fewer customer complaints you’ll have to dig your way out of.” In the end, leading through hospitality is a commonsense formula for success and offers ways for making all of us smile just a bit more often.
Understanding the Basics
Isn’t it wonderful to find a product you love? When I think about it, the mattress I’m currently using is spectacular and well worth the premium I paid for a good night’s sleep. However, after about a year, I started noticing some inconsistencies in the structure of the product. Some parts felt worn and uneven and I wasn’t sleeping as soundly, so I called the store where I purchased the mattress to discuss the issue. Prior to the call, I found the receipt and noticed it had a ten-year warranty that said I was entitled to a full replacement if the mattress was defective, which it seemed to be. However, after speaking with a young and inexperienced salesperson, I could immediately tell that resolving my problem wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, it took multiple calls over several weeks before the company finally accepted responsibility for the product failure. Even though I got what I wanted (and was entitled to), by the end of the ordeal I wasn’t relieved or thankful. I was extremely irritated.
Here’s how this example should be illustrative for every company in the service economy, including yours. The hassle of taking time out of my day to repeatedly deal with the matter soured me on the company to such an extent that I will never purchase a similar mattress again even though it is by far the best one I’ve ever had. While this is a simple example, it highlights the reality that the “best in class” service providers have already figured out: wonderful products are nothing without exceptional service.
Hospitality Leading the Way
Unlike many other industries, the hospitality industry is built on the relationship between an organization—whether a restaurant, hotel, or even a casino—and its target customer. Moreover, hospitality businesses have had to focus on customer service for years to retain and broaden their customer base. As a result, these organizations have developed significant systems and points of service that not only differentiate them from each other but also from the rest of the service economy.
In many cases, exceptional customer service providers in the hospitality industry must navigate constant internal physical and interpersonal constraints while simultaneously managing the expectations of their customers. The only way hospitality companies have been able to meet high expectations is to create standardized, purposeful customer service training that continues every day for as long as the company is in business. This is one of the many philosophies you will encounter throughout this book. Great organizations do not stop after the initial training is over; success is an ongoing, iterative process that is expensive initially but pays off tenfold over the long haul by developing and then keeping loyal customers.
For example, at Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, a 150-venue restaurant group profiled in this book, there is a daily staff meeting before each meal service. Expectations for the day are outlined, VIP customers identified, new menu items discussed, and so on. This daily, ten-minute, customer service training session happens at every Lettuce Entertainment restaurant, in more or less the same way, every day, across the country.
Fortunately for the rest of us, the standards and practices highlighted in this book can benefit organizations beyond the hospitality sector. The companies profiled in this book, such as Lettuce Entertain You, Union Square Hospitality Group, and Hyatt, are industry leaders and have been for a long time, but their methods are universal. These companies have developed sophisticated tools to ensure that each of their customers feel valued and appreciated, but these tools can be adopted by any company that wants to improve their customer service.
Some might argue that as technology streamlines our relationship to products, hospitality is less relevant, but I think the reverse is true. In our impersonal world, our natural need for recognition and appreciation makes the need for empathy and action that much more critical. Loyal customers are profit-driving customers. Loyal customers spend more over time and require little, if any, incentives to return again and again for the same quality and the same service. That’s why my experience with the mattress is so illustrative. If the company had solved my problem after the first phone call, they would have earned a customer for life instead of losing one.
Through a series of conversations and case studies, we’ll discuss some time-proven best practices from hospitality organizations and other industries within the service sector. Some of these studies focus on the company’s internal customers—their employees—and demonstrate the value of training and building a culture around hospitality. Other studies review the relationship between consumers and providers to explain the intrinsic connection between long-term loyalty and profit. To help you realize these goals, the book outlines purposeful management strategies that emphasize the importance of leveraging hospitality training throughout the service economy, especially at a time when the dynamics of the workforce are changing quickly and radically.
The challenges of today will only intensify over the coming years as an increasing number of baby boomers and other more experienced employees leave the workforce. Most people (but not all, as you will see) agree that the generation currently entering the workforce arrives with different expectations, and employers can either try and fight the new reality or adapt and improve, especially when it comes to quality service delivery. But despite what you may have heard—or experienced—this is an exciting time. Changes in the workplace and customer expectations are evolving quickly, and the stories in this book reveal worthwhile ideas—some simple, some complex—about how to improve workplace culture and, ultimately, deliver meaning to employees and customers alike.
Products and Services
In order to clearly understand the concepts in this book, it’s important to distinguish between “products” and “services,” especially because the transition to a more service-based economy has created such dramatic shifts in the consumer landscape. The definition of “product” is pretty straightforward: it’s something that can be inventoried, patented, and even displayed: anything from a hotel room or a pair of shoes to an online accounting service or a sticker. All mass-produced products are designed to be consistent and are defined by price, promotions, placement, and other tangible factors.
“Services,” on the other hand, are less easily defined because they cannot be inventoried and are inconsistent and fleeting. The waiter bringing your coffee, the housekeeper cleaning your hotel room, and the airline representative rebooking your flight all offer services, which create both challenges and opportunities. Organizations with high-quality customer service recognize the difference between their products and their associated services. Those that excel and keep your loyalty despite unforeseen problems mitigate many of the challenges inherent in the products by acting with empathy during the service encounter.
A Brief History Lesson
Before we dig into the interviews and case studies, some background is in order. Our best chance of understanding the challenges service providers face today, as well as those they will face in the future, is to examine the not-so-distant past. The transition from pre- to post-industrial times necessitated a new approach to customer service, and it has been continually evolving ever since, even though some key lessons have been either hard-fought or ignored.
In the interest of brevity, let’s focus on a representative example of many of the changes that have occurred over the past century: Bell Labs. A key player in the products and services industry, the company formed in 1925, when four thousand scientists and researchers from Western Electric Company and the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) were pulled into a new company: Bell Telephone Laboratories. Like Apple or Google in Silicon Valley today, Bell Labs was considered the premier tech company in the country and was as influential in the psyche of the American consumer. Bell Labs was revolutionary for its day, servicing such entities as the telephone company and the US Government. Like Tesla, Amazon, and scores of
