Wanted: service with a smile, now more than ever
Businesses are based on confidence and relationships, and successful businesses are based on confident relationships. In manufacturing, the producer sells goods that the customer wants or needs. If the goods are worthy, the customer comes back for more. A relationship is established.
If the relationship is sustained, the customer becomes confident that the manufacturer will continue to deliver the goods. And the manufacturer becomes confident that the customer will return. Both sides are happy.
Until something shatters the status quo.
According to independent marketing group Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS), using the British Hospitality Association/Scher benchmark, service levels in UK hotels have fallen since 11 September. It's as if the events in New York on that fateful day brought to a sudden end the confident relationship that hospitality had been enjoying with its customers for the previous five or more years. OK, there had been signs of strain but, generally speaking, times had been good for a sustained period. Now they don't seem to be.
The TNS review suggests that many staff in hotels became "lethargic and depressed" after 11 September. Well, who didn't? Everyone did. Managers and staff in many disciplines did. The general public did. Chances are, the anonymous inspectors employed by TNS felt lethargic and depressed. The 7% of hotel guests who no longer felt that they were getting value for money probably felt lethargic and depressed. The whole Western economy felt lethargic and depressed. It's not surprising that staying in a hotel wasn't so much fun.
Stuart Scher of TNS says that one of the contributory factors affecting service has been lower morale caused by staff cuts, real or threatened.
This goes back to those commentators who spoke out against the staff cuts that hotels started making as a reaction to the fallback in business immediately after the New York atrocities. Don't shed staff, they said, trade will pick up and you'll need all the resource you can get when the good times roll again.
It's clear that the confidence of operators has been hit, customer relationships have suffered and, as a result, the confidence of those customers has been damaged. It's a vicious circle. The longer the customer stays away, the more cuts the operator makes, the more inferior the hotel experience becomes, the more the customer stays away. Better stop the rot now, before the whole industry becomes lethargic and depressed.
It's easy to say, but now is the time to start rebuilding relationships and restoring confidence. That doesn't have to mean cheap deals and bargain breaks (although they can help). No, it means nurturing the green shoots of recovery (to borrow a phrase from the end of a previous slump) with a re-establishment of good service where good service has been lost. Without it, the return of the good times will take that much longer.
Don't forget, your staff may be feeling lethargic and depressed but so too is the customer. Try providing a smile (figuratively speaking). It could do wonders for your business.
