The Tricycle of Guest Service Excellence: A Perfect Model For Remarkable Experiences
Doug Kennedy | October 4, 2024
The Art of a Great Arrival for Luxury Hotels
Adam and Larry Mogelonsky | May 22, 2024
Guest Experience
The Loyalty Gap: The Difference Between Repeat Customers and Loyal Customers
Shep Hyken | March 16, 2023
By Shep Hyken Or, In a recent Shepard Letter, I discussed the Trust Gap, which is the difference between an organization’s belief that their customers trust them and the percentage of customers who actually do. I’ve covered different gap concepts in the past, and it’s time to add yet another to the list, and that is the Loyalty Gap. By the way, this is a perfect time to mention International Customer Loyalty Month, which happens every year in April. It is a time to focus some extra care and attention on your loyal customers. You can learn more at www.CustomerLoyaltyMonth.com. So, back to the Loyalty Gap. This is ...
An Insight Into the State of Luxury Branding Today
Dr Florent Girardin | March 16, 2023
By Dr. Florent Girardin, Beatrice Venturini The concept of what makes a luxury brand an attractive option worth buying into is undergoing a massive mind shift. This is especially true for the future luxury consumers, often referred to as the Millennials and Gen Z, or even more precisely HENRYs (‘High earners, not rich yet’). A 20+ years’ supply of new customers to be precise. This younger group of would-be spenders are developing a different approach to the idea of what a luxury brand should entail compared to the older generations of consumers. They value luxury experience more than luxury products and are thereby looking for mo...
Complaints and Problems Are Opportunities to Show How Good You Are
Shep Hyken | March 9, 2023
By Shep Hyken I love hearing about complaints and problems that are solved to the point that the customer wants to tell the world about the experience. That’s exactly what happened to Bill Paretti, one of our faithful Shepard Letter subscribers. He was so excited about what happened that he shared it with me, hoping I would share it with you. Here’s the short version of the story, followed by my commentary and the lesson we can take away from his experience. Bill and his wife went to Cancun on vacation and stayed at the LeBlanc Spa Resort. This an “all-inclusive” resort where everything is included in the daily rate. ...
Traveling for Work as a Woman Is Less Safe Than Traveling as a Man Say 71% of Women Business Travelers in Global Survey
World Travel Protection | March 7, 2023
Women more likely to take measures to protect their safety during business travel 31% don’t travel or go out on their own at night 46% stay in close touch with family and friends so their whereabouts are known 1 in 10 have experienced negative incident, ranging from minor theft to assault This International Women’s Day (8 March) a global survey of business travellers reveals that seven in ten (71%) women business travellers say travelling for work as a woman is less safe than travelling as a man. The Opinium survey of 2,000 business travellers in Australia, Canada, United States and United Kingdom, commissioned by World...
7 Customer Service Experience Trends to Watch in 2023
Franck Louveau | March 2, 2023
By Franck Louveau As customer expectations continue to evolve, customer service trends are adapting at pace. Businesses from all industries must keep up with emerging customer service experience trends to meet customer expectations and foster better customer relationships which is critical for remaining competitive in the respective market. This blog takes a deep dive into the top 6 customer service experience trends to watch in 2023. Customer service developments in the recent past The past year has ushered in a new paradigm for customer service and customer experience across all industries. The following are some of the latest indus...
Eliminate the Trust Gap: Six Ways to Create Trust With Your Customers and Employees
Shep Hyken | March 2, 2023
By Shep Hyken There is a trust gap between customers and the companies and brands they do business with. The two questions to ask that will define this gap are: Do you think your customers trust you? (This is opinion.) Do your customers trust you? (This is fact.) The difference between the two questions is the trust gap. If you think your customers trust you, that’s a 100% score. When you ask your customers if they trust you and receive answers other than YES, then the average of those answers subtracted from 100 is your trust gap. Consider the findings from PwC’s 2022 Consumer Intelligence Series Survey...
Ten Reasons Why You Should Deliver an Amazing Customer Experience
Shep Hyken | February 23, 2023
By Shep Hyken Ten years ago, I wrote an article about why delivering an amazing customer experience is important. While many of those concepts are still valid today, it’s time to modify the list and give a few of the original reasons a facelift to bring them into current times. First, a reminder that an amazing customer experience isn’t about being over the top. It’s simply consistently meeting or (ever so slightly) exceeding expectations. It’s the consistent and predictable experience that makes customers trust you and come back. So, here are today’s 10 reasons why you should deliver an amazing customer service e...
What Company Do You Admire Most?
Shep Hyken | February 16, 2023
By Shep Hyken Do you remember being asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” When you’re a child, the typical answers are aspirational, such as being a doctor, a fireman, a superhero, an athlete, and more. I have a grown-up version of this question. It’s not about what you want to be. It’s not even about you. It s about your company. You may be grown up, but your company should always be developing and evolving, so the question is now about your company’s aspirations. Specifically, it’s about what company you aspire to be like. Consider this question: If your company could be like any other company, what...
