Happy guests spend more money. It really is that simple… or is it? Think for a moment and consider whether you have intentionally created an environment for guests to be happy, to think less, and to sit back and enjoy. In an effort to best serve my clients, I am constantly listening, reading, and learning, wanting to understand other industries and their methodologies, and often ask myself: can we apply these principles to hospitality?
I’d like to share a book with you that has inspired me and is truly a favorite: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. I read his book several years ago but as you can see from the photo, I refer to it often. It has been annotated, sticky-noted and thumbed through. I have preached the value of its message to my friends and neighbors and even dropped a copy in the mail to my clients. Author of Better and Complications, Dr. Gawande is a MacArthur Fellow, a general and endocrine surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. He also leads the World Health Organization’s Safe Surgery Saves Lives program.
So, how does this well-regarded and esteemed surgeon’s approach to the medical profession relate to hospitality? We are not surgeons, but we are care givers. We aren’t curing cancer, but we can provide comfort and demonstrate concern for a person’s wellbeing. We don’t prescribe medicine but sometimes we do know just what is needed, at just the right time, whether it be a lens cloth by the iPad at turndown, or a bottle of water as you enter the lobby from a morning jog. We strive to create an environment that allows guests do what they’ve come there to do, whether it be to relax, chair a board meeting, meet with investors, or simply connect with colleagues. But this cannot happen without careful planning and foresight.
In the book, Dr. Gawande talks about the outstanding achievements we’ve made in this century, with technology and incredibly hardworking people who can solve the complex problems that have troubled our society for years. I’m paraphrasing here, but I would also add that with this incredible know-how, skills, and technology, we also have a distraction, which is, well, technology. The constant notifications and interruptions from our devices have led to the shortening of our collective attention span. I don’t know about you, but I find this to be an overwhelming challenge faced day in and day out. We experience it with our kids, our colleagues, and our friends. The question is, then, how do we keep ourselves and our teams focused and on task towards continuing to deliver on our guests’ demanding expectations when the staff member’s phone is constantly vibrating? We need a strategy. And as Dr. Gawande so simply states: “It is a checklist.” And for those of us in the hotel industry, that translates to service standards.
A set of service standards allows us to be planful, and to consciously think through every eventuality and provide an intentional service experience. When a guest arrives at 8am yet we clearly state that check in isn’t until after 3pm. When a guest needs a humidifier in the room because they are asthmatic. When a guest needs only gluten free snacks in their minibar. These types of requests do not need to be met with a blank stare. They can be deftly handled, with warmth and graciousness if we’ve been thoughtful, careful, and anticipatory.
Standards do not have to be complicated, and they do not even have to be overly creative. They do need to house the necessary components of each critical interaction so that staff can know for certain that they have accomplished the tasks associated with, for example, a check-in. Standards provide protection against missteps. As Dr. Gawande writes, they not only “…offer the possibility of verification, but also instill a kind of discipline of higher performance.” When you see a low guest satisfaction report, or a quality assessment from any number of organizations (including my own) does your heart sink? Do you point fingers? Or do you simply dig in and figure out what went wrong? Standards, and the checklists within each of them, provide a built in, simple formula for corrective action, to create a dialogue among teams, and to find out what, when, and where something fell through the cracks. We are human; things do happen and sometimes don’t go according to plan. But if our system, our infrastructure, is intentionally planned out, then we can follow our own breadcrumbs and determine what went awry. We can communicate with one another, take responsibility, acknowledge the gap, create a plan to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and move on.
When we can instill this kind of discipline, we have a culture of accountability. Accountability inspires trust and breeds economic and personal success.
We are at an interesting time in our industry. Things are moving fast. We are short-staffed, yet occupancy and rate in luxury are quite strong. Travel is high on everyone’s list as the pandemic slowly recedes. But unless we make an emotional connection with our guests, we may squander this moment. This moment to grasp and hold on to those who may be new, loyal, and most importantly, returning guests. If I may be so bold to suggest, tread cautiously as you ramp up your room rates, make sure you can deliver on the value promise those rates make. Make sure what staff you have is not left overwhelmed and overworked because they are constantly scrambling. Whether you are using your own service standards or a third party’s standards, use them as the infrastructure to provide the cultural and functional foundation for your organization to deliver excellence every single day. When you prepare, you can deliver excellence, and when you do that, you create an opportunity for an emotional connection with your guests. When guests feel that emotional connection, they want to enjoy more, eat more, drink more, and experience more. That would be worth celebrating.
