Tips for Designing a Personalized Guest Experience (from John Hendrie)

After reading John’s article, Have it Your Way, I knew I needed to bring him on here to talk about creating a personalized guest experience. John Hendrie has a significant amount of experience in the hotel business, and currently helps companies enhance their online reputation through Hospitality Performance. Listen to our conversation:

Call Summary

02:01
JM: How would you define remarkable hospitality?

02:05
JH: I think that’s got a number of components. Probably the two key components are sensitivity to your audience and the other piece would be engaging that audience that you wish to serve. And what makes it remarkable is how you merge and marry and blend the two to create something that is very different and very distinctive. That’s what makes it remarkable.

02:41
JM: I hear a lot of talk about designing “guest experience” from consultants, agencies and hoteliers. What in your mind is wrong about the way hotels are currently designing their guest experience? What do you think is missing?

02:57
JH: I think we’re in the midst of some pretty interesting times, and I think what’s happened in the last — probably 2-3 years — and will continue to evolve is the whole, I guess, outlook of and consideration of what the hotel experience should be. I think before the recession, it was kind of happy-go-lucky; people were just spending without being very attentive. I think hotel properties became devalued in terms of the experience.

When new hotels were being developed it was still the cookie-cutter kind of approach, and then all of a sudden, wham. You had the recession. And it’s the old story: out of the ashes will rise the successful properties, and I think we’re really starting to see that for hotels. You know, from what I’ve been reading, it’s gonna be into the smaller properties who are the real winners in lifestyle, lifestyle and value.

04:10
JM: How do you define “lifestyle”? I’m very interested in moving us away from the cookie-cutter approach to hotels, but is this only a design issue? Are there some staffing and training factors at play here?

04:33
JH: It’s the whole ball of wax. As I said, an evolution. And the operators who understand that would be very successful, while as the operators who try to maintain what has been in place simply will… will fail. In my eyes, it’s pretty cut and dry. Unless all of a sudden we have huge, huge, prosperity again across the board, and I don’t think that’s gonna happen. And then people tend to forget and they settle.

05:12
JM: So what does the traveler of today expect? How can we actually go beyond their expectations and really delight and wow them?

05:20
JH: Like I said, and I think this recession really created a pretty significant belweather, if you will. Up to that point I think, sadly, our travelers were really dumbed down and they were excited when somebody smiled at them, if someone gave them eye contact, and if the food they ordered was what they ordered and was hot, if it was supposed to be hot. So they were just kind of settling, if you will. And to hoteliers and restaurateurs, that was just fine because they were still making money.

So I think nowadays what has really changed in the make up of your traveler — those who are traveling — is they are very distinctly looking for value. They very distinctly are not settling for second best.

High on their agenda is a good quality, valued experience versus what they would’ve expected three or four years ago. What delights them is a whole other, you know what I mean. We’re talking about this whole evolution. What probably disgusted them or they accepted three or four years ago, as I said, was really a low level of attention and service.

And once again, the savvy operators moving into 2011 and beyond, they’re gonna be very attentive to simple things, just simple courtesy. That has a premium nowadays and you just don’t see it in the marketplace. You don’t see it in your hotels, you don’t see it in your restaurants, you don’t see it at your pharmacies, you know, or at your dry cleaner. So I mean now there’s some very simple things that have real currency nowadays that just aren’t gonna cost an arm and a leg to put into place.

I think you’re gonna have, once again, successful operators needing to really define what their mission is, what their story is, and blending that with what they know about either their current audience or the audience they seek in order to create that memorable experience. So there’s gonna be some new definition out there on the landscape.

08:06
JM: For hotels trying to reach the value-oriented guest of today, it’s not all about slashing rates; it’s about providing an extra level of service that makes the guest feel special and cared for.

08:19
JH: Absolutely. You know, make me feel respected. Make me feel loved.

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