Hotel Customer Experience: Are Your Employees Problem Solvers? | #CX

Hotel leaders, are your employees problem solvers? Do they deliver the very best hotel customer experience? Regardless of what type of hotel you run, your customers expect your hotel employees to solve their problems — all the time. You may be thinking that they can’t do it every single time. OK that makes sense. Yet I have uncovered something employees do that is always horrible hotel customer experience.



Hotel Customer Experience: Image is front desk of a hotel

Hotel Customer Experience: Are Your Employees Problem Solvers? Image via DoNotPrayItPhotography via Flickr Creative Commons License.

Image via PrayItNoPhotography via Flickr Creative Commons License.


Hotel Customer Experience: Are Your Employees Problem Solvers?

What is it that employees do that always makes the hotel customer experience horrible? They give the reason why the problem exists instead of trying to solve the problem. Here are some recent examples.

    Examples: Customer says …

  1. 10pm: Someone in the next room is blowing a trumpet. The noise is keeping me awake. Hotel employee response: Oh he is a professional trumpeter and is probably practicing. What is the hotel employee’s point? What’s the message to the customer? The customer didn’t ask why is someone blowing a trumpet in the next room at 10pm! Giving a reason why, is not problem solving. It is horrible hotel customer experience.

  2. The bathtub in my room is filthy. There is black gunk on it. The hotel employee looks at a list and then replies: That room has been cleaned. Why is the hotel employee telling the customer that the room was cleaned? The customer is saying that the bathtub is filthy! The customer thinks the employee doesn’t believe her. This is horrible hotel customer experience.

  3. Even Examples of Risk: Customer says …

  4. The light in the bathroom went out while I was in the shower. This is dangerous. Hotel employee response: The light in the bathroom is set to turn off after ten minutes if there is no motion in the bathroom. What is the hotel telling the customer? We don’t care that you had to get out of the shower/tub in the dark? The customer is reporting a major safety problem. Meanwhile, the employee is giving a reason why that danger exists! If you are not problem solving, it is horrible customer experience.


Hotel Customer Experience: Make Sure Your Employees Solve Problems!

Hotel leaders and managers, how can you ensure that your employees are problem solvers?

  • In hiring: Give job applicants real-life examples (like those above) and role play them. See if they respond like problem solvers.

  • In on-going coaching: Use recent examples of customer problems as refresher training. Have the employees role play and then discuss it. The goal is to have problem solving become the response that employees use every time.

  • Customer Experience Survey: Invite customers to give you feedback on how well you solve problems. Allow space for comments in addition to the number rating. It is in the comments that you will see what’s really happening!


Key Takeaway:

Hotel employees must give a problem solving response when customers raise an issue. Simply stating the reason why the problem exists is horrible hotel customer experience.



Will you share your horrible hotel customer experience story here? What happened?


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™

©2022 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.


Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.


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