For UK Hoteliers Serious About Driving More Bookings
The Wow Guest Newsletter June 2013
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Contents
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et’s dispel a vicious rumour circulating around our industry - Wowing Guests is not difficult. When I find myself in conversations with hoteliers words like ‘elusive’ are used to describe delivering a wow experience. Well, it’s neither elusive, nor is it difficult. If we’re talking about wowing guests on a consistent basis – now we’re ramping up on the difficulty scale; not – I hasten to add – impossible though. The reality is, by tweaking a couple of things and putting in some thought, you can achieve something really remarkable for your guests – here’s how:
1. SURPRISE YOUR GUEST Every business should have its unique selling points – yours might be your location, your price or if you’re lucky enough your Michelin rated restaurant downstairs. Well the same is true for the experience you deliver. Chances are your business USP got you the customer in the first place – your experience USP will get your guests talking about you, long after they leave you. What I’m referring to is the standard procedures or touch points associated with a hotel experience – I’m talking confirmation, check-in, breakfast, check-out, feedback request. 95% of hotels do it all the same with little variation; meaning that in your customer’s mind you’re exactly the same as every other hotel they have ever stayed in. Just to clarify, this is NOT a good place to be. By doing something different, something surprising that the guest was simply not expecting you break through that clutter and get all the important ‘stand-out’. A very simple, very easy and very surprising way of doing this is to engage with your guest via text message. The industry standard open rate is currently 20.4% so broadly 4 out of 5 of every email you send never gets read. The open rate for text message is more like 90%. You can try it today – when your guests have checked in, drop them a text message and wish them a happy stay.
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Bragging board What you missed
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2. BE PERSONAL It doesn’t take much to be personal, you just need to know a little about your guest. On the most basic level, you will know their name. Thankfully that’s the most personal piece of information we have as people. When someone knows your name, and you didn’t expect them too, it evokes a feeling of happiness. It also demonstrates that that person cares enough about you to bother to know and learn your name. It also makes whatever you put in writing much more meaningful and personal. Nobody wants to be greeted with a ‘Dear Guest’ followed by a load of waffle about offering a wonderful and hospitable stay – if they meant it, they’d take the 2 minutes to write Dear Mr Hamadache and print it out! So I’ll leave you this month with one of the most powerful WOW Moments we have – Wow Moment 5 – greet your guests on arrival with a personally addressed letter inside a sealed envelope. Hand it to them on arrival and use it showcase your facilities, wish them a pleasant stay and sign it from yourself, ideally you’ll hand-scribble the signature. It’ll take you a few minutes but it’s not difficult, it will WOW your guests and most importantly you would have moved out of the 95% group, and into the ‘standout’ 5%. Good luck and see you next month.
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Elizabeth Marsh talks floral design strategy Forthcoming events
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Monthly WOW moment Q&A What’s on at PMPM hotel marketing Coming next month
“ Every day we’re saying ‘How can we keep this customer happy? How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this? … because if we don’t, somebody else will. ” Bill Gates “ There is a spiritual aspect to our lives – when we give we receive – when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them! ” Ben Cohen, Ben & Jerry’s
www.wowguest.com The Wow Guest Newsletter June 2013
For UK Hoteliers Serious About Driving More Bookings
Thanks for attending! Bragging Board ! A special thanks to all the hoteliers that went to watch Adam share the ‘WOW Guest’ philosophy at The Hotel Summit in May.
Matthias Muller
Stephen Fearnley
Christine Hartigan
Alison Gordon
David Smurthwaite
Ryan Docherty
Tracey Wheatley
Michelle Hammond
Nick Judd
Sudhir Punhani
Shane Giles
Anjana Pandya
Mala Gill
Deema Sahyoun
Marilyn Hall
Claude Berquier
Deborah Heather
Mahmood Badrudin
Crystal Mazzali
Alastair Bell
Dorcas de Koning
Bernhard Raemaekers
Jitu Patani
Jonathan Shepherd
Ikram Whaid
Ray Shannon
Amby Tatla
Charlie Limratana
Sam Simons
Christopher Durant
Arnold Schnegg
Lynsey Kettlewell
Tim Seward
Danielle Hodge
Claudio de Sario
Dannie Taylor
Glenn Fletcher
Hannah Tierney
Joseph Lilley
Tarnia Robertson
Marco Estevez
Nigel Ostime
Kathy Cousins
Gordon Burniston
Mike Norton
Alasdair Swan
James Nettleton
Daniel Alderson - Smith
Amin Sheikh
Angela Dingle
OUR SHAMELESS ‘LOOK AT US’ BOARD – HERE’S WHAT’S BEEN SAID ABOUT THE WOW GUEST GROUP OVER THE LAST MONTH.
