Nice Hotel, Horrible Customer Experience

The swimming pool, the breakfast buffet, the chocolate on the pillow – these are small yet essential details that all add up to a winning customer experience in a hotel. Even with all these aspects in place, what distinguishes one hotel from another is the level of customer service provided by their staff members. When there are compromises in the customer support quality, hotel management must conduct in-house customer service training to remedy the situation efficiently.  Hospitality businesses are well-aware of the indispensability of outstanding customer care but it is not enough to recognize this point.

Hotels must take a proactive approach while catering to guests, from the preliminary inquiries about room rates to the interactions with the cleaning staff upon their departure. Not only does a superior standard of service increase the chances of brand loyalty, satisfied hotel guests leave extremely influential positive online reviews. Close to 80% of potential customers trust online reviews as much as they would a personal recommendation from a friend or family member. The risk of a customer-staff misunderstandings resulting into a negative online review is a serious one! Serious enough that conscientious managers now prioritize a customer-centric culture in their respective hotels.

Watching Out for the TripAdvisor Syndrome

The internet has significantly altered the impact of customer service feedback for the hospitality industry. Now practically any guest with a wi-fi connection can leave a review about their recent hotel experience for the world to see. Hotel, resorts and bread-and-breakfast management can take advantage of real-time feedback by offering complimentary upgrades or refunds to disgruntled guests. This, however, requires the hotel staff to be diligently monitoring their social media accounts and hotel review sites for mentions or tags. Investment in a customized online reputation management strategy is a necessity for hotel businesses.

Fine-tuning Customer Support Systems

Yearly customer service training is not enough – it is impossible to provide commendable customer support with randomly scheduled training sessions. Motivated, well-trained employees are in-tune with customer support expectations and form an integral part of their organization’s customer service culture. Managers can employ incentives to encourage hotel staff to provide better customer service. Staff can be introduced to optimal customer service behavior through games-based experiences within customer service training programs.

Small Gestures Go a Long Way                                         

Small gestures, like securing a rare cheese for anniversary dinner or arranging a surprise puppet show for the younger patrons, all demonstrate genuine concern for your guests. Take, for instance, the incident involving a stuffed toy giraffe named ‘Joshie’ going missing at well-known hotel chain. To ensure that Joshie’s owner wouldn’t get too upset, his parents told him that Joshie was taking an extended vacation but would be home soon enough. The hotel’s Loss Prevention team not only returned Joshie with some freebies, they also documented pictures of him sitting by the pool, getting a massage and even getting an honorary badge as hotel staff.  This is a pretty good example of a small gesture which will be remembered by this family for years on end.

Personalize Every Single Experience

As a hotel, aim for delivering personalized experiences rather than just delivering services by-the-book. Pepper your salutations with greetings that acknowledge each particular guest. Loop in culturally-appropriate seasonal greetings in the native dialect followed by a translation to both inform and delight your guests upon arrival.  Finding the right balance of customization is key to customer satisfaction. If you notice a customer is wearing a football jersey, direct them to a nearby football stadium, or have their room TV set-up with a complimentary sports channel subscription. Giving your staff the freedom to deliver such experiences produces amazing results! According to IBM, more than seventy percent of guests report positive experiences when directly linked to personalized services.

No matter what customer support strategy your team eventually decides upon, ensure the customer experience the hotel delivers is relevant to the guests checking-in. While pursuing personalized experiences, your establishment should maintain its excellence in providing basic services – from fluffed-up pillows to valet services. This will not only make for a memorable hotel stay for the guests, but will also instill a sense of pride in every staff member.

Facts Proving Customer Service as a Better Marketing Tool than Advertising

Do you think that advertising your business through newspaper, magazine and internet proves enough to give a real recognition to your brand? With ever-increasing marketing trends and latest technological developments, there is seen a great change in customer’s buying behavior. They are more aware and demanding than before. They hardly make a purchase decision just by looking at an ad on a billboard or while reading about a product in a newspaper.

Now the customers want something real that could convince and entice them to complete a purchase process. One can say that, customers are more practical and they do not get convinced just by reading some typical product promotional lines in a newspaper or magazine ad. Customers’ way of choosing a product has greatly changed now. The modern-day customers prefer to buy from the companies that believe in serving them in real sense. This is the reason that most of the businesses today are using their enhanced customer service strategies as part of their marketing plans.

Following are the facts that prove how customer service is a better marketing tool than advertising.

