Hotel reviews surge 100% during the holiday season: the front desk just needs to do two things!
The National Day holiday is coming, and many hotels will attract peak passenger flow. As the front desk of the hotel’s “facade”, if it can seize the opportunity and use this wave of traffic to do a good job in reception services, it can win the hotel’s exponential growth in praise and lay a good foundation for the hotel’s future marketing work.
The requirements of guests for a high-quality front desk can be roughly summarized into two aspects: work efficiency and service quality.
This article starts from these 2 points, and combined with the specific scenarios, sorts out 8 precautions to help the hotel front desk to provide reception services for guests on short and long vacations.
01
How to Improve Front Office Efficiency
Compared with weekdays, especially hotels in some popular scenic spots or tourist cities, the room occupancy rate will be greatly improved during the Golden Week. The surge in passenger traffic will be a big challenge to the work of the hotel front desk. From guest booking to check-out, hotels can improve front desk work efficiency from the following aspects:
① Improve the speed of order taking
Many hotel front desks undertake the task of receiving orders from OTAs, and the order receiving speed (5-minute confirmation rate) is affecting the calculation of the hotel’s service quality score.
But there is a lot of work at the front desk, and it is easy to take care of one thing and lose the other. Therefore, when processing orders, it is recommended that the hotel can improve the order receiving speed of the front desk from the following two aspects:
1) Turn on order notifications: For hotels with tight housing availability, it is recommended that the hotel turn on order notifications from various order-receiving channels, including: computer version, mobile version, SMS notification, phone notification, etc.
2) Consider opening automatic orders: For hotels with relatively sufficient housing resources, if the front desk staff is limited, you can consider opening automatic orders in the background.
②Prepare for customer orders in advance
1) Contact the guest
After the Ctrip order comes in, the front desk can contact the guest through the platform phone, confirm the reservation information and the arrival time with the guest, and further give the guest travel advice, remind the guest of the local weather conditions, and let the guest pay attention to adding or removing clothes.
2) Entry requirements
For hotels with a PMS system, when the front desk wants to enter the order information into the computer, it is necessary to pay special attention to whether there are special requirements in the guest’s order, and pass the information to the corresponding execution department.
If it is difficult to meet the needs of the guests, the front desk should call the guests in time to communicate. Before the guests arrive at the store, the front desk should make preparations for the reception of the guests, so as to avoid the inefficiency of the check-in peak, and the failure to meet or ignore the customer’s needs and other reasons to cause complaints.
3) Arrange rooms in advance
To avoid the situation that there is no room at the store, and at the same time prepare the guests to fill in the information, room cards, etc., and carefully review the guests’ reservation requirements before assigning rooms.
In order to ensure the check-in experience of OTA and VIP guests, the front desk will give priority to arranging rooms in good condition for these two types of guests when allocating rooms. The front desk should also pay attention to the departure time of the original guest and the estimated arrival time of the guest on the day, and try to allocate the room of the early guest to the first-come guest.
③Fast processing of customer booking inquiries
④Fast check-in and check-out for guests
For efficiency-seeking guests, they will be annoyed if the front desk is inefficient and waits too long when checking in or out. The high efficiency of the front desk will also add a lot to the hotel.
In the check-in or check-out process for guests, the hotel can improve the work efficiency of the front desk through the following 2 methods:
1) Turn on flash
After booking a hotel with a flash tag, guests do not need to pay a deposit, the front desk can quickly check in for them, and there is no room inspection when checking out, and there is no need to wait for the card to be directly handed over.
The whole process saves many links such as deposit payment, deposit receipt confirmation, check-out room inspection, deposit deduction, deposit refund, etc., which not only improves the work efficiency of the front desk, but also makes guests more satisfied.
2) Set up a temporary service desk
In response to the peak passenger flow on a certain day, the front office manager can keep abreast of the hotel’s future room status with the reservation department or sales department in advance, and at the same time, by comparing the previous holiday data, predict the occupancy rate of the hotel during the Golden Week, and help him confirm that he is a good staff member. ’s schedule. However, apart from the stipulated earliest check-in time and latest check-out time, hotels are largely unable to control the departure or check-in time of guests. For peak passenger flow at a certain period of time, the hotel can choose to set up a temporary registration desk, and the staff are usually the assistant manager of the lobby, the front desk supervisor or the manager to help solve the check-in and check-out procedures of guests, so as to relieve the pressure of the front desk business.
02
Good front desk service can add a lot to the hotel
To a large extent, the customer’s service experience comes from the front desk, and good front desk service can add a lot to the hotel. In the face of huge passenger flow during the National Day holiday, the front desk can do a good job in the following four tasks.
⑤ Answers if you have any questions
This requires that the front desk can quickly and accurately provide relevant information to the guests, and at the same time, the front desk can also give more help to the guests by mining their needs.
The front desk needs to master and flexibly use the following five pieces of information:
1) Product information: including differences in room types, usage time of facilities/services, consumption, etc.
