It’s not what showed up on the recent Hilton Hotels Corp. ratings that put the Fairlawn Hilton in first place. It’s what didn’t show up: specifically, problems. The Hilton Akron/Fairlawn came in No.1 nationally in the category of “nonexperience of problems” in the corporation’s latest customer satisfaction survey. The rating reflects the number of reported problems experienced at each hotel.
While many managers give lip service to the value of good customer service, Fairlawn Hilton General Manager Tim Winter practices what he preaches.
Here are some of the practices he’s put into play that helped his hotel garner that ranking:
1. Really using the customer comment card system.
“Over the last 18 months, we’ve been focused on our customer comment cards,” Winter says.
While the corporation tracks the results of these cards for all its hotels, Winter keeps a strict eye on what shows up on his.
“There’s always going to be a light bulb burning out that we can’t control,” he says. “But if there’s something that we’ve seen a couple of guests comment on, we investigate it and try to correct it and eliminate it as a problem.”
Several comments on a lack of snooze bars on the hotel’s clock radios and poorly draining bathtubs brought immediate action. The radios were replaced and a chemical is put through the tubs weekly.
The comment cards were also recently redesigned to be easier on both the user and the manager collecting the responses. For one, the address line was eliminated, so follow-ups are made more quickly via a personal phone call.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time they’re absolutely flabbergasted that I’ve called. That somebody read their comment card,” says Winter.
The cards now take about 30 seconds to fill out, and at the same time, provide more detail about each topic. This is possible because the hotel distributes nine different cards, each dealing with a specific area of the hotel. On one stay, you might get a card asking about the comfort of your bed and pillow, and on the next you may be questioned about room service.
2. Training every member of the staff how to draw out feedback.
“It starts at the front desk, with the staff getting to know the guests coming regularly and opening up some dialog,” says Winter.
Most guests will choose not to complain about a problem, because it makes them appear to be troublemakers, he says.
Winter says that comment cards normally only reflect the 10 percent of guests who had real problems, and the 10 percent who were extremely happy.
“It’s that middle 80 percent that we’ve tried to focus on, because those are the people that come month after month, who may not say anything. But they’re the ones who stay here regularly, and they know what we do right and what we do wrong.”
Winter says it’s important for every member of the staff to be open to hearing complaints, and to be very positive about them. An easy way to start that dialog is by simply asking, “Did you enjoy your visit?” he says.
“In the beginning, especially after you get yelled at a few times, you dread a guest interaction, because you think it’s going to be ugly,” he says. “But if you start changing your thinking to ‘Wow, here’s an opportunity,’ instead of ‘Here’s a problem,’ it goes over much better.”
3. Holding monthly breakfasts with regular guests.
Winter picks 10 to 12 guests out of the reservation books every month to have breakfast with, and has his front office manager send them an invitation on the day of their arrival. This casual, friendly setting often draws out feedback that Winter wouldn’t necessarily have read about on a comment card or heard about from a front desk clerk.
“From those breakfasts, I’ve learned things about the hotel that I didn’t realize,” he says. At one breakfast, he was told the fitness equipment was getting too old, not something a guest would normally take the time to complain about. But the concern prompted a $10,000 budget allocation to buy new equipment.
4. Hiring the best people in the industry. And paying to keep them.
“When we say we want the best, we’re willing to pay for it,” says Winter. “We want our maids to have the best benefits package in the city because we want our rooms to be the cleanest.”
Enough said.