How can hotel managers resolve conflicts between departments at one time?
In the daily operation of the hotel, the front office department and the guest room department are two departments that need close cooperation. However, in actual work, the two departments often conflict. They are usually caused by information asymmetry and improper communication and expression.
How to effectively solve this problem? The article will combine 9 hotel scenarios to talk about how the guest room and the front office can effectively cooperate to reduce conflicts and provide high-quality services to guests. Let’s take a look with the Zhuzhe Hotel Management System!
01
Show guests
Some individual guests or guests with reservations will ask to see the room before confirming whether to stay in the hotel, which requires the hotel service staff to “show the guest to the room”.
- Problem scene
Some hotels will set up special sales staff to show guests the room, but when there is no one on the weekend or at night, and the front office cannot be staffed, it is necessary to entrust the staff of the housekeeping department to undertake this work.
- Cooperative processing
Before entrusting the housekeeping department to show the guests, the front office often has a preliminary understanding of the needs of the guests, and it is necessary to communicate accurately with the staff of the housekeeping department.
Front Office: During the process of entrusting the guest room at the front desk, it is necessary to clearly inform the colleagues of the housekeeping department of this information, such as the guest’s desired room type, floor, and room number, and mark the temporary room status on the computer system.
The entrustment process should be clear and understandable, and the communication tone should be euphemistic. Do not use an imperative tone, and confirm with the housekeeping department whether to lead the guests at the front desk or wait for the guests at the elevator exit on the corresponding floor.
Housekeeping Department: After receiving the entrustment, appropriate personnel should be arranged to show guests the room according to the situation, try to choose employees who are familiar with the hotel room type products and have strong expressive ability, and record the room type and room number reported at the front desk.
After showing the guests the room, the housekeeping department should immediately report the results of the room inspection to the front desk, and clearly convey the guest’s attitude, whether to check in, and any special requirements, etc., so as to prevent the guests from going back to the front hall to negotiate with the front desk repeatedly.
02
Team booking
Team orders often have a large number of occupants and a large number of rooms, so special arrangements may be made, and the front hall and guest rooms are often required to cooperate with the reception.
- Problem scene
Usually, after a hotel receives a group booking, the booking information will be communicated to the front office and guest room departments. Once the guest room is not available or the information is inaccurate, it may lead to a big trouble for the guests to check in.
- Cooperative processing
Front Office: If there is a temporary change in the team order, such as the increase or decrease of the number of rooms, the change of room type or extra bed, the reservation or withdrawal of the minibar, etc., the front office should notify the guest room immediately.
In the process of information transmission, the front hall, as the key information transmission terminal, must ensure the accuracy and validity of the guests’ information, and assign a special person to be responsible for transmitting the information, so as to avoid repeated “busy and busy” misleading the guest room.
Housekeeping Department: The housekeeping department should arrange enough manpower according to the order information provided by the front office, including the number of team members, room arrangements, room requirements, and pre-arrival time, to ensure that the team can quickly arrange check-in when they arrive.
03
emergency room
In the case of emergency room use, it usually occurs when the booking guest came to the hotel very early to request accommodation, and it happened that the hotel had good business the day before, and there was no room or only dirty room at the moment. At this time, the guest room should be urged to arrange cleaning.
- Problem scene
The front office urges the housekeeping department to clean, sometimes the tone becomes imperative. The housekeeping department was repeatedly urged, thinking that the front desk would only urge him over and over again, and he blamed himself for not cleaning.
- Cooperative processing
Front Office: The key to solving this problem is the front office receptionist. If a guest with a reservation arrives early, for example, he arrives at 7:00 in the morning, and the room type he wants is temporarily unavailable or has not been cleaned in time, the front desk should explain it well.
In a persuasive way, upgrade the room type of the same bed type for the guests, or give the guests a drink to ask the guests to wait for a while, help the guests to store their luggage, and keep the guests as stable as possible.
