Why don't hotels care about guests?
And why employees aren’t fooled by retention gimmicks
On December 27, 1997, I resigned from my job.
“What?”, you say, “were you lying when you said you had a thirty-one-year career at a hotel company?”
Both are true.
In 1997, my job title was “Special Programmes Coordinator”. It was a catch-all name for the sentence “other duties as assigned” in my job description.
I was head of security for our rapidly growing hotel chain. The “other duties” assigned to me were managing the accounting of airline loyalty programmes we were associated with, managing travel agent commission payments for our hotels, and managing our database marketing programme.
Our hotel company had grown from under thirty when I started as a hotel security guard to almost two hundred when I was doing four jobs for the one paycheque I was receiving.
I was working 12 - 16 hours per day 5-6 days per week.
I lobbied the company to make my safety and security role full time.
“What would you do all day?”, asked the CEO.
Finally, as 1997 drew to a close, I made good on a promise I had silently made to myself. If safety and security wasn’t a full time role by Christmas, I would resign.
About ten minutes after I handed in my resignation to the Regional CFO in the Oslo office where I was, the CEO phoned me from Brussels HQ.
“What’s wrong with our company? Why don’t you want to work here?”, he asked after accepting my resignation.
“When I started, we were a hotel company that cared for our guests. Today, it feels like we’re simply a company that sells hotel rooms.”
The other end of the phone line went dead silent.
And that brings me to today’s topic.
Getting Recognition Right
The heading is the title of the first chapter in our book, Spin the Bottle Service - Hospitality in the Age of A.I.
It’s also the most valuable and the most forgotten aspect of customer service.
If you Google “importance of recognition in hospitality”, every article the algorithm suggests is about employee recognition. Articles talk about staff retention, staff satisfaction, and staff productivity. Articles often link recognition with reward.
In other words, try bribing your staff into believing they are important.
None of the article headlines talked about the value of guest recognition.
If we were already more focused on selling hotel rooms than taking care of guests in 1997, it’s worse today.
Hotel companies don’t care about guests. They make money off the fees their franchisees pay. They simply want brands in every segment so they can cater to everyone. Their rewards programmes are bribes to capture and retain people on their platform.
Unfortunately for guests, loyalty programme points are becoming worth less and less.
Bribing guests to stay isn’t working as well as some seem to think.
Bribing employees to stay won’t work well either.
Employees aren’t motivated by peanuts or pizza
Let’s all clap and give free pizza to the people who worked a double shift!
NOT!!
Gimmicky staff reward and retention programmes are futile.
Empowering staff to improve their guest service and communication capabilities will do more for staff retention than free pizzas, a diploma you made on Canva, or the opportunity to shake the General Manager’s hand.
The scary part is that corporate offices are full of people trying to write scripts for robots.
I’m not talking about folks in the IT department, I’m talking about HR and Operations departments.
They try to dictate every guest interaction as if all humans behave identically when presented with cues and scripts.
“Have you stayed with us before?”, the front desk agent asks without realising you are a platinum diamond club member of their bribery rewards programme. They ask because the script has trained them not to think.
Reducing employee empowerment to reciting a script all day long does two things.
It bores employees to death so they want to do it as quickly and mindlessly as possible.
It bores guests so they start behaving like entitled children by outrageously demanding that the lounge reserved for members of their tier on the rewards programme should be open and staffed on weekends.
Imagine being someone who spends over a hundred nights per year in hotels. You stay in hotels that belong to the same brand owner so you can get your bribery points. You hear the same script every day.
When you get to the premium executive diamond black card status, you will be entitled to a free upgrade.*
(*subject to availability at participating locations.)
Even if you’re allergic to flowers, don’t drink alcohol, and prefer tea over coffee, there will be a machine written card beside the flowers and the bottle of wine the hotel has offered as a welcome gift. There will also be an extra Keurig coffee pod.
The card will say how delighted the General Manager is to have you in-house but not to bother them if there is anything that can be done to improve your stay because they will be busy sending corporate reports to feed the beast at brand HQ. (OK, they might use a slightly different wording like “call the front desk” but you get my drift. In any case, I’ve yet to see a card with a GM’s cell number on it.)
Let employees do what they think they were hired to do
Apart from a few aspiring actors waiting for their big break, people don’t take jobs in hotels because they want to recite scripts all day long.
People get jobs in hotels because they believe hospitality is about creating exceptional experiences and memorable moments for guests and visitors.
That’s why employee retention gimmicks work about as well as they would if you gave them to a prisoner in a cell and hoped that they will choose to stay beyond their release date.
Release employees from the shackles of scripted service.
Empower them to be their individual selves.
Trust and train them to treat other people like individuals too.
Watch what happens when your employees start focusing on recognizing and exceeding guests’ expectations.
It’s like Pope Francis said:
“Life is good when you’re happy; but much better when others are happy because of you!”
Empowered employees will be happier when guests are happy because of them.
You’ll be happier when your employees are happy because of you!
Stay safe, Always Care
P.S.: Some people don’t look at hospitality as a good career choice. To them I say, click the banner below and read this recent post by
:
If you’re a hotel owner and you’re frustrated with the boring brand training your franchisor charges you an arm and a leg for, why not gift your employees a copy of our book? (Click the picture to order, or DM me for details on discounts.)
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All of my stories are personal, authentic, and unashamedly enhanced by imperfect memory and literary creativity.
I care so much about hotels and hospitality that my wife and I wrote a book about it. (See above)
This is the first in a 12-post series dedicated to showing how hospitality is all about people and how empowering the people you have will make their jobs more meaningful and your guests’ experiences more memorable.
Don’t just buy the book. Take the next step and ask me about our “Ditch the Script” training programmes!
In addition to writing stories, I love to tell them.
As a multi-award-winning corporate leader in hospitality and global security, captivating keynotes, compelling coaching sessions, and edutaining, motivational workshops are all part of my repertoire.
Email me at paul@alwayscare.ca.
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So you're saying it's better to stay at an independent local hotel than a chain outlet?
Paul, I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!!!!! You basically wrote what I felt for my entire career in hospitality! I worked for Hilton for 5 years and the way you described the canned loyalty programs is so spot on.
Aside from my fine dining career you linked to, I also was a travel writer and reviewer for 10 years (independently) and I have experience INCREDIBLE hospitality. Let me invite you to read this older post I wrote and you'll understand:
https://open.substack.com/pub/wildhoodwanted/p/the-money-sucks-but-the-payoff-is-outstanding?r=2qffbg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true