Roll-your-sleeves-up training, the necessity of continuous coaching, and the art of celebrating originality and authenticity. Here’s what I learned after 15 years of training hospitality staff.
by HOLLY ZOBA
When I was a relatively young manager, I stumbled upon a great idea for hiring the right front desk team for a hotel I had recently taken over. I placed an ad asking applicants to tell me which late night talk show host they preferred and why.
Let me tell you why I only hired fans of David Letterman: I wanted a front desk that was a little quirky and independent. No Jay Leno fans allowed. I ended up with exactly what I had hoped for – an unusual group of funny, extroverted charmers, and my guest satisfaction numbers skyrocketed.
Not only did I hire the right people, but I gave them a lot of room to be themselves. Although, truth be told, I really enjoyed hanging out with them, so instead of going home at 5 p.m., I would usually go and spend some time at the front desk with the team. Same thing would happen when I first came to work in the morning – nothing was more fun than working shoulder to shoulder with the team during a heavy check out. The atmosphere I created in the hotel was very playful because this particular group felt empowered to let their own personalities shine through.
I was almost sure that I was brilliant at the whole leadership thing. That was up until I was asked to go into a second property and turn the existing staff around. I wasn’t able to hire all new people, but the existing team seemed workable. Maybe a little less quirky and fun, but I felt like as long as I empowered them to be themselves, all would work out fine.
Not so much. Disaster. Repeated customer complaints. Yelling customers. Yelling employees. There were many unpleasant results.
Initially I assumed the problem was that I didn’t have the right people. The empowerment and freedom worked so well at the first property because I had hired a team of really charming and funny people. But after a few other failed attempts, I realized that I could work with the group of people at the second property, they just took a lot more effort than simply turning them loose. In truth, I did have to make a few personnel changes, but I kept most of the staff intact and changed my management style a bit.
Steps to create a powerful guest experience
Ultimately, I enjoyed some successes at the second hotel, but it wasn’t until about 15 years later, working for a training organization, making the same mistakes a second time, that I was finally able to figure out the steps needed to create a powerful guest experience. This is what I learned.
STEP ONE: Figure out a way to communicate your vision. At the first hotel, everyone knew I required a quirky sense of humor because they were only hired if they enjoyed David Letterman. It was a really easy way for me to communicate my vision. At my second hotel, they had no idea what was important to me until I figured out how to communicate to the team that not offending guests while still engaging them was not only possible, but a very worthwhile goal. I accomplished this through training and a lot of role-play sessions. I put together guidelines, let them know the boundaries and then practiced interactions with them.
STEP TWO: Lead by example. It wasn’t good enough for me to tell them I wanted them to engage with our guests; I had to actually do it myself, which honestly was more of a challenge at this second hotel than the first. At the first property, I had hired a crew of people who shared similar interests, so I better connected with my team. It was really easy for me to spend time at the desk because it was fun.
At property number two, it took a little more effort, but eventually I was able to find some commonalities with the staff. My team was able to see that I meant what I said. It was important to me to engage with our guests far beyond getting their credit card and depositing them in the correct room. They saw the effort I put into getting to know both the staff and the guests, and it mattered to them.
STEP THREE: Coach continuously. This was really hard for me. I had to step back and let the team interact. There were so many times I wanted to jump in and take over but in time, I learned to be patient.
Once the guest left, I would have a one-minute coaching session with the team member. I would discuss, “this is what I saw, this is what you did and this was the outcome.” And then either, “way to go!” Or maybe a slightly different conversation along the lines of, “if you had taken this approach it might have gone better, what do you think?” Years later, I learned it was the SARs method – Situation, Action, Result, Alternative Result – but at the time I was just being helpful.
STEP FOUR: Celebrate originality and authenticity. This was also a challenge. In my heart, I probably wanted them to handle every situation the way that I would handle it. But in reality, often my team had a better approach because it fit their personality. My job was to reassure them that inserting their own style was the right way to go.
Good logic = good judgment
I had one rule: I would support whatever judgment calls they had to make, as long as they could explain the logic behind it. One time, I had an agent take a cab to the airport to deliver a forgotten item to a guest flying out. It cost the hotel about $100, and the guest room wasn’t really a whole lot more than that. The team member told me they made the decision because the guest was in town interviewing for a job at one of our top accounts and he was optimistic he was going to get it. It seemed a good investment to wow this customer because soon he would be in a position to refer a lot of business to us. We celebrated that decision because once I heard the logic, it was a very good decision.
Credibility and competency: Are guests making the right decision?
Amy Cuddy, famed TED Talk presenter, recently released research that explains a lot of the successes I enjoyed with these teams, and also what we learned to be a successful training method inside of my organization today. When people are making judgments about you, first they instinctively determine whether they can trust you. Are you credible? And then they determine if you are competent. Trust comes first. Ability second.
A long time ago, maybe 15 years, my company enjoyed success by teaching reservations agents to let customers know they had coffee makers in their rooms, along with ironing boards, free breakfast and an airport shuttle. By letting customers know those simple facts, it often increased the likelihood of that guest making the reservation. Some thought it was a bit scripted, but bottom line, it was effective because every other hotel they called just quoted them a rate and hung up. The hotels we trained at least told them a little bit about why they were better.
Today, sharing that your hotel has a coffee maker probably isn’t going to convert a lot of callers. The caller has researched you online and they know every single amenity you have to offer, as well as the amenities of your competitors. If they have bothered to pick up the phone and call your hotel, it is for one reason only: they want some assurance that they are making the right decision. They are calling the hotel because they want to trust you; it is up to your team to either make them feel better or cause them some alarm. Within the first 30 seconds of that conversation, your team needs to connect with that caller and put their mind at ease that they are choosing wisely.
Today, sharing that your hotel has a coffee maker probably isn’t going to convert a lot of callers. The caller has researched you online and they know every single amenity you have to offer, as well as the amenities of your competitors. If they have bothered to pick up the phone and call your hotel, it is for one reason only: they want some assurance that they are making the right decision. They are calling the hotel because they want to trust you; it is up to your team to either make them feel better or cause them some alarm. Within the first 30 seconds of that conversation, your team needs to connect with that caller and put their mind at ease that they are choosing wisely.
Authenticity in building relationships
While we can give agents the words they can use, “you called the right place” or “we would be happy to help you,” it’s up to the agent to convey that trustworthiness and assurance the caller is really looking for. And that is only going to happen if that team member is trained and focused on delivering an exceptional and authentic customer experience. They need to know their product, their booking system and most importantly, they need to know that it is important to the leadership of the property that they can successfully build a relationship with the caller.
As we work with our clients today, we still focus on helping team members apply exceptional customer service skills – because unfortunately, not everyone’s parents taught their kids to make eye contact and smile. But we also have to train managers to communicate their passion and vision, lead by example, coach continuously and celebrate originality.
It isn’t enough to let the team learn some skills and interpret them on their own; leaders need to create an environment where team members have a clear understanding of the importance of customer engagement, how they can best use their personality to develop that trust from the customer and, ultimately, feel great about the interactions they have. This doesn’t happen by accident – but by training, reinforcement and strategic implementation. Unless you happen to hire staff who all love David Letterman! ■
Holly Zoba is senior vice president of sales for Signature Worldwide. With more than 20 years of sales, marketing and training management experience in the hospitality industry, she is a contributing author to trade publications on topics around customer service, sales strategy and social media, as well as a recent recipient of HSMAI Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales & Marketing.
