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We
always seem to focus our training initiatives and incentives on the front of the
house employees - front desk, bell staff and concierge. Who are leaving out of
this equation? The back of the house -- housekeepers, maintenance engineers, and
kitchen staff.
If you think they aren't important from a guest service standpoint, think again.
I had a client check into a resort hotel do a site inspection. They were
considering booking their Board of Directors meeting at the property. So we
checked the client into a minisuite for the weekend. The room was warm and the
air conditioning units didn't seem to help so they called maintenance. The
engineer arrived and indicated that the room would cool off when the sun went
down. This was not the response they were looking for. When they questioned why
one air conditioning unit seemed to work but the other one didn't, the
maintenance engineer replied, "we only use that unit for spare parts."
My clients checked out never to be heard from again. True story.
Are you certain that your maintenance engineers wouldn't reply the same way?
When we hire our 'back of the house' employees, it is usually because of their
skill set and not their customer service attitudes. We fail to give them the
skills necessary to respond to a customer request in a tactful and diplomatic
way. Failing to include housekeeping, maintenance and the other 'back of the
house' employees in our routine customer service updates is a mistake that can
cost us business.
It is not enough to develop a customer service orientation program for them but
it is critically important to benchmark their department's performance using the
franchise Guest Service Scores. Are yours posted in every department and do you
set goals for improvement in the department's areas that are measured and
rewarded? When training our staff to provide good customer service, we often
assume that they understand what we mean when we say we want them to serve the
guest. We understand what we mean, but we don't often realize that not all of
the line staff that we hire with little or no experience doesn't necessarily get
it and are reluctant to express that they are unsure of what we mean.
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