The WorkNomads Lab Hotel Selects INTELITY for Mobile Guest Experience
INTELITY | February 15, 2023
The newly opened co-living hotel in Bulgaria will put guest convenience and customization at the forefront using INTELITY’s platform Los Angeles, CA (February 15, 2023) – INTELITY®, provider of hospitality’s leading guest experience and staff operations platform, announced today a new deal with The WorkNomads Lab Hotel in Sofia, Bulgaria. The newly opened, mixed-use hotel will implement INTELITY’s mobile offerings, including a branded mobile app, mobile check-in, mobile key, and GEMS®, Guest Experience Management System — INTELITY’s suite of staff-facing tools. Located in Bulgaria’s capital city, The WorkNomads Lab H...
Hotel Hospitality Stories I Learned While Training One of the Best Banks in the World!
Doug Kennedy | February 15, 2023
By Doug Kennedy One day a few months back, the main phone line rang at our headquarters office. Can you imagine the surprise when our receptionist heard a man’s voice saying this: “Hello, this is Doug Kennedy calling for Doug Kennedy.” At first, she thought it to be a prank, but thankfully she did not hang up on him, because it was in fact Doug Kennedy, President & CEO of Peapack-Gladstone Bank, which is a regional bank based in New Jersey that offers personal banking through its branch network, robust wealth management services and commercial banking solutions. As it turns out, Doug Kennedy had been personally spearheading ...
Columbia Beach Resort in Cyprus Deploys InnSpire’s Guest Journey App to Offer a Seamless Digital Guest Experience
InnSpire | February 15, 2023
Leading provider of guest engagement, entertainment and connectivity solutions selected to maximize the digital guest journey at five-star Mediterranean resort Limassol, Cyprus – February 15, 2023 – InnSpire, a leading provider of a comprehensive technology suite that helps drive a seamless, world-class guest experience for some of the world’s most iconic hotels and brands, has been selected by the Columbia Beach Resort, Pissouri in Cyprus to implement its Digital Guest Journey App solution at the property. The full-featured mobile phone-based solution allows guests at the resort to pre-check in and securely access their suites wi...
Seven Ways to Show Your Employees Some Love on Valentine’s Day
Shep Hyken | February 9, 2023
By Shep Hyken If you show your employees a little love this Valentine’s Day, they will reciprocate with a little love for you, your company, and your customers. Earlier this year, I shared a business prediction for 2023: Companies will focus as much – maybe more – on their employees as they do on customers. If you’ve been following my work, this isn’t anything new. However, with what is being referred to as The Big Quit, The Great Resignation, and other clever names to describe a problem plaguing many businesses today, we must focus on the employee experience more than ever. What appears to be a mass exodus of emplo...
Upgrade Your Customer Service to a First-Class Experience
Shep Hyken | February 2, 2023
Many years ago, a friend shared some advice with me: It doesn’t cost much more to enjoy a first-class experience. He was referring to spending just a little more in certain situations to get much more out of the experience. It could be a nicer hotel, a better seat in a theater, a better cut of meat at the grocery store, and more. He found that it often doesn’t cost much more to upgrade. So, I started thinking about this advice and how we can apply it to the customer experience. Essentially, I was thinking that we can proactively give our customers a better experience by bumping our efforts up a notch. In most cases, it do...
Create a Selfie Experience
Shep Hyken | January 26, 2023
By Shep Hyken Here’s an interesting concept. I’ll describe it in the form of a question: Do you create an experience that is so good your customers want to remember it with a photograph? I started thinking about this as I walked through Times Square in New York City and couldn’t help but notice how many people were taking pictures of themselves with the bright lights, huge signs, and thousands of other people in the background. People wanted to remember the moment, and thanks to the cameras that virtually everyone has today, also known as mobile phones, they can save and cherish moments and share them with others forever. ...
Kennedy Training Network Welcomes Industry Superstars Amber Hurdle, Calvin Stovall, and Lynn Zwibak Into Its New “Network Partners” Confer
Kennedy Training Network | January 24, 2023
Most lodging industry professionals will recognize Kennedy Training Network and its President, Doug Kennedy, from reading his monthly training articles, or from participating in one of the more than 2,450 training workshops and 150 conferences he’s presented at since 1989. Now, in addition to offering its own training programs and support services delivered by the KTN team, Kennedy has personally curated a collection of uniquely talented conference speakers, all of whom have come up through the ranks in the hotel and lodging industry. “I’m often asked by conference planners to recommend additional speakers for the same events I’...
Don’t Just Personalize the Customer’s Experience – Individualize It
Shep Hyken | January 19, 2023
By Shep Hyken Recently I wrote my annual Forbes article featuring customer service and CX predictions and trends for 2023. No. 4 on the list was Personalization Gets More Personal. The best marketers have realized that personalization is a way to get closer to the customer – or at least make it appear to be so. In our customer experience research (sponsored by Amazon), 74% of customers we surveyed said a personalized experience is important. Let’s start by looking at what the “experts” refer to as personalization. The simple way to explain it is that customers are segmented into several groups, known as personas, which co...
