Seven Easy Ways to Energize Guest Satisfaction at Your Hotel
It is no secret. Today's travelers are bombarded with lodging options. There has to be a solid reason for them to initially choose your hotel and possibly even return to your hotel for a future stay. You can reach even more potential customers if their experience is memorable and worth sharing with their family, friends and co-workers.
We are going to expose seven ways that will help you become the hotel that stands out from other lodging options in your locale and for all the right reasons.
It is time to energize your team and remind them to consistently aim for a higher level of awareness, genuine happiness and excellent service as they welcome guests to your hotel every single day. Sometimes we all need a reminder to boost our level of awareness of how we perceive a guest's impression of their hotel stay and what they are actually experiencing.
1. Examine hotel experiences. Always be gathering feedback from guests. Train your staff to be observant of guests happiness or displeasure with anything relating to your hotel property or guest service while they are staying at your hotel. Carefully examine reviews, comments and photos shared on social media sites from previous hotel guests. Evaluate what needs attention.
2. Eliminate potential risks, negative feedback and other fixable issues prior to their arrival. Use
the feedback you have been gathering to ensure you have not overlooked
something that a current guest will remember in a negative way. This
could be issues that maintenance need to fix. It may require extra
cleaning details. Your shelves may need to be fully stocked. Your
employees might need to appear friendlier and more welcoming. Take the
negative feedback you received, fix the issues and turn it into
something more positive guests will appreciate. Do whatever you can to
avoid receiving the same negative feedback again.
3. Elevate their experience above what they could possibly experience at other hotels. The phenomenal reality about this point is that you do not have to spend excessive amounts of money to achieve this. There needs to be memorable, consistent events throughout a guests stay that will distinguish you, your guest service and your hotel facilities from any other hotel in a highly favorable, indisputable way. A clean hotel, friendly, helpful staff, and adequately stocked amenities represent what travelers expect from any hotel. You will need to find ways to do each of those things at a higher standard so you are not blending into the average hotel status quo.
4. Everyone should be engaging in their overall experience. Housekeepers, janitors, CEO's, managers, and anyone else involved in any part of the hotel business is responsible for making a difference in guest satisfaction. Acknowledge them whenever you see them in your hotel. Smile. Listen without interrupting when they share about their day, their travels, or their excitement about what they experienced in your local area. You do not have to share a long conversation. A few moments of listening goes a long way. Take ownership in your service.
5. Enjoy their experience with them! Share in their excitement about your hotel property, your local area, your hotel brand. If they are excited about something, match their enthusiasm. Maybe they tried something completely new because of your hotel location. Naturally they will be excited. If you stand out in your hotel brand, they are going to brag about you. That feels great, doesn't it? Encourage them to talk. Again, find out all you can about what excites them when they stay at your hotel or hotel brand so you can build on that for even more future guests.
6. Extend their experience beyond their stay. You have multiple opportunities to do this. Take care and make sure they were not overcharged on their account. They do not want to deal with a hassle at any time during their stay or after their stay, especially as they are leaving. If they are continuing to travel after staying with you, offer to assist them with their next hotel reservation, especially if you are associated with a hotel brand. Make sure their wake-up call has been set correctly. You can easily ruin the rest of their day if they begin their morning by running late. They will remember that, especially if they are chasing a plane with their boarding pass. How about sending a personalized Thank-You note?
7. Express gratitude for them choosing your hotel and being your guest. If you appreciate their business, tell them so. Also, encourage them to share their experience. Continue to share the positive feedback on your social media platforms and with other guests.
An awesome hotel experience for a guest will echo forever and is necessary for your hotel to be successful. If you have been searching for ideas on how to improve your guest satisfaction scores, try implementing these ideas and expect good results in return.