“Adam was new to this year’s Hotel Summit and went down a storm, the hoteliers loved his new ideas and said they found him interesting and a great help to their business. Adam’s seminar was the most popular out of the two days and I think we definitely saved the best till last on this occasion.” Katie Kingsbury, The Hotel Summit
as ar w n i sem o ini cive t gic m u r lo You y cond iness iers! s r e u e v nd b t hot l sou sed a . sed focu res p in, s im r ud otel d I wa a B rt H u ood hm ter Co a M cas Lan
What you missed... ! Last month Adam was asked to host a seminar at The Hotel Summit on what else but the art of wowing guests! It proved popular with 50 of the 75 hoteliers attending the conference taking time out of their scheduled meetings to hear our founder speak. We announced Adam’s pre launch tour of his hotly anticipated book “Give Your Guest A
WOW!” with “Lunch ‘n’ Learn” sessions taking place all over the country. No more than 15 independent hoteliers will join Adam for an
www.wowguest.com The Wow Guest Newsletter June 2013
intimate lunch, to learn just why WOWING GUESTS is just so important in these challenging times, plus he’ll be sharing his top tips for using WOW Moments to directly impact sales – check out page 3 to find out where these unmissable events will be taking place.
For UK Hoteliers Serious About Driving More Bookings
Turning flowers
DIARY DATES THE UK PRE-LAUNCH BOOK TOUR
From an expense into a strategic investment
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here are two problems facing the hospitality sector today. Firstly, with new hotels and restaurants opening every week, competition is fiercer than ever to ‘wow’ guests and win their loyalty. Secondly, with budgets being squeezed ever tighter, every expense needs to be scrutinised and justified. And yet, despite this the top hotels do not cut their flower budgets! Why not? Psychologists have demonstrated that flowers have both an immediate and long term impact on the wellbeing of their guests. This in turn creates that unquantifiable feel-good factor that keeps them coming back. So what to do? Well, the most important thing is to make sure that the money spent on flowers and plants is invested rather than spent. What is the difference? Expenses are handled by the procurement staff with a brief to keep them to the bare minimum and thus to shave money off the bottom line and increase the profitability of the company overall. “Psychologists say flowers have an immediate and longterm impact on the wellbeing of guests” However, flowers when done badly either have little impact or, worse, have a negative impact on the guests who they are supposed to impress. Taking the glass half full view, flowers can (and should) be seen as an investment rather than an expense. You see, if we look at the result you want to achieve from your flowers; be that a sense of happiness or wellbeing or something more tangible like
In the run up to the launch of Give Your Guest A WOW! Adam will be running intimate sessions for a Lunch ‘n’ Learn! These unique, informal and intimate sessions will give hoteliers the chance to ask key questions about delivering a WOW experience, learn about the key trends and interact with industry peers. Tuesday 25th June Lunch ‘n’ Learn London Tuesday 2nd July Lunch ‘n’ Learn London
having guests take a picture of the flowers and upload to Facebook; It’s a far better strategy to work out the amount needed to be invested in order to achieve that, as opposed to spending ‘whatever’s left’. This ‘investment mind-set’ opens up all sorts of exciting avenues and opportunities to promote your hotel – the most dominant being a small army of guests eagerly sharing the pictures of your floral arrangements with friends and through social media channels. After all, what price would you place on a free Facebook page advertisement? Taking this one step further to look at the company’s values, it’s important to consider the style of flowers that would most closely represent them. You’ll also want to consider the type of customers you currently attract and those types you’d like to attract more of. Flowers can be used to attract a different sector of the market and bring in business from different areas, provided of course the right strategy is in place.
