Our analyst was first sent to visit the Holiday Inn.  The analyst had never visited this Holiday Inn before.  He arrived at the airport and called the hotel to request a shuttle to pick him up.  The GSA who took the call verified the analyst’s name and checked the reservation before sending over the driver.  The hotel was only a few minutes from the airport so they analyst arrived a the hotel pretty quickly.  As soon as the analyst walked into the lobby, the GSA greeted him with ‘welcome to the Holiday Inn, Mr. Smith’.  Obviously, the GSA was really prepared.  He logged the analyst’s name when he requested the shuttle so he knew to use it when he saw the shuttle drop off the analyst.  Even though the analyst had never been to that hotel before, that initial 10 seconds really made the analyst feel like he was returning home.  The GSA then conducted the check in as he normal does by thanking the analyst for being a Priority Club member, telling the analyst about the hotel amenities, and then directing the analyst how to get to his room. 

A few days later, our analyst was sent to the Ritz-Carlton.  This was the first time the analyst visited this Ritz-Carlton.  The analyst arrived at the hotel by car and pulled into valet parking.  The analyst was immediately greeted by a valet attendant and welcomed to the hotel.  The valet attendant asked the analyst if he was checking in and then asked him for his name.  He wrote the analyst’s name on the valet ticket and had the bellman load up the luggage onto a bell cart.  The valet attendant then told the analyst that he could enter the lobby to register and the luggage would be delivered and the car would be parked.  As soon as the analyst entered the hotel, a GSA greeted him with ‘good afternoon, Mr. Smith’.  The GSA was wearing an earpiece and was told by the valet attendant that Mr. Smith would be entering the lobby.  Just like at the Holiday Inn, it is a truly amazing feeling to be welcomed to a hotel by name.  It made the analyst feel like a celebrity.  The Ritz-Carlton also repeated the experience at check out.  The analyst called down to ask for a bellman to check out.  When the analyst arrived at the lobby with the bellman, the GSA who never met the analyst before immediately greeted him by name.  He was also tipped off by the radio so he knew that when a guest came down with the bellman that it was Mr. Smith. 

How often does this type of service happen?  Almost never.  But I can promise you that if your hotel can achieve this level of service with your guests, you will have more repeat guests than you can imagine.

The top score was a tie between Ritz-Carlton in the ‘fanciest’ category and Homewood Suites in the ‘upscale’ category.  The Homewood Suites scored an excellent in value and the Ritz scored very good. 

Here are the rankings for a couple of the categories:

Fanciest – 1. Ritz-Carlton  2. Grand Hyatt

Luxury – 1. Renaissance  2. Embassy Suites  3. Marriott  4. Westin  5. Hilton  6. Hyatt  7. Doubletree  8. Sheraton

Upscale – 1. Homewood Suites  2. Walt Disney Resorts  3. Residence Inn  4. Hilton Garden Inn  5. Harrah’s  6. Springhill Suites  7. Hyatt Place  8. Courtyard by Marriott  9. Wyndham  10. Crowne Plaza  11. Radisson

Some interesting observations:

Out of 48 brands, only one hotel, the Ritz-Carlton, scored excellent on service.  Only 10 others scored very good.  The other 37 hotels scored average or worse on service.  Ouch.

Many full service brands like Doubletree, Sheraton, Wyndham, Crowne Plaza, and Radisson, are falling behind the limited service brands in overall satisfaction. 

Guest are experiencing a surprising number of problems.  Out of the 48 brands, not a single brand scored excellent, and only 7 brands scored very good.  The chain with the least amount of problems (Drury Inn & Suites) still had 14 percent of guests reporting a problem!  The chain with the most problems had 47 percent of guests reporting a problem.

Sounds like we all have some work to do on our guest service!

Google has now started to do ‘Real-Time Searches’.  What does that mean?  Google says real-time search is:

“… new features that bring your search results to life with a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.”

What does that mean to you?  Well, for starters, your hotel will now appear in Google if people post a tweet on Twitter about you or mention you in their Facebook status update.  This can be either really good for you, or really bad for you.  Here is how I first noticed Google’s real-time search.  I was going to go out to a local restaurant and needed the address so I did what I always do… pulled out the iPhone and googled it.  I found the address on the first Google entry.  I happened to scroll down to the bottom of the page and saw someone’s Twitter tweet that said ‘got food poisoning at XYZ Restaurant’. 

