It’s Time for Business to Get Back to the Basics : Service: Staff standards and quality seem to be diminishing on airlines, in hotels and on cruise ships as more and more companies merge.
A friend returned recently from a vacation to Germany and France. When I asked him how he liked his trip, he didn’t tell me about the great French wines or the pleasures of Bavaria.
Instead, he launched into a diatribe about bad service.
When he tried to check into his hotel after an 11-hour plane ride, he was rudely told the room wouldn’t be ready for three hours. When he finally did get into the room, it wasn’t the one he had requested.
When he attempted to sleep, an attendant barged in without knocking “to check the mini-bar.” When he checked out, he found three erroneous charges on his bill, which the front-desk clerk refused to remove without a long argument. Which, of course, meant my friend would miss his flight.
How were Germany and France? He never told me.
Unfortunately, my friend’s travel experience is merely indicative of a growing problem in the travel industry. Airlines, hotels, cruise lines and every possible related business have been afflicted with what can only be described as a service “virus.”
Work Force Important
Standards and quality seem to be diminishing as more and more companies merge, acquire other companies or fail. Some argue that the competitive nature of the travel business is no longer properly focused. And company managers seem to spend more time arguing the merits of takeover candidates than refining their main product: service.
There are others who argue that the main cause of diminishing service has more to do with the work force than with the lofty service standards set by some corporations.
“It is a real challenge for us to find the right kind of people who want to work in this industry,” said Bill Marriott, the chief executive of the hotel chain that bears his family name. “It’s not just who really wants to clean toilets today. It’s who really wants to clean them well ? It’s a serious question.”
As a result, says Marriott, “hoteliers find themselves on the cutting edge of a major problem of service. In Europe and Asia, people still look upon the hotel business as a respected career choice, but we’ve somehow lost that in America. What we need to do is embrace a concept of aggressive hospitality.
“We’re painfully low on the ‘woo’ factor,” he said. “That means ‘win others over.’ I want people who really like their jobs, who like pleasing other people as part of their jobs. And I’m having trouble--the industry is having trouble--finding those people.”
One veteran hotelier thinks the service problems have always been there, but the caliber of guest has changed. “People would tolerate a lot more bad service at hotels before,” said Gregory Dillon, a high-ranking Hilton Hotels board member.
Harsh Comparisons
Before what?
“Before the globalization of the travel industry,” he said. “Before increased mobility of the public. The jet age has slowly but surely allowed travelers to make some harsh comparisons on quality from hotel to hotel.
“And most of the people I know don’t return from a trip marveling at the views from their hotel room or the comforts of their beds or what kind of soap was in the bathroom. More and more they measure a hotel by its attitude and its energy . . . how nice is the staff, as well as how fast do they anticipate or solve a guest’s problems?”
Sometimes hotels try to beef up in-room amenities and goodies to hide bad service or staff attitudes they can’t seem to control. A good example is the Plaza Hotel in New York.
Service standards were already plummeting when Donald Trump bought the hotel.
In the first months of new ownership, things didn’t get much better. Trump, who takes reports of bad service as a personal affront, has tried to improve the hotel’s style, if not its substance, when it comes to service.
Efforts are being targeted at improving the amenities, the building and the interiors. New bath towels, matching wastebaskets, new carpets. One can only hope that good service will follow.
“New York has such a bad reputation for bad service,” said Raymond Bickson, general manager of the new Mark Hotel in Manhattan. “It’s been an impossible challenge for some hotels here to do the right job.”
Filling Key Positions
In opening a new hotel, Bickson had to meet the service challenge before anything else. To do it, he hired five trainees from the best hotel school in Lausanne, Switzerland, and two from Heidelberg, Germany, and brought in veteran staffers handpicked from great hotels around the world.
One assistant manager is from the Regent in Hong Kong. His chief housekeeper is from the Waldorf-Astoria. His front-office manager is from the Remington in Houston. Other key positions have been filled by alumni of the Lowell Hotel in New York, the Pierre and the Ritz-Carlton.
“Attitude is everything,” Bickson said. “We can have the most beautiful hotel with the best-appointed guest rooms in New York, and it won’t matter if a guest is treated rudely.”
Guenter Richter agrees. “New York is known for being rough, arrogant and pretentious,” said the managing director of the 178-room Grand Bay Hotel at Equitable Center. “The key is not to be called a New York hotel.”
Richter insists on a tough interview and hiring process for each new employee. “If someone wants to work here, they have to go through four or five people before they even get to me,” he said, “and that includes dishwashers. We are less interested in their professional qualifications than we are in attitude, personality, responsibility and a team spirit.”
Urs Aeby understands the service imperative better than most. He’s the general manager of the Halekulani Hotel in Honolulu. Before that he ran the legendary Peninsula in Hong Kong. Rooms aren’t cheap at the Halekulani, but for once the service equals--if not exceeds--the room rates in perceived value terms.
Change in Philosophy
“We are an expensive hotel,” Aeby said, “so for us to succeed, we can only do it with excellent service. We check guests into the hotel in their rooms, not at a desk. Room service is quick. There are no laundry forms to fill out, and perhaps most important, the concierge isn’t an extortionist.”
“There has been a quantum change in the philosophy of hotels,” said Ted Wright, general manger of the Regent Hotel in Sydney. “We have to stop thinking of the hotel as bricks, mortar, rooms and the bottom line, and think of ourselves more as a creative art--a theater where people go to be entertained.
“There are a lot of theaters, and we have to put on a great show or the people won’t come back. But the key difference between us and a normal theater is that at a hotel, the audience interacts with the cast and crew. And the play is written by the guests. It’s the resulting interaction which becomes key to a guest’s satisfaction and, ultimately, to a hotel’s success.”
Sometimes it’s a play that’s presented to both the guest and the hotel without any warning. Recently I stayed at the Hotel Don Carlos in Marbella, Spain, on a Saturday night.
I was scheduled to check out very early the next morning to catch a connecting flight to Madrid and then to the United States. I had hired a car for the early Sunday morning ride to the airport in Malaga.
But the car never arrived. There were no taxis to be found. A bellhop, seeing my growing sense of panic, ran up to me. “Can you drive a stick shift?” he asked.
I nodded. “An American tourist came and left but forgot to return his rental car to the airport,” he said, handing me the keys. I thanked him, but he wouldn’t take a tip. Pointing to his watch, he motioned for me to go.
Thanks to him I made my flight. Was I overly impressed by the hotel room at the Don Carlos? No. The food? Not particularly. The people? Yes . And I’ll go back.
