Just a moment of your time…
There are times when accepted norms within the hotel industry need to be challenged. We live with sacred cows until, at one moment in time, they seem insincere, nonsensical, or both.
For me, a growing unease about the way we gather customer feedback was brought into sharp focus on a recent stay in an international chain hotel. The insincere and nonsensical arrived together in one defining moment when I was confronted with a guest satisfaction survey - carefully positioned on the low-level cistern of the toilet.
Not only was it the third survey to confront me in as many minutes of arriving in the room, each accompanied by a strategically placed pen, but this one came with the addition of a letter with the salutation of "Dear Guest" and an opening sentence which then thanked me "personally".
The range and quality of hotel guest questionnaires is disturbing. At one extreme are computer-generated software models which produce state-of-the-art league tables hotel by hotel, product by product, comparing service levels across continents. At the other extreme are cheaply produced, dog-eared guest-comment cards sitting forlornly in the corner of an uninspiring room.
If the questionnaire is uncared-for, what hope is there for the guest?
There are some notable exceptions. Holiday Inn has pioneered the "Thirty Seconds of Your Time" series of cards, one of which is randomly offered to you, with limited questions, at checkout. Together, the series of cards provides all the information you would acquire from the 50-plus questions favoured by some groups, but by presenting the bite-sized card during the checkout process you are more likely to receive an objective view of the hotel.
The Scotsman hotel in Edinburgh offers a clever alternative. The questionnaire catches the eye with a sophisticated joke, asks in a warm way just four pertinent questions, and ends with a clever marketing tool.
Yet, however creatively we approach customer feedback through touch screens, interactive TV or collateral, there has to be a better way.
It's time for chain and independent, budget and boutique operators to actually engage more with the customer. We should encourage our people to walk and talk, to conduct relaxed focus groups by customer sector, and to host evening receptions on a weekly basis.
Personally listening, whatever your size or brand, and then changing, is a powerful way to develop brand loyalty.
Stuart Harrison runs the Profitable Hotel company and is a visiting fellow of Oxford Brookes University
