Hotel & Motel Management - September 3, 2007 - (Page 24)

24 News H&MM September 3, 2007 | HotelMotel.com www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition Guest satisfaction Continued from page 1 tween May 2006 and June 2007. Guest satisfaction metrics are making headlines this year, since the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index results showed a decrease in customer satisfaction, while the Market Metrix Hospitality Index showed the opposite [“Guest satisfaction results spur hotels to act,” June 18 issue, page 1]. “It’s a robust market again,” Hirneise said. “We’ve seen average daily rate growth, and lots of shakeup in the industry relative to ownership shifts. There’s been a lot of distraction.” Despite any behindthe-scenes industry shakeups, Hirneise pointed out that customers simply don’t care—they Hirneise want troubleJ.D. POWER free experiences at hotels. “When we look at overall satisfaction, we look across the entire hotel experience, including reservations, check-in, room satisfaction, hotel services and facilities,” Hirneise said. “When I listen to hotel companies, I hear, ‘Linda, we think satisfaction is about the quality of our people and service.’” cal product that we lost time training on service excellence.” Hirneise said staff attitude is a frequently reported problem among hotel guests. “It’s one thing to say room cleanliness [is a problem], or noise, but for staff attitude to keep coming up as a problem is almost inexcusable,” she said. “This wasn’t such a problem in the past.” Kennedy predicted the next wave of customer service training will focus on true one-on-one connections between hotel staff and guests, rather than automated responses. “The smart hotels are training on creating empathy and understanding of what guests are going through,” he said. “Instead of training hospitality as a communications technique—like saying a guest’s name three times— hotels are training hospitality as North America guest satisfaction index score* 2007 2006 2005 Luxury Upscale Midscale full-service Midscale limited-service Economy/budget Extended-stay * All scores out of 1,000 2004 815 784 745 770 684 778 811 788 746 772 690 786 814 773 737 761 685 781 800 764 723 750 673 779 Source: J.D. Power and Associates More Emmy Nominations ® Service counts Service and overall guest satisfaction are highly correlated, she said. “At some point in time, we may get to price and product parity; we could be close to that now,” she said. “The key differentiator is always going to be the quality of service. That’s property controllable.” Doug Kennedy, president of Kennedy Training Network, said service is a continuous challenge, particularly with so much attention focused on physical amenities. “Guest satisfaction relates to three areas: the property, the service efﬁciency and the hospitality component itself,” he said. “We’ve done a great job focusing on the physical product and focusing on service efﬁciency, but we spend so much time training on the physi- HBO 86 ABC NBC CBS FOX PBS AMC SHO DISCOVERY COMEDY, USA 70 69 44 28 24 18 17 16 12 http://HotelMotel.com http://www.HotelMotel.com/digital_edition

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Hotel & Motel Management - September 3, 2007

Cover Contents Convention Centers Add Bells and Whistles Questex Media acquires Five Star Alliance Perspective At Your Risk Energy Star Update Sales Clinic Transactions Awards Trends & Stats Wireless Networking Northwest Pipeline Coffee Services Ad/Editorial Index Marketplace Classifieds Checking Out

Hotel & Motel Management - September 3, 2007

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