Hilton Passes Marriott in Customer Satisfaction, Hyatt Plunges

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asciLogoIn the newest results (First Quarter 2009, released May 19, 2009), The American Customer Satisfaction Index is reporting that Hilton Hotels has passed Marriott Hotels in customer satisfaction.  The ACSI ranks different types of businesses each quarter in customer satisfaction.  This quarter they ranked hotels, airlines, cable television, fast food, and utility companies.  The hotel scores come out once per year.  You can read the full report on their website.

Hilton scored a 79 (a 1 percent increase) while Marriott scored a 77 (a 1 percent decrease).  Hyatt’s scores have plunged 5 percent since last year and now two budget brands (Choice Hotels and Best Western) actually scored higher.  Wyndham scored the worst of any hotel.  Here are the 2009 rankings from best to worst:

  1. Hilton
  2. Marriott
  3. Choice Hotels
  4. Best Western
  5. InterContinental
  6. Hyatt
  7. Starwood
  8. Wyndham

Overall, despite the rough times that hotels have faced in the last year, the average score in the industry remains unchanged.  However, that is mainly due to guest’s satisfaction with the budget hotels.  Both Choice Hotels and Best Western had a 7 percent increase since last year.

Our take:  Guest are certainly demanding more and it shows.  While it is great to see that overall satisfaction is unchanged, it is tough to see that the budget brands are passing the luxury hotels.  Once luxury brands lose guests to budget brands, it is very difficult to get them back.  What do you think?  Is your hotel losing guests to another brand?  Post your comments below!

Hotel Crime Rises In Recession according to USA Today

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In an article that may soon appear in the newspaper you deliver to your guests, the USA Today is reporting that Hotel Crime Rises In Recession. The article can be found on USA Today’s website.  The article says that tough times cause people to do desperate things.  The article also blames hotels for reducing security staff during the recession or having them do other things such as deliver room service or help with housekeeping requests.  The article provides some good recommendations to improve security such as:

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  1. Require all employees to politely confront non-guests in hallways and ask them if they need assistance.
  2. Keep room number private (the article mentions breakfast servers asking for guest’s room numbers).
  3. Limiting access to guest floors to only guests.

In addition, we recommend:

  1. Have a consistent policy on how GSAs handle lost or non-working guest room keys.
  2. Inspect all guest room doors to make sure they automatically close and lock from a 45-degree angle.
  3. Do a complete background check on every employee before you hire them.  Conduct safety and security training before new employee’s first day on the job.
  4. Do a quarterly security training at your all-employee meeting.  Be sure to include employees from areas that you outsource such as parking and security.
  5. Make sure guest areas such as guest room elevators and floors, swimming pools, and fitness centers can only be accessed by guest room keys.

Ask TrueGuest: Bartender Selling Techniques

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Dear TrueGuest,

I am a food and beverage manager at a hotel with two bars.  Can you tell me some ways that we can increase our revenues?  We are obviously a little bit slower lately, but is there anything that we can do to help?

The selling area of a bartender’s service is always overlooked. These selling standards are extremely important to generating higher revenues. Bartenders can come across as uncaring and unfriendly if they just approach and ask guests, “What can I get for you?” They also will not sell much more than the minimum guest order. Most hotel bars are not like bars or nightclubs that stand alone. People usually expect more from a hotel bar. The service of a bartender should be similar to that provided by servers to a table of guests that are eating. There are many selling standards that should be in place for each time a guest arrives at the bar. This includes practices such as offering your drink menu to guests whether they know what they want or not, providing a food menu, suggesting any specialty drinks, offering more beverages, and offering bar snacks. Each of these practices has its own effect and benefit on your bartender’s guest service as well as revenues. Here is a breakdown.

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‘Hotel is Closing’ News Article Still Haunts Hotel

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We know that times are tough for most hotels right now.  But be glad you don’t have the problem that the Sportsman’s Lodge in Studio City, CA has.  Last July, the Los Angeles Daily News ran an article in their business section announcing that the hotel will be closing.  The hotel was a bit of a legend for many locals.  It seems that everyone in the area has a story to tell about the Sportsman.  The problem, the hotel never intended to close.  There was a miscommunication between the hotel owner and the Daily News reporter.  Of course, they printed a correction the next day but the damage was already done.  Word spread quickly.  Past guests posted their stories of their great experiences at the hotel and said how much they would miss it on the Daily News website.

Even today, many months later, there is a big banner on the front of the hotel that says ‘hotel is still open’.  So as tough as things are for you right now, be grateful that people know your hotel is open!

Cutting Payroll in Your Hotel Restaurants – Busser Edition

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If you are like many hotels, you are looking for ways to reduce your costs in your restaurants to compensate for the lower revenues.  In this first cutting payroll edition, we are going to discuss how to cut the busser (bussperson, busboy) position.  Many restaurant chains across the country have now eliminated the busser position.  Take a look at this article describing how chains such as T.G.I. Friday’s have eliminated the position.

