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Creating comfort and quality service is often the most significant success criteria in hospitality. While having an impressive structure and employing the best marketing strategy can play a crucial role in acquiring new markets or retaining old ones, the interaction between staff and guests — or simply, the hotel customer service — is often what determines whether they will be coming back or taking their business elsewhere.
Some of the world’s best hotels owe their success majorly to their ability to emphasize comfort and top-notch quality service at every step of the customer’s journey, from bookings to check out.
Whether that involves educating staff on client relationship techniques, implementing regular checks on customer service experience, or simply providing members of your crew with the necessary tools and skills to guarantee client satisfaction, there are plenty of ways to improve your performance. Regardless if you’re a new business seeking ways to improve your hotel’s overall service or an old one hoping to maintain your 5-star rating.
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Here are some tested and trusted tips for teaching your staff excellent customer service that will leave your guest with a positive lasting impression.
Make the Hotel Customer Service a Team Effort
To a customer, nothing is more disappointing than being told ‘Sorry, that’s not my job’ by a staff member when they need help with a problem. While this might technically be true or even said with no ill-intent by the employee, a simple problem becomes compounded when a customer now has to find solutions to their problem themself and also find a way to find help from the right staff.
Over the years, team-wide customer service has become increasingly popular among businesses to ensure they keep their portion of the market.
This practice is even more critical in industries where customers’ experience and comfort are kings.
While managers strive to ensure that their customer support teams are capable of providing the necessary help when required, it is also essential that every member of their team be ready and willing to empathize and assist customers or guests whenever they have minor hiccups during their stay.
Train Your Staff Regularly
Employee development and training are at the heart of every successful business. So, it stands to reason for managers to ensure their crew delivers the best customer service possible. Even if your staff is already providing outstanding service, there are always areas where improvement is required.
Regardless of the exact situation, providing your staff with the appropriate resources, tools, and motivation to deliver high-quality service is a sure way to wow your clients every time.
In this episode of Hotel Cast Podcast, Calvin Stovall, Chief Experience Officer of ICONIC Presentations, gives good examples of how to motivate your team through tough times. Listen now:
However, staff training might not be the walk in the park you think it is. From hiring suitable trainers to creating an engaging and creative class, managers and business owners must ensure that they get their processes right to achieve optimal results.
Training on phone etiquette and dealing with livid customers can prove highly beneficial for customer support agents and other staff members. Some cost-effective strategy on staff training includes finding relevant resources on the problem at hand and discussing the potential solutions in your next staff meeting.
A case study writer suggests you make use of role play, case studies, and shared learning to help the team become more capable at problem-solving.
Adopt Technology
Technology has become a dominant part of our community, both in how we live and how we conduct our business. Its benefits in hospitality management for streamlining operational processes and improving customer satisfaction cannot be quantified.
More hotels are now incorporating technological solutions into their services. Achievements in improving communication channels, resolving concerns, responding to customers’ needs, and generating personalized services through Apps have proven to be vital in ensuring customers are satisfied and remain so.
While proper use of various technological channels like video chatting, real-time messaging, artificial intelligence in chatbots, and personalized self-service by the customer play a key role in client satisfaction. It is often the appropriate synergy between humans and hardware that decides the level of customer satisfaction that is achieved.
Managers must be on the lookout for quirks and errors within their processes and their team to effectively weed out issues and potential problems before they get noticed by guests.
The use of WhatsApp is a big trend in hotels. The main communication channel in the world can be the best sales channel for your hotel. Learn how in this free ebook:
Keep Your Team Updated on Changes
A great way to ensure continuous customer satisfaction is to make sure every team member is aware when you make changes. An addition to your service option or change in policy must be effectively communicated to every member of the team.
You might need to utilize different training means for complex changes like videos and in-person demos.
The overall goal is to ensure everyone on the team can explain or guide guests through whatever new service or process you roll out.
Define Customer Service and Empower Your Team
A great way to guarantee comfort and quality service is to ensure every member of your crew understands what outstanding hotel customer service means. Whether or not they are new hires or veterans in the trade, explaining your customer management team’s success criteria increases their odds of delivering flawless customer service every time.
Your staff might generally know what good customer service looks like. However, they might be unaware of what great customer service means to your hotel or business. Showing some staff members with action ways on how to handle customers or responding to customers with a smile will help them to provide great comfort and excellent customer service.
However, hiring and training your staff on managing customer concerns is only half the solution. You also need to empower and provide them with ample leeway and guidelines on how to solve the numerous problems that come their way.
Providing them with the flexibility and authority to find alternative solutions to issues when they arise without requiring your approval will drastically increase your customer satisfaction success ratio.
Emphasize Empathy and Patience
Often, the biggest boon to providing excellent customer service is your staff members not addressing customer concerns with the same priority that customers show. While there could be several reasons for this, from busy schedules to just the customer support member not considering the problem a real issue, it is crucial to impress empathy and patience when delivering guests’ service.
However, this doesn’t mean saying yes to all the customer demands. It is, however, learning to employ patience and show empathy by using phrases such as ‘Let me see what I can do,’ “We currently do not have this, but I recommend you use this instead.’
Helping your crew learn and practice patience, especially those who provide face-to-face interactions with customers, will go a long way in influencing the extent of quality service you can provide.
Finally, you must understand that not all personalities are suited to customer service and that you should place the right staff in the appropriate customer service role.
Alongside these tips, it’s also essential that you continue to improve the service process and seek better ways to motivate your crew to contribute more to your business success.
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About the author: Eliza Sadler is a professional journalist with four years of extensive experience. She is fascinated with creating original quality work that meets high standards and achieves her aim. Eliza also works as a freelancer, providing dissertation help and article writing services for blogs and businesses. You can connect with her via email.