Enhanced Customer Service Leaves a Lasting Impression

Ads are no doubt a direct and paid promotion of your products or service. Therefore, the customers are well aware that ads will always highlight or even sometimes overstate the qualities of your products.  One cannot judge the quality of your products on the paid words of your ads. Moreover, an ad hardly leaves a lasting impression; it keeps your products or business in the minds of people only for short time. On the other hand, your customer service is an aspect that predicts who you actually are and how much you take care of your clients. When you deliver a positive customer experience, you make a lasting impression on your customers’ mind.  Your customers will always consider you, whenever they plan to purchase for the second time.

Cuts down the Marketing Cost

To run big marketing campaigns for giving recognition to your brand, you need to invest a hefty budget. On the other hand, spending your money on improving your customer service will give you dual benefits both in terms of increased revenues and positive reputation in the market.  Creating a superb customer experience, you can win lifelong customers for your business, who later become your brand advocates.

Considering all aspects, an improved customer service has proven to be the most reliable tool to market your business rather than advertising.

Customer Service – The Feature That Will Help You Retain Your Reputation in Tough Times

In times like these when economy is bad, maintaining a worthwhile reputation can be tough. Some traits can give your competitors an edge over your company. Therefore, lacking behind in one of them will not only make you lose credibility but clientele as well. One of them is selling and marketing customer experience.  It has the capability to make or break your organization.

Features of customer service to retain reputation in tough times are as follows:

• Be Careful When Hiring – Organizations that want to retain their clients must have the capability to retain their employees as well. They know that the key to building a strong clientele is to hire employees that have the ideal customer service attitude.
• Set Reachable Standards – Once you set a standard, getting below or above that standard can damage your reputation. If you snoop below the ideal level of delivering your standards, then you will lose your customers. If you exceed those standards, then you might not always be able to maintain them and thus, create negative scenario for your organization.
• Frequent Training Sessions – Even the most beautiful trees need constant nourishing and supervision. it is same with the employees as well. Although you have hired the best that are available, but you still need to guide them step by step through the process, provide constant updates and make sure that they are performing their responsibilities like they should.
• Take Care Of Your Employees – Your employees are an important asset of your organization. If you want them to perform well then you need to take care of them as well.  Don’t expect them to give their 100 percent efforts if you don’t treat them with respect and care.

Building and nourishing an organization requires a lot of time and effort, but maintaining a reputation that has been set requires more. Therefore, the next time you think of the key points that can help you improve the overall structure of your organization, do not forget to include customer service.

Dubai, The Contemporary City With Gregarious People

If cosmopolitan wasn’t a magazine, then surely it would have been the other name of heaven on earth, Dubai. With all the mind blowing attractions, gregarious people and fabulous events, Dubai has been amongst the most adored global attractions – in fact, it has been named as the mini Europe by many visitors. The city is completely surrounded by skyscrapers, gigantic deserts, exceptional beaches and other man-made wonders too. Luxury is something that can even be seen on the Dubai roads – the classy and chic malls, the superlative hotels and breathtaking water parks – wow! The charm of the city blows the mind away. Well, it is not wrong to declare that the last decade was very lucky for the city because the economy has escalated like anything; with foreign investments and tourism also the city has been earning like crazy.

The story doesn’t end here – celebrities from the whole world even adore the city because of its wonderful events. Concerts, Dubai festivals, Award shows and even many tournaments take place here. In a nutshell, round the year Dubai has reason to call people towards it – if it gets short of reasons then the mind blowing designers and fancy malls are enough to allure the masses.

Dubai is also known for its hospitality – I remember the time when I walked in the hotel for reservations, what a fabulous customer care I got, trust me, I can’t even remember I had the same experience somewhere else. Not only the staff but even the manager was treating me very generously; in fact, this attitude was common for all. Indeed, Dubai customer service is exceptional. I am not quoting such a big statement with one experience – in malls, restaurants, hotels wherever I have been asking for help from the staff, I got a mind blowing response. I even remember the time when I had to look for investment in property – every real estate I went to, gave a fabulous service, in fact, the customer service was amazing. They were friendly, helpful and moreover, very kind.

The level of Emirates customer service was also something to be appreciated. The letting agents and the brokers both were ready to help an extra mile and even for no extra charge. I haven’t seen such gregarious people ever. To all the first time visitors, never ever worry while you are planning to visit Dubai or UAE for a city break or even a business tour – everyone there would be ready to help you with an open heart. They would make you feel as if you are in your hometown. This is my personal experience – hard to believe, I know, but yes people of UAE still know how to respect and love people.