First, a brief overview of how we see the bussperson position. Bussers are the key to a restaurant’s cleanliness.  They are relatively inexpensive to have on the floor during busy times.  However, they can really hamper good guest service.  Restaurants tend to use bussers to help the servers serve guests by doing things such as offering beverages and pre-bussing.  The problem is that guests cannot tell the difference between a server and a busser.  It does not matter if their uniforms are different.  When an employee approaches a guest’s table and offers a beverage, the guest expects that person is going to serve them.  Unfortunately, they do not always speak English and are not trained to properly serve the guest.  Many guest’s questions are answered with a blank stare or with, “I’ll get the server”.  Servers should serve.  They should be the first to greet the guest when they are seated.  They should take the drink orders and deliver them.  They should pre-buss and should deliver the checks.  A busser should never go to a guest’s table while there is a guest present.  If a busser is doing any of these tasks out of necessity, your server probably is unable to handle the number of tables he/she has been assigned.  You should reduce his/her table count until his/her service improves.

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Owner of Marriott Downtown Los Angeles Files for Bankruptcy

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Just a sign of the tough times the hotel business is facing.  The LA Times is reporting that the owner of the Downtown L.A. Marriott has filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to keep the hotel open for business.

The hotel has been owned by Ezri Namvar since 2007.

The hotel is located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles’ financial district and is very close the LA Live.

It is a great hotel and we wish them luck.

Three Hotel Brands Named Customer Service Champs by BusinessWeek

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businessweekFour Seasons Hotels & Resorts (12th place), Ritz-Carlton (5th), and JW Marriott (25th) all made the top 25 of BusinessWeek’s annual best companies for customer service.  All three hotel brands received an ‘A’ on both Quality of Staff and Efficiency of Service.  All three also scored about 50 percent on Definitely Would Recommend Brand.  JW Marriott did the best on Will Definitely Repurchase by scoring 48 percent, a tremendous score for a hotel.

Other travel companies that made the list were Jetblue Airlines (19) and Enterprise Rent-A-Car (16).

To view the full list on BusinessWeek’s website, click here.

The Benefits of Mystery Shopping

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Many managers usually ask us, “Why do we need mystery shopping?” or “How will mystery shopping benefit our hotel?”We are here today to answer these questions for you and more. Let’s start with the most basic, but very important question of, “What is Mystery Shopping?”To TrueGuest, mystery shopping is a training and observation tool for managers. With shoppers acting as normal customers writing detailed reports about the service they experienced, managers are able to get a rare glimpse of the service from a guest’s perspective. Mystery shopping provides a great look at the service a hotel provides that you, as a manager cannot personally see. By using these reports, a service improvement training program can be implemented with the proper accountability. How often do you train and train on service standards only to get poor “official” scores on guest service? How do you know where to begin to find out what went wrong? Mystery shopping reports provide that accountability tool for managers. They can find out exactly what is or is not happening that creates poor service.

There are many hotels that tell us, “We are doing well in our guest service scores, so we do not need any mystery shopping!”To those hotels, we say, “Congratulations!”But think of it this way; who fills out those comment cards that you regularly base your success on? The guests that take the time to fill out the comment cards are almost always either the guests that had a wonderful visit or the guests that had a completely terrible visit. This probably accounts for only 1% of your total guests. What you are essentially saying is that you do not care about how any of the guests in between feel; a good 99% of them. You are risking the loyalty of the guests that you provided below-average service to, who did not feel like filling out your comment cards. How would your corporate office respond to that? Comment cards are like a crapshoot; you hope that you get “good” guests this month and that they give favorable scores. Why not turn that crapshoot into a sure thing? Mystery shopping provides an unbiased, objective look at your service at any given time. Managers are then able to focus on keeping service consistently high by pinpointing and correcting any service deficiencies instead of waiting for a guest to comment on them. Unfortunately, they probably will have chosen another hotel by then.

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A Hotel Housekeeper Confesses

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Budget Travel ran a great article in their February issue as part of their confessions series.  Read the full article here. The article is written by a hotel room attendant who clearly does not enjoy her job and took every shortcut possible from skipping the vacuuming to placing a do not disturb sign on a door or two.

We believe that hotel cleanliness has greatly improved over the last decade or so.  Remember the old days of room attendants washing the drinking glasses in the bathroom sink and having comforters that were cleaned once a year?  Whoever invented the triple-sheeted bed deserves an award.  We also love new hotels that skip the bathtubs and just install showers.  I could not imagine taking a bath in a hotel room and doubt many guests ever do.

When you click over to the magazine article, be sure to read the comments at the bottom.  There is some great stuff there!

Ask TrueGuest: PBX Basics

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Dear TrueGuest,

I was recently promoted to PBX Manager at a 4 diamond hotel.  Our service scores in PBX have been awful.  Can you help?

Thanks,

April

 

We can help.  Good phone skills are a lost art.  If you are experiencing poor scores when it comes to handling phone calls, focus on the basics.  The secret to PBX is consistency.  Here are some basic tips:

1.  Make it your goal to have every single phone call answered within 3 rings.  Test to make sure that it is happening.  Call the hotel during different times of the day and score each shift.  Don’t forget night audit.  We often call night audit and don’t get an answer even after 20 rings.

2.  Place a small mirror by every phone in the PBX office and teach every operator to answer every call with a smile in their voice.  If they have a smile in their voice, they also have a smile on their face…  hence the mirror.

Basics on answering external calls

All calls should be answered by using a greeting (good morning, good afternoon, good evening), announcing the name of the hotel, and announcing the name of the person answering the call, and an offer to help.  Example:  Good morning, thank you for calling the World’s Best Hotel, this is April, How may I help you?

The secret here is consistency.  The phone should be answered the same by every operator on every shift.

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