H&C News has long recognised that ‘Guest experience’ is a vital issue for the hospitality industry, and nowhere more than for hotels, where there are so many opportunities to please – or dismay – guests. There are so many touch points – from researching and then booking, through to the stay itself, check out and departure – that can and should be positive ones.
Sally Beck has recently been appointed Hotel Manager at Lancaster London where she is responsible for the operation of one of the largest banqueting hotels in Europe, catering for up to 3,000 guests. The hotel also has 416 guestrooms with stunning views over Hyde Park, as well as two restaurants – ample opportunities to seek to ‘delight’ the guests.
H&C News is therefore very pleased to have persuaded Sally Beck to share with us her thoughts on ‘Guest experience’ and the Lancaster London approach to delivering high guest expectations.
The experience of guests whilst staying at a hotel has many touch points: how do you ensure that the overall guest experience at every touch point is of the standard your guests expect and is consistent?
At the Lancaster London our Vision statement is ‘We always care….’ To achieve our vision, all of our colleagues in the hotel are empowered to exceed guest expectation at every touch point. We have an extensive level of standard operating procedures to help us with a consistency of delivery in exceeding those expectations.
As we believe there is no upper limit to excellent service, we drive ourselves to deliver beyond the constraints of our four black star status and aspire to deliver 5 red star service standards, and we have the following in place and monitored through AA mystery guests inspections:
– Extensive Red Star service standards in place for all departments with an emphasis on hospitality and touch points
– Fortnightly quality focus group meetings to assess overall guest satisfaction including review of net promoter score feedback sheets
– Memorable Moments comments from guests are an agenda item at this meeting
What do you consider constitutes ‘excellent’ guest experience in a hotel?
This is where we deliver memorable moments to the guest that stay with them beyond the life of their stay and that give them the desire to talk about us to their friends and to come back to us on their next visit. The ultimate test of any stay is: would our guest recommend us to their friends and family when staying in London. We need to be memorable, and to be memorable we need to connect with the guest in a meaningful way that enhances that guest’s experience.
We are talking here beyond the basics of eye contact and use of guest name, which is expected; we strive to make a meaningful connection with that guest to enhance their experience with us.
Are guest expectations changing in your hotel?
Indeed they are. Guests are multi-tasking: working whilst on a leisure stay, travelling with families whilst on business, and generally maximising their time in the busy commercial world we live in. We need to be able to anticipate and deliver to all of these expectations in a meaningful way.
Is your hotel experience in keeping with the home, business and lifestyle experience of your guests?
Definitely. I have worked in many four and five star hotels in central London over the last 25 years and come from a long line of hoteliers in my family. I am a working mother of two, multi-tasking, juggling, and making everything I do in a day count – this is how I live my life. I believe that is very similar to our guests.
Are technology expectations growing as fast as technology and communication are developing?
In some ways expectations are growing faster: when the Lancaster London had its last upgrade of the rooms, we put in the most up-to-date cabling to ensure that we had the best opportunity to give our guests what they needed to connect to their chosen gadget. Now, technology and communication options have exceeded that cabling in some aspects.
One of the issues is the range of choice in communication for the guests. Some of our guests are early adopters of technology and some are at the other end of the spectrum: we need to deliver a service that satisfies all.
We are currently in the process of developing our first prototype room for our next room upgrade, and it is important that we future proof as much as we can by putting in the right technology going forward.
How important is personal service, booking, checking in, room service, restaurant, concierge?
The staff-less hotel is now here, with the guest having no need to actually interact with any hotel team member by using credit card check in and mobile phone key cards. But, as much as that technology exists, I am still firmly of the belief that our industry is still very much a people industry where personalised service is very important.
The automation that has improved the booking process of rooms and restaurants has done a lot of good for our industry in bringing us closer to our customer, and less reliant on third parties within the booking process. We are now able to contact the client directly to ensure that we can enhance their experience with us, which previously was more difficult
What is the most important element of your hotel’s delivery of guest experience?
The key is the fact that our colleagues are all engaged in delivering above the guest expectations and are empowered to make it happen. We operate an inverted hierarchy where all of the senior team work hard to support the front line colleagues to deliver beyond guest and colleague expectation. This has immeasurably improved our guest experience and feedback in the last 2 years.
Do you measure guest experience and, if so, how?
We measure daily by using the following review systems:
– New Promoter Score system with ultimate question in place
– Review Pro
– AA Quarterly Mystery Guests Audits
– Tripadvisor/DM Log/ e-mails, etc
Finally, do you anticipate guest expectations changing in the next 1-2 years?
I think that our guests will always want to feel special and to be treated as individuals; it is our job to constantly evolve our service to connect on a human level at all touch points to make that positive impact. We need our teams to have an emotional intelligence that enables them to connect naturally.
About Sally Beck
Prior to joining Lancaster London, Sally was the Marketing Director of Lancaster London’s five-star sister property, The Landmark London, combining this role with that of General Manager of Basil Street Apartments in Knightsbridge, as well as being a Director of her own consulting business Purple Summit, which provides consulting to independent hoteliers.
Before joining the Lancaster Landmark Hotel Company, Sally’s career encompassed Director of Sales & Marketing at ARAMARK, Director of Sales & Marketing at Royal Garden Hotel, and Director of Sales & Marketing at Conrad London.
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