★Service scenario: The front desk may provide room type upgrade service for some guests. When a guest asks about the difference between the upgraded room type and the original room type, the front desk should not only say the difference is higher price, but also more from room equipment, check-in experience. and other angles to introduce to the guests.
Import of bad reviews:
Ask me if I am satisfied? I asked the reason for this initiative to upgrade the room. Why did the hotel give me an upgrade to a business suite with an inferior area? The staff said: The price of the business suite is higher, and it is a business suite.
I don’t live in the price, nor do I live in the high class, the room is the most important thing.
2) Surrounding information: including surrounding traffic conditions, surrounding food, etc.
★Service scenario: Many guests will arrive at the hotel earlier than the check-in time. When the room cannot be provided for the guest, the front desk can provide luggage storage service for the guest in addition to explaining the situation to the guest, and recommend the food or attractions near the hotel. Please Guests go shopping first, and at the same time let the guest room speed up the cleaning of the room to ensure that the guest has a room to live when they come back.
Positive case:
The service is very good. I went earlier and did not arrive at the check-in time due to personal reasons, but the front desk was very enthusiastic to help me store my luggage, recommended a few delicious restaurants, and quickly notified the guest room to help me prepare the room. After eating , the room has been arranged. The hygiene in the room is very clean.
3) Travel information: including local popular attractions, popular business districts, local specialties, etc.;
★Service scenario: When a guest asks what local specialties are available, the front desk can not only provide necessary information, but also enthusiastically recommend how to choose these specialties and make suggestions for the guests.
Positive case:
He also introduced to us the surrounding places to play and where to eat hairy crabs in Yangcheng Lake. He also taught us how to look at Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs. It was really great. The front desk staff were very polite and kind.
4) Policies and folk customs: including local traffic regulations, policies and regulations, religious/ethnic taboos, etc.;
★Service scenario: When guests from different places want to ask the hotel about the hotel’s parking fees, they can ask, “Hello, I see that you are coming by car, do you know if you have any understanding of the city’s number-limiting regulations?” If the guest’s answer is yes “I don’t understand”, you can further inform the guests about the relevant regulations.
5) Weather conditions: including climate, temperature, air quality, etc.
★Service scenario: During the National Day, it is autumn, some areas are windy and sandy, and the air quality is poor. The hotel can prepare disposable masks for guests in advance. When the guests check in, the front desk will provide them to the guests and give them some care.
⑥ Respond to requests
The front desk is also the first person that many guests think of when they ask for help during their stay. Being able to respond to the guests’ needs, giving them the help the hotel can do, can also enhance the guest’s staying experience. In addition, the front desk can also take the initiative to provide guests with unexpected care and services by paying attention to guests and guests, so as to improve “responding to needs” to a higher level:
1) Value the customer
The front desk must make all guests in the front hall feel valued.
When a guest is found walking towards the front desk, the staff should get up immediately, wait with a smile, and when the guest approaches, take the initiative and politely ask if they can help. If the front desk is dealing with other matters, such as answering the phone, you can apologize to the guests with a smile and bow. If you need to wait for a long time, please wait in the lounge area. National Day is also the peak of family travel, and the front desk needs to face more “special guests” than usual, including children, the elderly, pregnant women and patients. If the front desk can give them enough attention and help them because of their “speciality”, they can win the favor of these guests and their relatives and friends.
Imported positive cases:
2) All staff to customers
⑦Praise guide
The well-received reminder work pays attention to “step by step, breaking down one by one”. The front desk can cut through the hotel’s advantageous projects and take the initiative to ask the guests how they feel about their stay, such as: “Sir, how did you sleep in the hotel these few days?”
If the guest answers well, they can further introduce the hotel’s advantageous items and deepen their impression of the hotel mattress: “Yes, our hotel has changed to a well-known brand mattress this year. It’s really great that you like it.”
At the same time, you can further remind guests to comment, “If you think it’s good, can you please write us a good review on Ctrip, your affirmation is the greatest encouragement to us.” The possibility of a good mat is greatly improved, and other guests who have requirements for sleep quality will also be successfully attracted after seeing it.
⑧Complaint handling
The front desk must also do a good job in handling customer complaints. Customer complaints are handled well, and a large number of guests write high-quality reviews for the hotel, reflecting the hotel’s high efficiency and high-quality service quality.
High-quality customer complaint handling should include the following aspects:
Listening: listen carefully to the main points of complaints from customers, record key information in real time, ask them appropriately, and show attention with body movements such as nodding and staring;
Apologize: explain the cause of the problem and apologize for the trouble caused to the guest;
Compensation: propose a compensation plan and actively solve problems for guests within a feasible scope;
Rectification: In response to the guests’ problems, put forward the hotel’s follow-up rectification plan, so that the guests can see the sincerity of the hotel;
Records: Do a good job of filing the records of the complaining guests, and do the corresponding service work when the guests come again next time.