GuestRights provides hotels with a way to increase occupancy, guest loyalty and revenues

April 28, 2010, Hermosa Beach, CA – Almost every aspect of hotel marketing involves effectively conveying to a potential guest the level of service they can expect to receive at a given property.  Star ratings work on this principle, as do consumer reviews, benefit-laden brochures, travel agent recommendations and agency rankings.  The goal for any hotel is to convince a guest they will have a better experience at their property – with value taken into consideration, of course – than at their competitors’.

Though all of these marketing tools hint at service levels and give a clue as to what a guest’s experience might be, none actually guarantee any particular or precise level of service.  So imagine how beneficial it would be for a hotel to have an actual commitment to offer their guests good customer service and an improved guest experience.

GuestRights, a paid hotel membership program, is providing hotels with a way to deliver that commitment to potential guests.  For hotels, this service will prove to be invaluable as the travel market has yet to return to pre-recession levels.

By becoming member hotels and pledging their commitment to customer service, hotels receive the ability to offer guests what their competitors cannot: the assurance that their property is adhering to a specific set of service guidelines, set by an objective agency, and confirmed by fellow consumers.  This can be the difference between watching a potential guest choose another hotel, or converting that guest into a loyal customer. And all hotels will agree: repeat customers have the greatest potential for revenue so this can actually help a hotel’s bottom line.  And the results are guaranteed – GuestRights guarantees that hotels’ guest loyalty and satisfaction rates will go up within six months of adopting the program.

By allowing for consumer feedback and featuring only hotels that have agreed to uphold the Guest Bill of Rights®, a list of ten customer service principles that all member hotels must agree to uphold, the GuestRights program acts as a referral group.  In contrast to other referral groups that may be based on ownership, location, or status, the GuestRights referral group is based entirely on uniformity of service. And this, as any frequent traveler can attest, is a selective and influential fraternity indeed.

The most beneficial aspect of the GuestRights program for hotels is perhaps the emphasis it places on service.  For most hotels, the GuestRights program is a return to fundamentals: providing each guest with a great experience, consistently and accountably.  This is good for the industry as a whole; the more hotels join GuestRights, the more consistent service will become across the industry.

And that’s something every hotel can support.

For more information about GuestRights and its value to hotels, please visit www.guestrights.org.  To arrange an interview with GuestRights founder Carl Schneider, please contact Jennifer Rodrigues at jrodrigues@thinkinkpr.com or 1.305.316.3719.

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About GuestRights

GuestRights is a membership program for hotels and resorts whose purpose is to maximize the hotel guest experience and increase hotel bookings and revenues. To achieve this, GuestRights developed the Guest Bill of Rights®, a list of ten customer service principles that all GuestRights member hotels must agree to uphold.  GuestRights also offers its member hotels a CommentCard Service, which was designed to help hotels implement the new customer service mandates that the Guest Bill of Rights requires.  For more information on GuestRights and the Guest Bill of Rights®, please visit www.guestrights.org.

Taking a page from the airline’s book, hotels have begun implementing separate fees for services previously included in the room rate.  In the airline business, this process has been called the unbundling of the airfare.  While there isn’t yet a clever descriptor for the similar process in hotels, it is certainly becoming more prevalent.  Vague “resort” and “service” fees have been appearing on check-out bills, and hotels have employed new motion-sensing technology to enforce minibar consumption.  Some of these fees are imposed to make up for systemic revenue shortfalls; whereas once phone service was a significant revenue generator for hotels, the proliferation of mobile phones strangled this stream, so some hotels have taken to imposing a telephone fee, unlinked to use.

Whatever the impetus for the imposition of new fees, they are on the rise, and don’t show any sign of abating anytime soon.  For hotel owners and operators, these are important revenue lifelines in a market that still aspires only to 2008 conditions.  But what is fiscally beneficial for ownership has the potential to alienate consumers, and this is a distinction operators need to keep a good eye on.

Where, in terms of fees, is the line between prudent business practice and chiseling the customer?  Where is the balance between needed revenue and nickel and diming?

The truth is, hotels do need the new fees, just as the airlines needed to expose their core product to free up additional ancillary revenue streams.  The key for hotels is to avoid some of the mistakes the airlines made, and make those fees straightforward and included upfront in the booking path, clearly linked to tangible services, and not too egregious.  Springing an unexpected fee on a guest only at the end of their stay – as is the practice at some properties – is not conducive to repeat bookings and customer satisfaction, the two major drivers of hotel profitability.  But there are ways to implement fees without sacrificing these.

