likely to recommend our hotel to your friends? If not, why not?”

Consider a comments field on your home page so that customers can make public their satisfaction. These are easily arranged through what are called “plug-ins”. Ensure that the website arrangement enables you to moderate the comments, in other words, choose which comments to post to the website.

Monitor what your customers are saying about you on the web. There are a variety of tools available on-line to keep track of customers’ comments on your property. One of the best tools is Google Alerts (www.google.com.au/alerts). Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your choice of query or topic. You can receive these alerts once a day, once a week or as it happens! Often the websites customers will use to complain such as TripAdvisor allow properties to respond. It’s important to respond promptly to criticism before other customers decide to voice their opinion.

Owner managers – check you haven’t lost the thrill without knowing it. Jaded, stale operators can result in luke warm check-ins, tired responses to enquiries and lack of attention to detail in property presentation and maintenance. Not only can this impact on customer satisfaction but also on the value of the property’s goodwill. So it’s important that owner managers regularly make an honest self-appraisal of their enthusiasm and engagement. If it’s waning, it’s time to look at solutions such as sale of the business or reinvigorating interest through new product offerings or renewed engagement with the local tourism sector.

by Darren McClelland - Enjoy Inspire Consulting P/L