11 December 2017
Hospitality & strategy: 3 tips for ultimate hospitality
The degree of hospitality decides whether a guest, customer or patient will come back to you. After an inhospitable experience at, for example, a restaurant, 44 percent of Dutch people do not give the location a second chance. Hospitality must flow through the veins of your organization. Next to creating a place where people feel at home, it is about surprising guests and customers and offering a total experience. But where do you start in creating such an experience?
Anyone can say that they are hospitable, but the only way to make it real is to prove it silently. Whether you work in a healthcare institution, hotel, restaurant, office or high-traffic location: there are high expectations when it comes to the ultimate experience, and more demands are made of the quality of facilities. Focusing on your patients, guests, visitors and customers is critical here. How do you deal with this as an organization in a strategic way? You can read that in these three tips.
Tip 1: Not only the hostess should be hospitable
How someone experiences a location is determined not only by the physical environment or the person at the reception desk. Hospitality is also part of an organization-wide implementation. From director and managers to secretary and cleaning staff. Guests rate facilities as a whole. It is thus logical to integrate different disciplines such as reception, sanitary supplies, handyman services and specialist maintenance. If hospitality is not woven into your strategy, chances are that a customer or guest will not visit you twice. By basing your hospitality concept on internal standards such as core values, vision and strategy, you ensure that unequivocally expressing them is a given. We, for example, give our core values a practical platform through a motivation programme and Hospitality Game, which is intended for all employees in the organization.
Tip 2: Freedom of action for your employees
Hospitality as a strategic choice also provides extra feeling for and connection with your employees. Especially when you give them the freedom to be creative in finding solutions for daily 'issues'. For example, when you find out that a guest is having a birthday and you can offer a drink on the house without the intervention of a manager. The possibility for employees to handle a situation themselves without having to jump through hoops provides the necessary continuity. Is something not going well? Does someone feel dissatisfied? A quick action by a random employee also gives the guest or customer confidence. That means everyone working together, but with the freedom to handle spontaneous events. This results in self-confidence and flexibility of employees, which contributes to offering the ultimate experience.
Tip 3: Proactive compensation
Research by EW Facility Services shows that 1 in 10 guests leaves a negative review on the internet after a visit in which they had an inhospitable experience. Almost every location has had to deal with that. The Euromast uses a method that can be applied in any environment: proactive compensation. When you notice that a standard cannot be achieved, take action immediately. Do not wait until a complaint is received, but make sure you take a proactive attitude before that. For example, by offering compensation. More inspiration? View the video with the Euromast and Michelin-star restaurant De Leest here .
Do you know how to optimize the implementation of your facility services? Contact us.
