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If you have not done so yet, it is imperative that you are finding ways to improve your hospitality property’s operational performance.
Here are 7 ways to improve operations.
Welcome to another edition of, Hospitality Property School.
I am your instructor, Gerry MacPherson.
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There is always room for improvement in various aspects of a business, whether it is making the right decisions, optimizing work processes, providing higher quality service, or aligning departments and objectives.
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The key to providing exceptional customer service, and creating a successful hospitality property business, start with operations at the base. Especially now, as we are hopefully heading to post COVID-19, losing focus or neglecting operations is likely to cause major performance issues.
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How does this work, in times when travel is not fully recovered, and staffing levels are not back at what they used to be? Regrettably, this is not the time to sit back and wait for better times – now is the time to take action and make your property stand out.
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Prioritization
It is easy to get overwhelmed by the number of tasks and opportunities that are always at hand. For this reason, you need to set priorities.
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Without establishing the right set of priorities you run the risk of overlooking more important responsibilities that can directly compromise the service quality of your property’s operations.
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When looking at your to-do list, the first thing you should do is decide:
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“What brings the most value to my guests?”
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Then you can start establishing which processes and initiatives constitute building a great guest experience. This can be done on a case-per-case basis that is adaptable to your accommodate.
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Know your Guests
For this item, you have to ask
“What do my guests want?
If you don’t know, it’s time to find out.
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Start building and maintaining a customer database.
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Through personalized services and products you can increase revenue and customer experience, making sure to record your guest preferences and develop their profiles. This should all be tracked in your property’s operating software CRM. It is also important to find ways to gather your guest’s email addresses.
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Be prepared
Take a proactive stance and start driving customer experience and revenue as soon as they book. Waiting for opportunities until the guest arrives will work against your operations.
Increase the interaction time
- Making the service feel more attentive and generally of a higher level
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- Increase exposure of your products and services to your guests. This equals more revenue opportunities
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- Higher chance the guest will get the most out of their stay, by providing them with more options to add to their itinerary.
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Plan itineraries
Make the planning and decision-making process for your guests easier.
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Organize a selection of activities for different stay durations so every guest can just follow the itinerary without having to do their own research and planning.
Answer pre-arrival questions
Answer the FAQs before your guests arrive.
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This could be done through a welcome email (providing basic information and confirming their booking) followed by an email shortly before the guest´s arrival (directions to the property, parking information, things to do, products and services on the property incl. bookable options).
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Empower your employees
Employees should be able to become the one person guests can go-to for everything.
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Equipping them with the right knowledge and tools will help them in dealing with any unexpected situations. The confidence that is built in this process can both be felt by guests and the employees themselves.
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Make sure to include cross-training between different departments and information sharing so employees will feel more comfortable and prepared for any situation they might encounter.
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Do these make sense so far?
Let me know by leaving a comment.
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Establish a Culture of Ownership
A complaint I sometimes hear from guests of properties I visit is that at times it feels no one wants to take ownership of a problem, making the guest feel like their issue is being passed on and on to others. This feels like an employee is saying that they’re not interested in dealing with the issue in the first place. This goes back to empowering employees to take care of any situation by themselves. Dealing with issues directly shows you care and lets guests know you’re involved in ensuring they have a wonderful stay.
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Promote cross-communication
Increase the level of communication between departments. Cross-communication is the only way to overcome persisting operational bottlenecks.
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Instead, start aligning objectives and heighten intern-departmental communication by taking in different perspectives and ensuring crucial information can be shared openly. This can help prevent unnecessary loss of efficiency and maximize opportunities.
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Work smarter
Find ways to reduce operational processes without skimping on services. Working smarter will have a positive effect on service delivery time and reduce the workload carried by employees.
For example:
Front Office
Make it as easy as possible for your guest! Plan their arrival ahead of time and make sure everything is ready upon check-in. Complete their check-in form as much as possible with the information on hand, allocate the right room, and have processes like express check-in/out processes in place.
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Food & Beverage
More is not always better. An example of less is more can be reducing the menu size. The size of your menu and choice of ingredients can have a major impact on the performance of F&B operations. Smaller menus allow for faster preparation times, fresher ingredients, less risk of waste, and therefore, lower food costs. Also, make sure to look into locally sourced ingredients for your menu.
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Housekeeping
Benefits can be obtained by offering guests the option not to change or replace linen and amenities daily, thus minimizing waste and energy consumption and reducing labour and material cost. Again, make sure to record this information for future reference in your systems so guests don’t have to communicate this twice.
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If you are a member of the Hospitality Property School Group, as a bonus, I will talk about 3 additional ways to improve operation.
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In conclusion
Finding ways to improve your hospitality property’s operational performance is going to be essential if you want to come out of the post-COVID-19 era successfully.
Using the suggestions in this episode as a guideline will not only ensure your property is operating more smoothly but will help you stand out from the competition.
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What was the last thing you did to improve operations at your property?
Let me know in the comments.
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We cover more on organizational structure in “The Guide to Owning & Operating a Hospitality Property – Successfully” book & course. You find more information at KeystoneHPD.com
You will have access to this episode for as long as you would like but if you would like to see all the bonuses you would have access to as a member of the Hospitality Property School Group, check out the short video in this episode post-show notes.
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In the next episode, I will talk about How to Make Your Property Eco-Friendly.
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That’s it for today’s episode,
Until next time, have a fun day.
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If you haven’t done so yet, make sure up sign up for the INNsider Tips, say hi on social and join one of our groups. And make sure you get your free copy of the “How to Improve Your Hospitality Properties Success”.
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You can find all the links in the show notes.
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⇒ TO READ OR LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE ON KEYSTONE HOSPITALITY PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT:
https://keystonehpd.com/7-ways-to-improve-operations-287
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Did you get your copy of the “How to Improve Your Hospitality Properties Success” ebook?
KeystoneHPD.com/How-to-Improve-Your-Hospitality-Properties-Success
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