First, let’s look at some of the kinds of fees that are being implemented or considered.  The most straightforward sort of fee accompanies a clearly delineated auxiliary service.  What makes this kind of fee a fee and not an additional product or service for sale is its compulsory nature; a guest will not have a choice to decline this product or service.  Housekeeper gratuities are a good example of this sort of fee.

The second kind of fee is derived from something that used to be included in the room rate as a matter of course.  Energy surcharges fall into this category, as do in-room safe fees. This sort of fee is also largely unavoidable, and allows hotels to defray the indirect cost of lodging a given guest.

A third kind of fee spreads the cost of property upkeep to the individual guest; examples of these fees include groundskeeping fees, facilities or maintenance fees, resort fees and pool fees.  Whether or not a guest actually uses an amenity, they are assessed a blanket charge for them.

The final sort of fee isn’t really a fee at all, but a charge for various services that a guest may or may not engage in. Local phone fees, minibar charges, airport transfer fees and internet connectivity are all examples of fees that were (or are, at a different property) offered complimentarily to guests, with their cost covered by the room rate.  But since guests are not compelled to partake in these services, they are not automatically on the hook for their associated fees.

Clearly, the first and last kinds of fees are the most palatable for guests.  Vague-sounding, badly-defined charges like resort fees upset consumers, and rightly so; it is a transparent attempt to artificially lower the base room rate by separating a portion of it out.  Fees that are closely associated with a given guest’s impact on the property, like energy surcharges, are a bit more palatable, though these fees are often instituted in response to changes in supply cost (does anyone remember an energy fee before crude oil prices went through the roof?), which is also transparent to consumers.

If a hotel sticks with those fees that fall into the first and fourth categories, they can effectively keep the fee revenue stream open without running the risk of alienating their customers.  These fees are both reasonable, as they are tied specifically to auxiliary services or products.  In the case of the fourth category of fees, there is an opportunity for guests to avoid them if they care to.  These are the sorts of fees that hotels can reasonably impose, and continue to reap the benefits of repeat business and high guest satisfaction levels.

Whatever kinds of fees a hotel decides to implement, it is absolutely imperative that the hotel be up front about them.  Guests should be alerted well in advance that there is a fee associated with a particular service or product, or if a fee will be imposed regardless – as soon as the booking path.  This has a dual effect: first, if a fee is avoidable, this notification gives guests the opportunity to opt out.  Second, if a fee is compulsory, it prevents a guest from feeling bilked in the end. Of the two evils – being nickel and dimed and being outright snookered – the former is always preferable.

Hotel fees don’t have to be a Faustian bargain. By imposing reasonable, incremental fees, and by disclosing their existence clearly and early on in the booking process, consumers can be made to accept what is becoming an ever-more common practice.  By following these simple principles, hotels can have their fees, and their repeat customers and high satisfaction rates, too.

After all, isn’t your customer satisfaction just as important as additional revenue streams?

For the duration of the recession, business travel virtually came to a halt as companies cut back on almost everything outside the scope of day-to-day business.  Even though business travel can actually earn companies money, many simply choose not to make the investment in such a climate of uncertainty.

GuestRights, the California-based company that is changing the way hotels think about customer service, knows that cutting back on business travel isn’t always the best way to decrease costs and increase profits, because business travel can actually earn companies revenue.  Here are some compelling statistics:

• For every dollar invested in business travel, businesses experience an average $12.50 in increased revenue and $3.80 in new profits.
• The average U.S. business would forfeit 17 percent of its profits in the first year of eliminating business travel.  It would take over three years for profits to recover.
• A 10 percent increase in business travel spending would increase multi-factor productivity, leading to a U.S. GDP increase between 1.5 percent and 2.8 percent.[i]

Although business travel numbers are still at the same low level as last year with only one in five U.S. adults expecting to take business trips in the next six months, the number of business trips expected to take place in the same period is set to increase.[ii] It won’t be “business [travel] as usual” though, as businesses are still looking for increased ROI on every dollar spent.  It stands to reason then that by making business travel less wasteful in terms of both time and money, it will also increase the profits that the company will earn.  So corporate travel bookers need to be smart, learning from past mistakes and choosing the best hotel, with the best service at the best price for each trip they book.