In case of encountering a difficult guest, the front office staff should also contact the room attendant in a negotiating and requesting tone and request an emergency room.
Housekeeping: The urging of the front office will cause the housekeeping to stop the work in hand and clean the room within ten minutes, but also to ensure the quality.
The housekeeping department needs to estimate a relatively accurate waiting time for the front desk. Don’t tell the front desk that it takes 30 minutes to complete, but tell the front desk that it takes 10 minutes. After the front desk communicates it to the guests, it is easy to cause dissatisfaction and complaints.
At the same time, the room supervisor dispatched additional staff to grab the room, speed up the cleaning speed with guaranteed quality and quantity, and notify the guests of the room cleaning situation every 15 minutes.
04
room layout
Some guests stay in the hotel for their honeymoon or birthday, or the hotel will take the initiative to create surprises for such guests, and the rooms of such guests often want to do some special arrangements.
- Problem scene
When the front desk accepts guests’ reservations, the guests have special needs for room arrangement, or they know that the guest is celebrating a birthday or an anniversary at check-in, and needs the cooperation of the guest room. If there is a problem with the communication or landing in the middle, it may lead to complaints.
- Cooperative processing
Front Office Department: Clearly record the needs of the guests, how they want to arrange them, etc., communicate and coordinate with the housekeeping department, satisfy them as much as possible, and convey them to the guests accurately.
In addition to the special arrangement of the room, some guests will also have special needs, such as extra beds or small freezers, which must be communicated to the housekeeping department by the front office staff as soon as possible.
Housekeeping: After receiving the notice from the front office, the room service staff will confirm the room number and make arrangements according to the requirements of the guests. If it is a surprise service for guests, pay attention to write down the message card with instructions, so as to avoid “surprise” becoming “scared”!
05
escorting guests into the room
Some hotels will arrange special arrangements to drop guests into the room, so that guests can better understand the hotel facilities, environment, services, etc., so as to improve customer satisfaction.
- Problem scene
When a guest enters the store to check in, the front office can notify the staff of the housekeeping department to wait in the lobby.
It is difficult to complete this service if the front office is not notified in time, or the housekeeping staff is not available in time.
- Cooperative processing
Front Office Department: When a guest arrives at the store, the front desk first informs the housekeeping department that they can come to the lobby or take the guest at the elevator entrance, and during the formalities, understand the guest’s travel purpose, special requirements, accompanying persons and other information, and synchronize it to the housekeeping department.
Housekeeping Department: According to the information provided by the front office, when sending guests into the room, they can recommend the hotel facilities and surrounding information to the guests. For example, if the guests go to the surrounding attractions, they can recommend the play strategy to the other party, and for the guests with children, they can introduce the room. Children’s products provided in the hotel, the hotel’s children’s playground, etc.
06
open door service
Some guests may forget to bring their door card, or directly take the key at the door of the room and ask the room attendant to open the door. In order to ensure the safety of the guests, the cooperation of the front office and the housekeeping department is required.
- Problem scene
The problem of door opening service often occurs in the following two scenarios
Question ①: After the guests arrive on the floor with the “Opening List” issued by the front hall, there is often a situation where there is no room attendant to help them open the door.
Question ②: When the guest arrives on the floor, he finds that he does not have a door card on his body, so he directly finds the housekeeping staff and asks to open the door for him, but the guest room staff does not agree.
- Cooperative processing
In the above two scenarios, the cooperation between the front office department and the guest room department is not very good, resulting in a poor guest experience, which can be optimized as follows
Solution ①: For the problem that there is no room attendant to open the door, the front desk should notify the guest room as soon as possible after issuing the “Opening Order” to the guest, and the housekeeping department should rush to the corresponding room in time after receiving the information.
Handling ②: When a guest asks the service staff to open the door in front of the room, the front desk must first check the identity of the guest, or ask the guest to go to the front desk, or check the identity on the phone, and the door can only be opened after confirmation.
