New York all-star concierge Nashid Braswell shares 12 tips for providing unforgettable service

3. “Recognize [your guest’s] frustration.”
Say you’re at the front gate of any hotel establishment, and your client comes in from a 15 hour flight, and there was traffic, and there were a million delays in the tunnel, and things aren’t going right, so immediately they’re perturbed. As opposed to having them wait in line and getting their credit card information to verify their identity and having them fill out all of the paperwork necessary for their check-in, what you should do is recognize their frustration and immediately send them to their room and, if you can, print out all of the documents and forms that they need to sign, and bring those up to their room for them. This way, you’re getting more one-on-one contact with the client, and getting a full understanding of what their needs are.

4. Create an experience that’s “built around the customer.”
It’s not… ten million questions. It’s not… waiting online for ten, fifteen minutes to get a room key, and then, going up to your room, escorted by the door man, in a cramped, confined elevator with your baggage, and with the bellhop. That experience… is not something that’s pleasing to me. I’d rather go for something more personalized, and built around the customer.

5. “You can apply these principles if you’re not a luxury space. Absolutely.”
So for a budget hotel, yes, appealing to a luxury client is a stretch, but what you can do… is something more personable. Have someone at the door greeting [guests]. Have a bellhop to your left; that way, you can easily send over the luggage and have the client walk with you to a more privatized area where you can do the entire check-in process. Sit with the customer, and get a sense of why they’re in town; are they here for vacation? Are they here for business?

6. “If you treat [guests] like they’re shopping at the flea market, that’s how they’re gonna treat you.”
A lot of these developers and hotel managers have the mindset that, “Oh I’m not going after luxury, so I can skip over ‘a,b,c,d and e’, when really, it’s ‘a,b,c,d and e’ that’s gonna define your client. If you treat them like they’re shopping at the flea market, that’s how they’re gonna treat you, no matter what the setting. But if you treat them like they’re in the Waldorf and they’re not in the Waldorf, that’s gonna make them want to come to you even more.

7. “You want to ask lifestyle questions.”
There’s a line that you don’t wanna cross by being too intrusive, but you want to ask, “What brings you to the New York City area? While you’re here, are you interested in seeing any plays, or any Broadway shows? Are you looking to have the most extraordinary shopping experience? Are you looking to do a private tour of Central Park?”

8. “You want to reformulate that back end to the front.”
When you check out of a hotel, they ask you a plethora of questions about how your experience and how your stay was. You want to reformulate that back end to the front, that way, the expectations are met up-front, and then you’re not asking this on the tail end, on their way out, sort of like, “Oh, by the way… as you’re running out to the airport, let me ask you ‘x, y and z’.”

9. “I want to be your Google.com.”
I wanna be your single point of contact when you come into my hotel. I don’t want you to feel that we’re unapproachable, or too stuffy, or airy.

10. “As a manager giving feedback, you should triple the amount of positives for every negative.”
If you’re constantly providing “negative, negative, negative”, that’s going to resonate, and the person that you’re giving this information to, in their mind, is thinking, “Why should I try? Because everything that I do is wrong, so I’m just gonna give up.”

11. “It’s very important that communication is open across the board.”
Each touch-point, no matter if you’re the house keeper, the gardener, or the pool guy, you guys need to be on the same page at all times. And if not, say, “This is not something I typically deal with, but let me point you in the direction of someone who’s able to assist you.”

12. “I make sure my employees are on the same page by having daily morning meetings for at least an hour at the beginning of the day…”
We also have weekly touch-point trainings, where we’re just brushing up. And as far as intensive training, I think that, once a month, a nice four hour intensive training is great, because that way, you’re able to reflect on the previous months, and where your strengths and weaknesses are.

Thank you, Nashid!

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