Obviously not good for business.  I know that I found another restaurant to eat at.  I am sure that many others did as well.  So, what should you do?  First, have a good plan in place to monitor your hotel’s internet reputation.  Then act on anything both positive and negative that you may see.  It is very easy to contact someone who posts about your hotel on Twitter or Facebook or in their Blog.  Be sure to send them a thank you if they say something positive about you and make sure that you offer to fix any problems they may have had if they say anything negative about you.  Make sure that you have a plan in place today!

It appears that many hotels have taken our advice to far and are now manipulating their tripadvisor ratings by posting fake reviews.  Check out this terrific article by Jason Cochran titled ‘Is TripAdvisor.com One Big Joke?’  His article mentions that tripadvisor has had to place disclaimers on at least 92 hotel pages because they believe the hotels ‘may have attempted to manipulate our popularity index by interfering with the unbiased nature of our reviews’. 

The authors provides some great tips for people to interpret user-review sites.  One tip he has is ‘If a hotel’s managment consistently responds to negative reviews, take it as a promising sign that testifies to their attention to service’. 

Continue maintaining your hotel’s internet reputation!  But do it legitimately please!

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.

At a recent stay at a very fancy and expensive hotel, we ran into many issues.  The issues ranged from very small to a very large one but regardless, it did not seem that the guest service team was properly trained to handle the problems that we encountered.  Though they were able to fix the problems quickly and satifactorily, the guest service team was not empathetic or even apologetic at all.  This made our mystery shopper feel very unimportant even though we had just paid over $400 for the night.  

To see the effect of slight changes in your team’s words on your guest service, please read this article on the Hotel & Motel Management website.  

The author, Doug Kennedy, provides great examples of what many of your associates currently say to guests and what they should say instead.  It is a great way to improve your guest service without much cost!  For example, Kennedy points out the dreaded way to greeting a lone-diner at a restaruant with, “Just One?”, making the diner feel even lonelier.    He provides an excellent way to greet those guests by using, “Welcome to the restuarant, are you ready to be seated?”  The author also gives a few other great examples but leaves you to figure out how this concept can be applied to the many other areas of guest contact in your hotels.  It is a great way to keep your current guests happy and have them continue to choose your hotel in the future without spending any money!

Here are some tips for providing five diamond service that does not cost much:

1. Teach all of your associates the phrase ‘my pleasure’:  When a guest says ‘thank you’, associates at top properties always respond with ‘it is my pleasure’.  Other properties respond with ‘you’re welcome’ or ‘no problem’.
2. Every associate must be guest focused instead of task focused:  At a three diamond hotel, a housekeeper held up the elevator that I was in to wait for her friend so they could go to lunch together.  The next day at a five diamond, an engineer who happened to be walking near an elevator saw me walking down the hallway and automatically pressed the elevator button.  The engineer was aware of my need as a guest.  The housekeeper was only aware of her own need for a lunch break.
3. The guest’s name must be used by every associate that serves him/her:  At a five diamond hotel, every person from the Bellman, to the Guest Service Agent, to the Restaurant Server knows the guest’s name and uses it.  The valet attendant asks the guest for the name and then introduces the guest by name to the bellman who then introduces the guest by name to the guest service agent.  The PBX operators see the name displayed on the telephone.  The restaurant servers and bartenders see the name on the room charge or credit card receipt.
4. Have your associates also use their own name:  At top hotels, the associates always introduce themselves by saying ‘my name is John and I will be serving you this evening’.  This works especially well for bellmen, servers, bartenders, and in room dining associates.
5. Learn how to fully anticipate guest needs:  Anticipating a guest’s needs requires experience.  Log and track all of your guests’ requests in all areas of the hotel.  Begin to provide the most common requests automatically to the guests so they do not need to ask anymore.  For example, if cotton swabs are frequently asked for in your hotel, consider placing them automatically in each room.  Also consider having other not as frequently requested items on hand just in case.
6. Be aware of the guest:  Train your associates to make eye contact and greet each guest as they pass.  At five diamond hotels, each associate that you pass will greet you and notice you.  This helps when you are trying to stop an associate for help and also makes guests feel important.  At most other hotels, the associates seem to try their best to avoid you.
7. Walk with the guest:  When a guest asks for directions, make sure that your associates are trained to take the guests as far as possible.  At five diamond hotels, associates, unless they are tending to an outlet, will fully escort guests to their desired locations to make sure they do not get lost.  At other hotels, associates usually just give directions and point.