Elizabeth Marsh ! Elizabeth Marsh, founder of award-winning Elizabeth Marsh Floral Design has been wowing hotel guests for over 25 years. With a long list of 5 star clients in London, her unique displays have become infamous for the powerful wowing affect and lasting impressions they leave with guests. @ElizabethMarsh3; @ElizabethAMarsh; Facebook.com/EMFDLondon; pinterest.com/ElizabethMarsh3; instargram.com/emfdlondon; Linkedin.com/in/elizabethmarshfd
Thursday 4th July UT Lunch ‘n’ Learn D O London
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Wednesday 10th July Lunch ‘n’ Learn Brighton Thursday 11th July Lunch ‘n’ Learn Bournemouth Tuesday 16th July Lunch ‘n’ Learn Oxford Wednesday 17th July Lunch ‘n’ Learn Manchester Thursday 18th July T Lunch ‘n’ Learn OUManchester
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MORE DATES IN THE SOUTH WEST, NORTH EAST AND SCOTLAND TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON! To find out more or to book a session for just £30, call the office on 020 3137 5184.
www.wowguest.com The Wow Guest Newsletter June 2013
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For UK Hoteliers Serious About Driving More Bookings
Questions & Answers
WHAT’S ON AT PMPM HOTEL MARKETING? ! PMPM Hotel Marketing is our sister company; creating affordable promotional marketing promotions in national publications. Right now, PMPM are recruiting for the ever popular Short Breaks promotion, launching 29th June. This famous promotion offers hotels the chance to promote their property at the super affluent readers of the Daily Telegraph. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Rebecca@pmpm-uk.com
WOW moment of the month
2: Traffic Reports ! On the day of your
guest’s arrival, engage with them via text message and let them know what’s happening on the roads around the area. If they’re all clear - let them know; if there’s road-works on a major road – let them know; if there’s a big pile up on the M1 – let them know and suggest a diverted route. It’ll be personal, it’ll be unexpected, and it’ll be valuable to the guest. It’ll cost 3p per guest and it will take 5 minutes max! Give it a go today.
You ask, Adam answers. Adam shares his advice on some of the most common questions surrounding delivering a wow experience within hotels.
WHAT IS THE EASIEST WAY TO WOW A GUEST? You wow guests by delivering personal, unexpected gestures that make the guest feel special and that demonstrate how much you care about their custom. The easiest, most simple way of creating a wow, is to do something that most hotels aren’t doing. Most just confirm the booking with an email, so send a text or make a phone call. Most don’t engage with their guests on the day of their scheduled arrival – drop them a text and wish them a pleasant journey getting to you. Most hotels charge for late check-out – if you’re not fully booked, inform your guests they’re welcome to stay in their room for longer free of charge. Give your guest something that’s of high value to them, and low or no cost to you will achieve your wow very easily. HOW CAN I DELIVER A WOW EXPERIENCE TO A DISGRUNTLED GUEST? When things go wrong, you have an opportunity to engage with that guest in a way that you wouldn’t have been able to normally. Now is the time to over-deliver and demonstrate that you a) care about their custom and b) the thing that went wrong was a very rare, isolated incident.
I’M WOWING MY GUESTS ON A REGULAR BASIS BUT I STILL SEEM TO BE GETTING UNFAIR NEGATIVE REVIEWS ON TRIPADVISOR – WHAT DO I DO!? The key thing here is that you’ll want to be identifying the guests that leave you having had a remarkable experience. Within a couple of days of them leaving, get a thank you letter out to them and put in a 5-10 minute call asking them how their stay was. If you’ve judged it well, they’ll be more than happy to share their experience with you and they’ll certainly appreciate the call. Before you wrap up the call, tell them briefly about the TripAdvisor problem you have and ask them whether they would mind writing a brief review of their stay. If you’re careful with who you choose to call, and are willing to make one phone call a day, you’ll soon bump up those excellent reviews.
GOT A QUESTION? SEND IT TO Adam@wowguest.com
Next Month… Next Month… Next Month…
Social Media Expert David Taylor ! Keeping pace with the rapidity of change in the social media world, David has recently finished co-writing his second book, the Business of Being Social, which will be focused on using social media specifically for business purposes. This was published in May this year. He also writes a social media column in the national daily newspaper, The Metro, entitled ‘Taylor’s Titbits’.
www.wowguest.com The Wow Guest Newsletter June 2013
A free room upgrade is easy, inexpensive and valuable to the guest. A free dinner, spa treatment, massage etc is nice too but can get expensive. I’d recommend firstly a letter signed by the GM offering your apologies for the incident – slip it under their door within a few hours of it happening. After they’ve departed, they’ll receive another letter, this time with a small box of chocolates reiterating your profound apologies.
WHAT DAVID WILL BE TALKING ABOUT… Like it or not we are in an age of mobile internet, video and social media yet most hotels simply haven’t kept pace with these technological advances. How can GMs and marketing managers ensure their online presence is up to the job?