Author Archives: TrueGuest

About TrueGuest

Headquartered in Los Angeles, TrueGuest was created by former hotel executives to serve the hospitality industry by measuring and improving guest service and internal controls. Our Service Experience Audits are used by top brands such as Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis, Marriott, Renaissance, Hilton, Hyatt, W Hotels, Intercontinental, Sheraton, Radisson, Holiday Inn, Wyndham, and many more.

Jacob Tomsky Spills Our Dirty Secrets with ‘Confessions of a Hotel Insider’

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A great post today on tech site Lifehacker from author Jacob Tomsky.  Jacob Tomsky recently wrote the book ‘Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality.  In his clever blog post on LifeHacker, he mentions a few tips for guests such as things a guest should never say, never do, and things that every guest must know.  A few highlights:

heads in bedsNever say: “My credit card declined? That’s impossible. Run it again.”
Man, don’t make me run it again. If your CC declines once, it will, without question, decline again. Your card is not a crumpled old dollar, and the banking system is not a stubborn vending machine. That’s not how the banking system works. You need to call your bank. And, no, you can’t use my phone.

Never do: Do not continue your phone conversation during the entire check-in.
Can you imagine how it feels, as a human, to be part of someone else’s effort to multitask? While you say to the phone, “Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, well, I told her they wouldn’t go for it. I know these people,” I get the lift of an eyebrow, side glances, brief and uninterested head nods thrown in my direction indicating your main focus remains on your call, perhaps a moment where you hold the phone slightly away from your ear to benevolently allow me 5 percent of your attention. That call will end in five minutes. But because you treated me like an automatic check-in machine, this room I’m giving you will plague your whole stay.

Things every guest must know:  Basically, never pay for the minibar, in room movies, or for cancelling a room past the cut off. 

Overall, pretty clever and right on the mark.  We’ve canceled many rooms using his method and hate hearing guests’ tragic airline stories as well.  Snarky, sure… but funny.

Link:  Article on LifeHacker

CNBC’s “Hotel: Behind Closed Doors at Marriott” is much watch TV for Hoteliers

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cnbcSet your DVRs, CNBC has recently started airing their new special on Marriott.

The special focuses on the recent growth of Marriott, as well as the struggles.  It includes an interview with former CEO Bill Marriott before wrapping up with a great segment on the 5 Diamond Service provided by Ritz-Carlton.

We will let you know as soon as CNBC posts the full episode online.

Check out this preview here:

Also, check out this preview about the Ritz-Carlton segment of the show.

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‘Unexpected Strength’ Marks 2012 Performance according to HotelNewsNow.com

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Another great article from HotelNewsNow.com as part of their 2012 Year in Review.  From the article:

In a year marked by fiscal and political uncertainties, with black swans threatening to land throughout the world, the U.S. hotel industry quietly continued to churn along with strong performance.

Persisting negative headlines seem to corroborate those instincts, but Smith said that simply hasn’t been the case.

“Unexpected strength has kind of been the theme lately,” he said.

HotelNewsNow.com says that several prominent themes emerged during 2012 including:

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5 Steps to Make Your Omelet Station The Most Memorable Part of a Guest Stay

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Let’s face it, hotel breakfast buffets are often the best part of staying at a hotel for many guests.  In fact, lots of research has suggested that the service during breakfast is often the key to a successful overall hotel satisfaction survey score.  Today, we are going to focus on improving buffet service by re-training your Omelet Chef.

Decades ago, someone came up with the idea to add a Chef to the buffet so guests could get eggs and omelets prepared to their liking.  Eggs and omelet creations are typically low-cost, very filling, and loved by guests.  Unfortunately, over time, the Omelet Chefs began being replaced by employees who spoke very little English and did little more than just stand there and wait for you to point at the ingredients you would like in your omelet.  For some reason, we all started hiring people who rarely smiled, said very little, and always seemed very bothered to have to make an omelet for a guest.  Nothing makes that 3-minute wait for your omelet more uncomfortable than knowing the person cooking the omelet does not want to be there.  Also, good luck if you need someone other than an omelet.  I can’t tell you how many my request to have a buffet item refilled was just met with a shrug.

Omelet Chefs are in a key position when it comes to guest interaction and they should be held accountable to the same service standards as a Guest Service Agent.  At a minimum, a good Omelet Chef does the following: Continue reading →

Ask TrueGuest: How to Test Your Bartender’s Free Pouring Count

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Free pouring is our 3rd favorite (ok, least favorite) method for pouring alcohol.  However, we understand that many bars want free pouring in place for ascetic purposes.  A highly skilled bartender can still achieve accurate pours using a free pouring method, just be sure that you are consistently testing your bartender’s pouring count.

In order to test your bartender’s counts, you will need a testing kit.  A couple of the popular brands are the Exacto Pour and the ProCheck.