Enter GuestRights Corporate…

GuestRights, a membership program for hotels with the purpose of maximizing the hotel guest experience and increasing hotel bookings and revenues, has just launched a new program for corporations called GuestRights Corporate.  The purpose of this new program is to save companies money on business travel expenses and also improve the employee travel experience, by ensuring that they receive the best level of customer service possible.

GuestRights Corporate develops a consistent reporting and tracking procedure, which is implemented following each corporate trip taken by someone within the member company.  The reports track details such as the location, hotel name, chain affiliation, issues/concerns, rate paid, quality of service, quality of amenities, among other key metrics.  Each month, the data is analyzed by GuestRights Corporate to show which hotel chains and properties resulted in the highest satisfaction levels from the employee surveys.  By taking this information into account when booking future travel, corporate bookers can determine which hotels will give the best service and experience for the company’s corporate travel buck.

Once the results have been generated, this information can be leveraged twofold: to increase the levels of customer service that the company receives from hotels and also to negotiate for better prices because the rate that corporations pay should be directly proportional to the customer service their employees receive.  GuestRights Corporate also offers consulting services designed to help corporations identify places where they could be saving money on their hotel stays and advocates for the member company in hotel negotiations.

GuestRights Corporate offers member companies – some of whom spend millions of dollars a year on corporate travel – a way to minimize the expenditures of corporate travel, while maximizing the profit earned from these trips.  For a limited time, corporations will receive a complimentary survey of all their travelling employees and a report analyzing the data.  As well, the report will offer suggestions on how corporate travel expenses can be decreased. To find out more about the new GuestRights Corporate program or to sign up to receive the free report, please visit www.GuestRightsCorporate.com.

To arrange an interview with Carl Schneider, founder of GuestRights Corporate, to discuss further, please contact Jennifer Rodrigues at jrodrigues@thinkinkpr.com or +1.305.316.3719.

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About GuestRights Corporate

GuestRights Corporate offers a corporate travel program, which helps corporations identify the best hotels/resorts for their business travel needs, and facilitates a better business travel experience through the Guest Bill of Rights®, a list of ten customer service principles that GuestRights member hotels agree to uphold. To find out more about the new GuestRights Corporate program or to sign up to receive the free report, please visit www.GuestRightsCorporate.com.

[ii] travelhorizons^TM, July 2009

I have a (hotel-related) dream. A dream that every hotel – no matter the star rating, the geographical location or the amenities – puts a priority on customer service.

And not just as a slogan or advertising campaign, but really putting in the effort to make sure that each customer is happy and enjoys their hotel stay.  And that goes beyond just “please” and “thank you”.  In my dream, customer service is something offered to each guest, no matter the day or time, no matter the guest’s attitude or request and no matter the person offering the service.  Good customer service isn’t defined by a certain set of actions; instead, it is defined by the end result, how the customer feels after checking out of a hotel.

In today’s world of distrust, hotels who really do care about their customers will stand out from the sea of properties offering only a bed for customers’ to lay their heads down at the end of the day.  They will get more bookings, more repeat customers, more revenues – and at the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?

Although most hotels worldwide know the importance of customer service, and put it into practice each and every day, there are still those properties that make the rest of us look bad.  Dirty rooms, misleading advertising, broken amenities, rude employees – they don’t worry about repeat customers (even though everyone knows that is where hotels can make the most money) and instead just settle for the dollars that they can get from the poor customers that they have duped into booking their property.  And until recently, there was no regulation or governing body to make sure that that hotels were sticking to the rules of customer service.

That’s where GuestRights comes in.

GuestRights is a paid membership service for hotels that realize the value (both in terms of repeat customers and dollars) of customer service and importance of maintaining high guest satisfaction levels.  The program is designed to provide hotels with a way to communicate their membership to guests and potential guests, improving their occupancy rates and revenues.

And then there’s the trust factor.  Trust is a very important part of financial success in today’s highly competitive travel market.  Think about it this way… if a consumer were offered two identical properties at identical prices but one was a GuestRights member (which means that they were guaranteeing good customer service), which property do you think that they will book with?

So let’s all join together and do what it takes to make my dream a reality.  Pledge your commitment to good customer service and join GuestRights today.  Visit www.guestrights.org to fill out the membership form and get started today.

If you are working in the service industry, I know that you’ve heard the age-old rule that “the customer is always right”.  I’m here today to reject that notion!

Strange comment, especially from someone whose company is designed to improve consumers’ hotel experiences (while making the hotel additional bookings and revenues, of course).  It seems to go against everything that I believe in and support so strongly. The truth is that upholding guest rights doesn’t have to be synonymous with always giving in.