07
morning Call
Some guests will need the hotel to provide wake-up service when staying in the hotel. Often, the guests are not woken up and delay the trip, resulting in complaints or bad reviews.
- Problem scene
If there is no answer when the front desk dials the guest’s wake-up call, then the front desk must ask the room personnel to track it.
- Cooperative processing
Front Office: If no one answers the phone repeatedly, contact the housekeeping department, give the corresponding room number, and ask the other party to wake up offline.
Housekeeping: After arriving at the designated room, the room attendant must first ring the doorbell and then knock on the door, but pay attention to control the volume so as not to cause excessive noise to affect other guests.
If there is still no response, you should call the security and open the door together. If you find that the guest is not awake, you must go up and wake up. If there is no one in the room, report the situation to the front desk in time.
08
walk-in rounds
The problem that arises in the guest room inspection is often a headache. Whether it can be solved depends on the cooperation between the housekeeping department and the front office department.
- Problem scene
Take a look at the scene below. It is a typical ward round process. The housekeeping department and the front office department did not cooperate properly, which led to a series of follow-up problems.
Case: Mr. Wang, a guest of a hotel, went to the hotel’s main desk to check out. The clerk at the front desk reported the room inspection. After 6 or 7 minutes, the walkie-talkie called: Main desk, main desk, 3205 is missing a bath towel!
As soon as the guest heard it, he hurriedly said that the bath towel was next to the toilet in the room’s bathroom! After the front desk truthfully conveyed it, the guest room was checked and it was indeed there.
While printing the bill at the main desk, the walkie-talkie rang loudly again. At the main desk, there was blood on the towel of 3205, and a compensation of 80 yuan was required. When the receptionist heard this, his face immediately turned ugly…
In this case, at least four obvious mistakes were made in the operation of the room rounds. These four mistakes may cause the front desk and the guest room to form a “liangzi”. How to deal with it?
- Cooperative processing
①The ward round is controlled within 3 minutes: The ward round takes the time it takes for the front desk to settle the bill for the guest. The front desk attendant is likely to be questioned or even complained by the guest on the spot. All housekeeping departments must ensure the speed of the ward round.
②The ward round should be serious and professional: the wrong results will be reported to the main desk immediately without careful search for the guest supplies or linen in the room.
③There are rules in the ward round process: after the bath towel was found, no stains were found immediately, and the checkout at the main desk was almost over, and then reported to the main station, again revealing that the ward round process had no rules and was careless. The head office immediately faced the frustration of asking for compensation and the repeated work of checking out again.
④Telephone notification to the front desk if problems are found in the ward round: using the walkie-talkie is tantamount to blaming the guests in person, which is likely to cause embarrassment to the guests at the front desk. The grievances arising from the exposure of the guests’ privacy may be transferred to the front desk, making telephone communication more confidential and safe. the face of the guest.
09
Guest items
After the guest checks out, the housekeeping department finds the guest’s cash, jewelry, computer or keys when tidying up the room. How to keep it properly and inform the guest requires the cooperation of the two departments.
- Problem scene
If the housekeeping department finds the items left by the guests, they should inform the front office as soon as possible and keep them, so that the items can be handed over to the guests as soon as possible.
Once the inspection is not in place or the front office fails to understand and inform the guests clearly, there may be problems.
- Cooperative processing
Housekeeping Department: When the room service personnel find the left items left by the guests, they should timely feedback the room number, name, name and quantity of the items to the front office, and let the front office try to contact the guests actively.
Front Office: After the front desk receives the message from the room department, the front desk should check the guest’s hotel information, find the handover record of the day, and then help the guest to confirm the identity and items, and contact the guest.
In case of inability to get in touch, the front desk should also make relevant records in the handover book of the day.
In this way, the “identity confirmation” of the front desk + the “safekeeping” of the guest rooms can make the additional services of this hotel more convenient.