I rarely talk in absolutes, but I firmly believe there are two relationships that are essential in successfully managing your hotel property: your relationship with your associates, which is cultural, and your relationship with guests, which is emotional.
The two relationships are critical and closely related because the strength of your relationship with associates will determine the success of your relationships with guests.
Psychiatrists tell us there are four basic human emotions: happiness, sadness, anger and fear. Obviously, there are hundreds of derivatives for each, but these four frame this article.
The emotional state odds suggest that 25% of your guests arrive happy and in a state of general peace, while 75% check in with an infinite number of mental and emotional anxieties depending on their life situations. They need more than mints on a pillow.
Consider the states of mind of two different couples—a young, newlywed couple celebrating their first night of marriage and an older couple needing accommodations the night before the husband will be admitted to the hospital for surgery of a life-threatening disease. These two couples have two very different emotional states.
Guests are humans, and we all want to be the center of attention and have our needs and desires met. That’s why it’s critical for associates to be aware of each guest’s emotional state (glad, sad, mad or scared). By using their own empathetic and interpersonal skills, they can engage with each guest on a human, compassionate level.
It starts with you
You can spark and nurture this behavior through your relationship with associates by creating a strong, collaborative, trusting and transparent working environment that will provide a cultural backbone and give associates the strength to deliver service and results beyond expectation. It’s our responsibility to train associates both professionally and personally.
Training professionally is by far easier, yet many businesses still ignore it. You must provide associates the tools needed to carry out their tasks professionally, expeditiously and seamlessly. You need structured and detailed hiring processes, followed by detailed, in-depth training in whichever disciplines they’ve been hired to perform.
Developing associates personally means many things beyond practicing simple good manners. We need to develop—and I do mean develop—our associates in social awareness. We must encourage and help them achieve self-awareness. It's critical because self-awareness develops self-management skills. Associates then can learn to interpret events and act accordingly, successfully dealing with each guest on an emotional level.
Through self-management, an associate becomes a person driven by the desire to please, rather than impress. This behavior results in surprising and delighting our guests in ways often unseen.
To achieve this, it requires endless commitment from you, and hours of training from the hotel owner or operator. But executed successfully, you will have an incredible hotel and guest experience that cannot be copied or mirrored by competing businesses that are unwilling to take these vital steps in service evolution.
My father once told me that people should feel better about who they are after they had met me than before. That should also be your goal for your hotel. Make your guests feel better after they’ve left than when they arrived.
Guests might forget what we say, but they will never forget how we made them feel.
I challenge you to put your operation to the test today by changing your front-desk language. When a guest checks out, don’t ask how his or her stay was—instead ask how you made him or her feel.
There is one absolute truth in hospitality: If we are not emotionally enriching others, we are not succeeding.
Euan McGlashan is cofounder and managing partner of Valor Hospitality Partners, a hotel development and management company based in Atlanta and London that owns and operates properties in the U.S., Europe, and Africa, with an additional 10 sites in various stages of negotiation, development, or construction. Additionally, a related company—PMR Hospitality Partners based in Cape Town—operates several hotels and resorts in Africa.
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