First, let’s look at the definition of customer service according to a variety of sources:

“Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.” [i]

“Customer service is about treating others as you would like to be treated yourself.” [ii]

“Taking care of your customers, their needs and desires in a professional and courteous manner.” [iii]

Nowhere in any of those definitions (or any of the hundreds of other ones I found online), did anyone define good customer service as “the act of always giving a customer what they want”.  While, of course, we want to try to please our customers and give them what they want and need whenever possible, it just isn’t always possible.

Today’s consumers are smart.  They know what to do to get what they want and what they feel like they deserve.  And in some cases, what they want is a free room and free food and anything else they can get.  But if a hotel gave a comped room to every single guest that complains about something – be it a serious problem or an imagined one – hotels will be at 100% occupancy but $0 ADR – not a good thing for hotelier’s pocketbooks.

Obviously good customer service doesn’t mean giving away the house; instead, my definition of customer service focuses on the following principles:

Politeness Pays

One of the basics of good customer service is politeness and attentiveness to your guests’ needs.  Seems pretty obvious but often, because of a bad day or an overabundance of work, politeness is the first thing to go out the window.  Good customer service means always being polite.  That doesn’t mean chatting and sharing your life story with each customer but it does mean saying please and thank you, being friendly and listening to what they have to say.  Patience is also an important part of politeness; impatience is never polite and shouldn’t be a part of a hotel employee’s customer service attitude at any time.

Think Beyond the Band-Aid Solution

If a customer comes to you with a problem, rather than just sweeping it under the rug and giving the guest something for free to make them happy, why not look at the complaint as an opportunity to improve your hotel’s offerings.  By consistently addressing customer concerns and improving the property as needed, you are guaranteed to increase your guest satisfaction rates (thereby increasing revenues as those repeat customers are the most profitable for hotels).

How to Say No the Nice Way

Like I said, you can’t always give a customer what they want.  But it is up to hotel management to do the best they can to accommodate and please each guest, no matter how big or seemingly small the problem is.

And if you have to say no, there are good and bad ways to do it:

Bad: “No.”

Good: “I understand your concern.  Unfortunately though, I am not able to [INSERT GUEST REQUEST HERE] but I can offer you this instead.  I hope that will make your stay with us more enjoyable.”

Saying no isn’t always a bad thing but if it’s said the wrong way, consumers will leave your property with a bad taste in their mouths.  Learning how to listen to a customer’s problem, showing real concern and addressing the issue as quickly as possible and to the best of your ability (whether you can give them the comped room that they are demanding or not), will go a long way to creating satisfied customers in the long run.

As you can see, my definition of customer service focuses on being polite, attentive, solving problems whenever possible and, even when you have to say no, respecting and caring about your customers’ happiness and well-being.   That doesn’t mean giving away rooms, meals or souvenirs; good customer service can stand on its own.

So let’s all adopt a new adage:

“Customer service is always right.”

About GuestRights

GuestRights is a membership program for hotels and resorts whose purpose is to maximize the hotel guest experience and increase hotel bookings and revenues. To achieve this, GuestRights developed the Guest Bill of Rights®, a list of ten customer service principles that all GuestRights member hotels must agree to uphold.  GuestRights also offers its member hotels a CommentCard Service and a Dispute Resolution Service, which were designed to help hotels implement the new customer service mandates that the Guest Bill of Rights requires.  For more information on GuestRights and the Guest Bill of Rights®, please visit www.guestrights.org. A limited number of complimentary hotel memberships are available for properties willing to honor and uphold the Guest Bill of Rights.  To sign up for a charter membership, please email Carl Schneider at carl.sch@guestrights.org.

[ii] www.admin.state.nh.us/hr/documents/Workforce_Development/worforce_development_definitions.doc

[iii] http://regentpress.typepad.com/mlmmarketing/2009/07/direct-sales-beginners-dictionary-part-1.html

GuestRights founder, Carl Schneider, offers the top 5 list of the worst hotel customer service no-no’s:

• Cutting back on essential services to save a buck. Money is tight in today’s weak travel market and, of course, hotels need to cut back on expenses just to survive.  This is totally understandable!  But in recent months, we’ve heard news of hotels that cut back on housekeeping services and only cleaned the bed sheets after every other guest stay.  That is totally unacceptable!