With these points of service in place at your hotel, it will be tough to distinguish between the service of your hotel and the service of a hotel with a five diamond award.  The good thing about these simple service tips is that they only take some training to and dedication from your associates.  Very little extra costs would be involved.  In addition, you will build the perceived value of your hotel through the improved service.We, as mystery shoppers, would also enjoy our stays much more!

Customer Service call banks have really improved. Call your phone company or your bank’s customer service line. They will probably use your name many, many times during the conversation. They will also try to up-sell you on additional services, but that is a different article!

The other day, my arteries were feeling a little less clogged than usual so I stopped by Jack In The Box for lunch. After I ordered, the cashier asked me my first name. She then wrote it on the ticket. A few minutes later when my order was ready, they called out my name instead of ‘order number 196, ultimate cheeseburger and fries’. Then the associate handed me the tray and then thanked me by name.

Now, if Jack In The Box can use the name of their guests, there really is no excuse!

Their decision to stay at your hotel starts with a quick review of your website.  Does it have a pool?  Check.  Steakhouse?  Got it.  Gym?  Ok.  They take your hotel into consideration.  But is it better than the hotel down the street that has the similar rates?

A quick Google search will tell them what they need to know.  They read the reviews on tripadvisor.com.  Maybe they check out yelp.com or read your Yahoo Travel ratings.  Oh, Mary from Iowa says your staff is rude and your food is lousy.  Three people say that your hotel lost their reservations and two people say that they were overcharged during their stay.

You just lost a reservation.

This is why you must have someone on your property that is managing your internet reputation!  The great thing about sites like tripadvisor.com or yelp.com is that they allow you to contact the person who posted the complaint.  They also allow the complainer to amend their review if their opinion is changed.  You should be emailing everyone who posts a review of your hotel and thanking them for posting the review as well as resolving any complaints.

Customer Service 101 has told us all that someone who has a bad experience will tell 15 people while someone who has a good experience will tell 1 or 2.  This really gets magnified on the web.  I found one angry guest who posted his gripes with a hotel on more than 5 websites.  Who knows how many thousands of potential guests saw this review.  His complaint?  The hotel charged him a no show even though he stayed for 5 nights and would not issue a refund.  If the hotel was managing their internet reputation, they would have seen the review, contacted the guest and resolved the problem before any more damage could have been done.

Web 2.0 is changing the way that people use the internet and your hotel should be keeping up with changes.  We are not saying that your hotel should have its own MySpace page but there are many new areas that you must manage.  Start with these suggestions:

Set up a RSS feed to notify you of any blogs or sites that use the name of your hotel.  Here is a good article on how to set one up: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/719/Online-Reputation-Management/

Review your ratings on the big websites like expedia.com and travel.yahoo.com.  You may not be able to do anything about your past reviews but you can at least improve your future reviews.  You will probably find many complaints that are easily fixed for future guests (ex. Not telling the guest in advance of your parking charge).

Embrace sites that encourage user participation.  Tripadvisor.com and hotels.com allows users to write a review as well as upload their personal pictures and videos of their trip!  One hotel we looked at had almost 300 reviews and 70 photos and videos on tripadvisor.com and another 200 reviews on hotels.com.

Build an owner page on tripadvisor.com.  You can build a page, post your own photos and videos.  You can also be automatically notified of every review posted about your hotel and even respond to the review!  If your hotel is on tripadvisor.com, you really need to have an owner page.  You can probably do it in about 10 minutes.  You will get more room reservations if you do it right!

Consider updating your hotel’s website with new Web 2.0 features.  We have seen a few hotel sites that allow their guests to upload their pictures of their trip.  People love to brag.  Let them brag about the great time they had at your hotel.  It will get you more reservations!  This would be especially fun if you are a hotel near a theme park or other vacation destination!  Trip advisor even has a widget that you can add to your website that displays reviews from your guests.

You may have to adjust your strategy depending on the type of hotel you have.  For example, boutique hotels and vacation destinations should focus more on the web 2.0 features.  Business hotels and hotels that are part of a large chain may want to focus their efforts on pleasing guests who post unsatisfactory reviews and performing damage control.