Check out this video for a demonstration of how the kit works:

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Just like everything else these days, there is an app for that!  Check out the Virtual Pour smartphone app from the World Flair Association:

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Remember, whether you are using a measured pour or a free pour, the key is consistency.  Over-pouring not only leads to high beverage costs but also increased liability.

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Weekly Hotel Occupancy Rate Above 75 Percent for the First Time Since 2007

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Time for a quick check with one of our favorite blogs on economics, Calculated Risk.  For the first time since 2007, weekly hotel occupancy topped 75 percent!  It is amazing to follow the CR chart, which shows the median of 2000 to 2007 and compares it with 2009 (the worst year since the great depression) and 2011 and 2012.  From Calculated Risk:

This could be the peak weekly occupancy rate for 2012 (the 4-week average will move up some more). Overall occupancy is back to normal, and will probably move higher over the next couple of years since there is limited new supply being built. 

Now, if we could only work on getting those average daily rates back!

Source:  Calculated Risk

Hotel Guest Satisfaction Posts a Huge Decline in JD Power 2012 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Survey

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Overall guest satisfaction has declined to 757 (out of 1000) in the most recent JD Power Hotel Guest Satisfaction rankings, a drop of 7 points since last year.  A decline is to be somewhat expected as hotels continue to post higher and higher average room rates.  However, the JW Power survey really shows some key areas of struggle.  From the press release:

“However, guest satisfaction with the underlying experience has deteriorated much more than this score suggests, as relatively high levels of satisfaction with cost and fees mask declines in other areas of the guest experience. Satisfaction with check-in/check-out; food and beverage; hotel services; and hotel facilities are at new lows since the 2006 study and satisfaction with guest room has declined within one point of its lowest level in the past seven years.”

The problems are much more than high rates and poor internet.  Surprisingly, only 56 percent of hotel guests have a high opinion of the staff.  From the press release:

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Are You Losing Too Much Time to Meetings, Instead of Serving Guests?

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If there is one thing hotels love, it is a good meeting.  Hotels have a meeting for everything, a daily brief, a forecast meeting, an executive committee meeting, a meeting to plan meetings!  The problem with meetings in the hotel world is that hotels do not stop for meetings.  Every minute you take a manager off of the floor is a minute that he or she cannot spend interacting with guests.  The Wall Street Journal had a great solution that has been making the rounds in the last few months, The Stand-Up Meeting.  From reporter Rachel Emma Silverman:

“Stand-up meetings are part of a fast-moving tech culture in which sitting has become synonymous with sloth. The object is to eliminate long-winded confabs where participants pontificate, play Angry Birds on their cellphones or tune out.”

“Holding meetings before lunch also speeds things up. Mark Tonkelowitz, an engineering manager for Facebook Inc.’s News Feed feature, holds 15-minute stand-ups at noon, sharp. The proximity to lunch serves “as motivation to keep updates short,” he says”

The tech world has really taken to these stand-up meetings in order to increase productivity.  Hoteliers should surely take note.  We have all been in long, drawn-out meetings where two departments are trying to figure out the logistics of an upcoming event while 9 other managers in the room are tuning out because it does not involve them at all.  Take away the food and the chairs, people will truly get down to business.  Then we can all get back to taking care of the guest!

Source:  Wall Street Journal Article

Ask TrueGuest: The Importance of Watching Every Ounce of Liquor in Your Hotel Bar

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Dear TrueGuest,

I just finished your online guide to ‘Getting Your Beverage Cost Under Budget‘ and I am working on getting all of the internal controls in place.  However, I really feel like I am now spending all of my time chasing pennies and trying to control every single drop of liquor we use.  Should I really care how much alcohol is wasted?  A little bit of extra vodka here and there shouldn’t make a big difference, right? – Javier

Javier, thank you for such a great question!  We often hear this exact question when we are teaching our liquor control class in person or giving a lecture on liquor controls at an HFTP meeting.  You are absolutely right, even an ounce of a really good vodka only costs about 50 cents.  Why worry so much?  Surely, that can’t impact the bottom line that much, right?  Wrong!

First, we have to start looking at the potential of that ounce of vodka, not the cost.  In many cities such as Los Angeles and New York City, an ounce of premium vodka at a high-end bar can easily sell for $15.  So, for every extra ounce of vodka your bartender over-pours, you could be out $15 in potential revenue.  Most guests have a pretty small limit of how much alcohol they can consume in one night.  Let’s pretend a customer orders a vodka cranberry but your bartender pours 2 ounces of vodka instead of 1 ounce.  That customer has now had twice as much as she expected to drink and may not come back for a second one.  If that customer typically likes to drink two drinks, your hotel will be out $15 in revenue and $14.50 in profit.  Over-pouring is definitely a profit killer in hotel bars.  If you have just 50 customers a night and just 10 of them have one less drink because of the over-pour, you could be out over $140 in profit.  If you serve a few hundred guests, you can easily see how quickly the numbers add up.

I hope that helps.  Once you get your liquor controls in line, be sure to check out our post on maximizing bar revenues.