From Digital Keys to Contactless Payments, Here’s How Hilton’s Consumer-Centric Tech Innovations Are Delivering a Frictionless Travel Experience
Hilton | January 17, 2023
Travelers are back on the road and in the air in record numbers, putting the travel industry on the return path to pre-pandemic business. Travel’s comeback has not been without complications, however, as overwhelming demand has strained the under-resourced sector. According to a new Hilton report, “The 2023 Traveler: Emerging Trends that are Innovating the Travel Experience,” people increasingly want a “frictionless” flow throughout their travel journey in 2023 through self-service options that offer greater choice – convenience and control – while maintaining the human touch of personalized service. “As people start pla...
Are Hotels Ready for Generation Novel?
David Millili | January 10, 2023
How the rise of Generation-Novel or Gen-N could transform the future of guest service By David Millili, CEO, LodgIQ What defines world-class guest service? Is it personalized offers or a value-driven loyalty program? Is it a timely reply sent back to an unsatisfied guest review? Is it flexible stay options or policies? Is it an engaging social media presence? Guest service can be all of these things… and with the demands accelerated by the pandemic, it has also become so much more. The problem with defining guest service in any singular way is that we often treat guest service as a department or a response rather than an ever-evolv...
Top Ten Customer Service and Customer Experience Predictions for 2023
Shep Hyken | January 5, 2023
By Shep Hyken Happy New Year! We have an exciting year ahead of us. So much has changed in just the past three years. And in the world of customer service and CX, there is much to be excited about. Last month I released my annual Top Ten Customer Experience Predictions in my weekly Forbes column. I don’t often repeat content, but I’m going to share those predictions and trends here, in a revised and shorter format. Here we go: 1. Customers Will Be Smarter and More Demanding Than Ever – I may sound like a broken record as I start each year with this prediction. Regardless of the type of business you’re in (B2B, B2C, B2B2C), eve...
Technology Plays a Key Role in Reducing Travel-Related Stress
Fran Worrall | January 3, 2023
Q&A with Mike Gathright of Hilton By Fran Worrall Streamlining the guest journey is top of mind for any hotelier. Hotel Online recently sat down with Mike Gathright, senior vice president of customer experience at Hilton, to learn what types of technology enable smoother and more stress-free guest stays and to find out what the brand is doing to make guest service more efficient. Gathright oversees reservations, guest services and support, as well as Hilton’s digital channels, including website and mobile app, property and contact center. HO: Briefly discuss your recent survey, The 2023 Traveler: Emerging Trends that are Inno...
23 Ways to Create an Amazing Experience in 2023
Shep Hyken | January 3, 2023
By Shep Hyken Happy New Year! I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, which are often broken. Instead, I like setting and resetting my goals for the year, and in my world, those goals focus on delivering an amazing customer service experience. So, I’ve created a list of simple ways to deliver the experience that everyone wants. Here are 23 ways to help you and your teams provide an amazing customer experience in 2023. Manage the first impression. It sets the tone for what’s to follow. Manage last impressions. They create lasting impressions. Demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. Customers want to work wit...
Welcome to the Touch-Free Hotel
PolyU’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management | December 21, 2022
Contactless technology is transforming hospitality in China and beyond. Research by Dr Fei Hao and Professor Kaye Chon of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University shows that travellers have varying levels of readiness for contactless hotels. Hospitality firms are advised to be mindful of this variation when designing strategies to boost customer equity. For guests who are still sceptical about contactless technology, services that evoke delight may be the best way to retain their custom. Those with concerns around COVID-19 may be particularly reassured by positive experiences in a contactless h...
Customers Don’t Know the Difference Between Customer Service and Customer Experience
Shep Hyken | December 21, 2022
By Shep Hyken As I talk to people about their experiences with the companies and brands they do business with, they often use the terms customer service and customer experience interchangeably. Are they confused? Do they not know the difference? Maybe, maybe not. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. They don’t care, and neither should you. All you should worry about is giving them the experience they want, expect and deserve – regardless of what your customers call it. Here are some of the different definitions the public gives to customer service: Customer service is a group of people who help me when I have a pro...
INTELITY Announces Updated Strategic Partnership With Unifocus, Formerly Knowcross
INTELITY | December 21, 2022
The updated partnership will provide new features for a stronger staff operations flow Los Angeles, CA (December 21, 2022) - INTELITY®, provider of hospitality’s leading guest experience and staff management platform, announced today an updated partnership with Unifocus, the global leader in hospitality operations software. Following recent revisions to Unifocus’s technology, the INTELITY integration is all new. Built on INTELITY’s R5 platform to take advantage of its industry leading capabilities, the latest integration includes richer synchronization of guest request details between INTELITY and Unifocus. “Partnering with INT...
