4 Procedural Ways to Achieve Loyal Guests through First
Impressions
When you consider the cost of advertising, sales and
marketing, and time, it costs five to eight times more than retaining your
existing guests. It’s well known that hotels and restaurants don’t merely need
satisfied guests, they need LOYAL guests. Loyal customers will not only eat or stay at
our business every time they’re in town, but they will also recommend it to all
of their friends and family. But, many of
us don’t know how to create these types of guests. Here are four ways to
increase your loyal patrons:
1.
Recognize your guest – The most pleasing phrase
in any language is one’s name. A colleague brought me out to dinner a few
months ago to this hole in the wall Italian restaurant called Bocci, in
Charleston, SC. When we walked in, my colleague was greeted by name from every
single staff member. I was amazed, and slightly jealous. After our main course,
I had to ask why he came here so often. He said, “Simple. Because they remember
me, they call me by my name”.
Remembering your guests name is
not an easy task, especially when you see hundreds of people each day. There
are some tricks to remembering names. You can look at a reservation, credit
card, or maybe even a rewards number before the guest checks in. Some of your
employees will not have access to reservations or credit cards, such as your
housekeepers, and it’s impractical to expect them to remember and recognize all
the guests in your hotel. However, a warm smile and a genuine hello will go a
long way to recognizing your guest.
2.
Fulfill your guest’s expectations – just like
when you’re flying with an airline, you expect a safe and secure environment.
In this case, you want to get those feelings from going to location A to
location B safely. When you take off in a plane, a flight attendant goes
through the mundane safety procedures, and they always encourage you to look in
the seat pocket ahead of you to review these documents. Do you ever really look
at them? If you’re like most, no way! Guests are not going to read your S.O.P.s
and manuals, so they are not going to understand your policies and procedures.
Guests don’t want to spend their vacation time reading rules and regulations.
They just want their needs to be met in a painless manner.
I experienced a violation of
this principle when I was traveling through Florida. I walked through a side
door on my way to the front desk. A housekeeper was finishing up a suite as I
walked past. I thought to myself, “awesome! I can upgrade and get a little more
space to spread out and finish my presentation.” A little extra chipper, I
walked to the front desk and began the check in process. The front desk agent
(FDA) was very polite and courteous…until I asked if I could upgrade. She said I
couldn’t because there wasn’t any available. Generally, I would say no big deal,
but I asked if someone was occupying or going to occupy the suite that I had
just walked past. She explained that it was unoccupied but she couldn’t upgrade
to that room. For about five minutes we went back and forth until I realized
the reason she couldn’t upgrade me wasn’t
because I couldn’t be in that room, but because she didn’t know how to open the
room and switch me over in the system. There wasn’t a manual she could refer to
and her supervisor didn’t get her the empowerment to tackle any issues. She
probably would have called him, but it was nearly eleven at night and she was
most likely afraid of the repercussions of calling him that late.
3.
It’s all about the customer’s perception – this
has been driven into my mind by a previous employer and rightfully so. To a
guest, perception is reality. As a manager, owner, or employee it doesn’t
matter how you see things or what your intentions are. The only thing that
matters is what guests or potential guests see and that might not always the same as what you see. If your
guests see you as more expensive, you are. If your guest thinks your midscale
and you think you’re upscale, guess what? You’re midscale. If you think you
have courteous and knowledgeable staff members and your guests think you have
morons, you have morons. When you see
yourself as, let’s say, upscale and your marketing to upscale clients. Guess
what’s going to happen when they stay at your hotel? They will be extremely
disappointed and the next thing you know you’re being slandered all over the
internet, your bottom-line plummets, and if you don’t take care of it, you’ll
be out of business. Take off your blinders, step over your ego, and look
through the eyes of your guests.
4.
Create unforgettable memories your guests can
brag about – now, more than ever, people are adding experiences to their bucket
list versus the tangibles, such as huge houses and fancy cars. Furthermore,
your guests want to recreate their memorable experiences. People travel the
world, skydive, eat at famous chef’s restaurants, and pick certain hotels for
the experience they provide. If your guests feel good about their experience at
your hotel, you can bet they will be back. If the occasion was memorable enough,
they will tell their close friends and family members too. As we all know, word
of mouth advertising is the best that money CANNOT buy!
Chris Langlois
chris@extremeEDvantage.com
