Developing Case Studies of Employee/Guest Encounters

When working in the front lines of a hospitality establishment, we always encounter many different guest interactions and situations, and even though fundamentally, the nature of them may be similar, they possess details which make each situation unique. It is much so that we even say that we as an entry-level employee, we need to acquire a lot of experience throughout a certain (sometimes long) period of time. I often hear this frustration amounts entry-level employees, they get frustrated due to this and often change jobs or careers, making it difficult for employers to hold on to their talent. Employees need to be challenged, naturally, but they need to not only get this sort of challenge via work experience. They need to get a sense of the educational perception of what their role entails (and how it impacts the bottom line). By developing an opportunity in your establishment/brand/company to educate employees on how to improve in their role, especially as a hospitality professional, and increase their chances to grow with the company, we will see more interest in the field, fewer turnovers and less cost in acquiring employees.

Logically, each establishment has a lot of different factors affecting the day-today business, so we are consistently preoccupied with time (both of business, management and employees), labor cost, productivity; however, we also expect that the cookie-cutter training programs we have in place, will motivate employees and gave them that sense of understanding and challenge they need as I indicated initially above. That said how do we then develop a continuous educational training, initially, that we can add to arsenal of standard training we already have in place?

We suggest developing case studies of all situations (moments of truth) that we can capture, no matter how insignificant (as for guests, the small things at times may be a huge deal for their expectations of the experience they are going through) or significant they may be. I say this as I know this is not easy to do, especially in the back of the house departments, again, due to time, etc. However, since technology has helped us minimize paperwork overall, and helps us focus more on ultimately creating a continuous great guest/customer service experience, we have an opportunity of developing this extra step that is going to be the responsibility of all department heads, as well as some of the front of the house employees (including sales and reservations), in their day to day list of things to do. Think of this as a documented situation that can be generated in each significant situation, and entered into an existing database system, preferably under the guest's general information area, initially. We shall discuss other documenting alternatives below.

Initial Ways to Document Case Studies

The database systems that we have in our POS or PMS systems can certainly be advantageous in this process. We would figure that the front desk and reservations area would be most common to using the database for the most part, as well as the sales department, given the nature of the high volume interaction with guests. This is a very strong opportunity as the majority of situations can be captured and documented by front line employees and also by managers. Other department heads are also trained on using these, so they can also enter these systems and create these documentations.

For example, if a room attendant happens to have an encounter with a guest about any situation, we can train them to gather a manager and also relate the situation to them. Then, the manager can log this situation similarly as to how it would be documented by a front desk employee. Since these encounters are not as frequent and common, it does not disturb the business dynamic deeply.

We know that each establishment will be different, and you will have to develop this initiative in a way that will work best for you, without cutting corners, or abandoning it, thereby making it a solid approach overall for your guest experience.

Ideas We Suggest for Developing Your Documentation System
Initial suggestions would be to document each scenario in a manner that is transparent and as it occurred. It needs to be genuine or else it will not work.

As you gradually build this system, the next stage is to develop a case scenario area in your database system or similar, where we can store case studies based on departments and situations (we can have labels for each department and also, we can develop different category levels of situations that can serve for training purposes), and can be used not just for ongoing training, but also for reference should there be an issue similar arising and the employee wants to use as a way to develop a solution. Managers would then ensure that all of them are in good shape and ready for use in training sessions. The question is, how often would we want to conduct such trainings, and how would we incorporate case scenarios in a way that can challenge each individual in the department to see what the issue was, the solution implemented, reflect on the situation, and then develop different solutions that perhaps could had been done. Naturally this sort of thinking and discussion would not occur in such an environment where we are under certain timeframes of say, check in, for instance, so this time is golden to truly expand further on actual case situations that occurred in their establishments. From there, by doing a recap on certain aspects of what has been discussed, it can help employees retain how situations can be handled more effectively and confidently.

To take this to the next level, any discussed solutions discussed by the team can be summed up and added to each case study database, as a way of seeing progress and possible solutions to issues that are pertaining to that specific establishment.

Measurement Suggestions
As a measurement perspective, we do need to also see which types of case scenarios are most commonly affecting the bottom line as this is a way to ensure that we also, jointly with guest comments and social media reviews, can approach more critically, so we can improve business levels via service improvement techniques such as the use of these case scenarios. Establishments will then use this data and compare with case studies to see which are most critical to focus on to improve service levels in our guest satisfaction ratings, and most importantly, those that affect most the bottom line. As I have discussed in prior articles, usually the intangible services, mostly related with attitude, friendliness and front desk experience have been most critical. Do however observe carefully for your particular establishment.

Implementing Case Studies in Your Establishment From a Micro to a Macro Level Via Cross Training
Now, this does not just stop in each individual department. That said let me show you some examples on what we have done for some hotels, as we applied a simple, yet effective cross-training role-play presentation. In their monthly or quarterly meetings (meaning when most employees from all departments attend these), we role-play (act out really)in front of the entire staff, significant case scenarios from different departments as a way of demonstrating how we apply certain standard operating procedures as well.

One example was recreating a front desk situation where the guest room number was announced out loud, as this is a common mistake and safety situation we need to effectively manage.

Another example was when we had a supervisor from maintenance went to a suite to resolve a maintenance complaints from the guest, but was not wearing a name tag. When this supervisor knocked on the door and opened it, the supervisor startled the guest. Regardless of the introduction as an employee and fixing the issue, the guest did in fact call the manager on duty stating their experience and how they were concerned given the lack of name tag, meaning it could have been anyone pretending to be maintenance.

A housekeeping incident we also acted role played was when a guest approached a room attendant and mentioned to the attendant that their key was not working to get into their room, and if they could let them in. We created a potential situation should the housekeeper had opened the door, and another doing the right thing, which was referring the guest back to the front desk, regardless of rude comments expressed by the guest. We followed up that one with the guest complaining about this and having the front desk supervisor explain how this was a security procedure and that they are there protecting them as a registered guest.

The Bottom Line and Results on Using Case Scenarios/Studies
So how does this help overall? This assists in aiding towards an ever going improvement process in the establishment, thereby developing ore of a personalized service experience which hotels, restaurants, etc. are and have been calling for.

Interestingly preliminary results we gathered when we saw this initiative put into action with some of our clients was that not only did some of the case studies developed were used to truly educated well the staff, but also, it allowed for employees to apply certain case studies as comparable to similar situations they confronted, in which they already felt confident to present a solution to the issue at hand. We then saw a strong opportunity for applying the next step, which was an empowerment initiative as an advanced application. Naturally service level numbers also improved and met goals each time. This is an exciting approach that we have been working on with many, so feel free to touch base if you are curious about this initiative in more detail and how it can perhaps work in your establishment.