Cutting back on landscaping costs or eliminating value-adds makes sense. Eliminating something as vital and basic to a hotel as the cleanliness of the rooms, however, is just plain detrimental to the property’s continued success and economic profitability.

Let’s hope the hotels from TripAdvisor’s recent list of the 10 Dirtiest Hotels are paying attention to this one!

• Untruths in marketing. Has your property ever promised five-star service and only offered two-star?  Have you claimed to be a guest-favorite (when your reviews show anything but!)?  Have you been marketing your three pools, two hot tubs and fabulous amenities, when only one pool is in working order, the hot tubs are more like lukewarm-tubs and the amenities are much worse for wear?  If so, this is definitely a customer service no-no.  Consumers have decided to book with your hotel (partly because of the price) but also because of the amenities that you (claim to) offer.  By misleading the consumer, hotels are setting themselves up for complaints and negative reviews. 

• Just Plain Rude. This one may seem redundant but good customer service is more than just providing customers with a particular service, whether it be booking a reservation or cleaning a room.  Every hotel should train its staff on the basics of customer service – friendliness, politeness, patience and the ability to listen.  These skills will go a long way in making sure that each guest that enters your property leaves feeling taken care of and happy.

It’s also important to note that hotels cannot always please every guest.  When something is beyond your control or when an issue just cannot be resolved to the guest’s satisfaction, it is important for hotel employees to know how to deliver the message in an effective way – one that will calm the guest down while making them feel that their concern was important to you and your team.  This may be the difference between a scathing and a satisfied review.

• Disappearing Reservations. This one is pretty simple – when guests make a reservation (and have a confirmation number to prove it), but your system doesn’t recognize it, take the guest’s word for it and find a solution.  If you’re completely booked, it is very important that you go out of your way to make it up to the guest because, more than likely, it was your property or your hotel reservation system’s fault.  Is there a hotel that you partner with?  A sister property nearby?  If not, do your best to call around to a few nearby properties and ask if they have availability.  Explain the situation and see if they can give them a discount or a good rate because of the situation that they are now in.  Hopefully, the hotel will be following GuestRights’ rules on good customer service and will do their best to help you and the guest out.

• Hidden Fees. Hidden fees are the ultimate customer service no-no.  Nothing will upset a guest faster than a surprise on the bill at the end of their stay.  No matter how positive the guest felt about the property beforehand, afterwards they will have nothing good to say about the experience.

GuestRights knows that hotels have to charge fees to help cover their costs or to pay for those things that guests use outside of the standard room, but the fees should never, ever come as a surprise.  When booking, hotels should provide consumers a full explanation of all fees so that they are prepared for the charges that they see when checking out.

And during their stay, if guests are incurring additional charges, hotels should be informing them and asking for approval on these charges as they arise.  By following these guidelines, hotels can avoid the ultimate customer service no-no.

About GuestRights

GuestRights is a membership program for hotels and resorts whose purpose is to maximize the hotel guest experience and increase hotel bookings and revenues. To achieve this, GuestRights developed the Guest Bill of Rights®, a list of ten customer service principles that all GuestRights member hotels must agree to uphold.  GuestRights also offers its member hotels a CommentCard Service and a Dispute Resolution Service, which were designed to help hotels implement the new customer service mandates that the Guest Bill of Rights demands. A limited number of complimentary hotel memberships are available for properties willing to honor and uphold the Guest Bill of Rights.  To sign up for a charter membership, please email Carl Schneider at carl.sch@guestrights.org.  For more information on GuestRights and the Guest Bill of Rights®, please visit www.guestrights.org.

About Carl Schneider

Carl Schneider, founder of GuestRights, is the very definition of well-traveled. The renowned commercial photographer has spent the better part of his career trotting around the globe, in pursuit of the perfect scene, the perfect shot, staying in hotel after hotel. In his travels, Carl experienced the entire spectrum of hotel service, from multi-star resorts with impeccable service and miles of amenities to no-frills lodgings that offered little more than shelter from the elements.  In logging more than 20 years on the road, what struck Carl most was the almost complete lack of consistency in the standards of guest service at places of lodging.  It didn’t seem to matter in which country he was, or what room rate he was paying, or if it was a chain or boutique hotel – many places simply didn’t keep up their end of the bargain.  And when Carl arrived in Hawaii on a family vacation only to find his reserved resort unable to provide the amenities it advertised, he decided it was time to do something about it. And so GuestRights was born. Carl continues to travel extensively, and resides in Hermosa Beach, CA with his family.

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