Style vs Substance

This past weekend my wife and I travelled to NYC for some fun and adventure. The preperation for this trip has been highlighted in my previous posts (here, here) about dealing with reward companies - we used points for our flight and for a portion of our hotel.

The hotel market in New York is very competitive and very expensive. With high rental rates and a demand for consumer dollars the level of service and comfort is typically quite high at hotels. The hotel that we stayed at was a higher-end boutique hotel that was part of a national chain. And while the room we had was fantastic - it was actually called the Fantastic Suite - the service from the different staff at the hotel left a lot to be desired.

As in previous posts (here) I can not stress enough the impact that front line staff have in delivering a positive customer experience to customers / guests. They have the greatest amount of contact with every client and have the most opportunities to positively and negatively impact the view of the customer on the product or service.

In the case of the hotel, the service and staff are a part of the product. The room is an extension of the service and is what is provided - it is the staff that deliver it. I will give this particular hotel credit for having a large volume of staff on hand, it was the service that they collectively provided that will keep us from going back again. Some examples:

• Requesting a sewing kit and it never showing up
• Being offered a complimentary car service that was managed by a clearly over-worked and under-motivated employee
• Being told by one staff member to sit in the lounge before it was opened only to be told by the lounge staff that they weren't opening for another 10 minutes and we could go down the street
• Trying to ask the concierge a question and being told that she was too busy

What all service based industries (and this hotel in particular) should do is put a greater emphasis amongst employees on the impact that they have on the customer (guest) experience.

This should be done through some simple training programs either on an on-going basis or as a part of the onboarding process. They should also provide feedback opportunities for customers / guests to provide employee level feedback - which seems to be a given in other hotels, but was glarlingly absent here.

I hope to provide a link to this post to the hotel manager and will post any reponse or feedback that I receive.