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
These Three Words from a Teller Caused My Father to Move His Life Savings to a Competitor
September 26, 2016
Recently, I wrote an article entitled, "Don't Listen to Your Customers - Understand Them." I want to emphasize how important this is by relating what happened to my father at a bank a number of years ago - how their lack of understanding and the use of three seemingly innocent words destroyed the relationship this bank had been building for years. Two Weeks Early My father worked two jobs most of his life to support my four siblings and me. So he was very proud when he was able to buy a small house for us in St. Paul, Minnesota. He took out a 30-year mortgage with a bank just three blocks away. This bank is also where he m...
These Three Words from a Teller Caused My Father to Move His Life Savings to a Competitor
September 26, 2016
Recently, I wrote an article entitled, "Don't Listen to Your Customers - Understand Them." I want to emphasize how important this is by relating what happened to my father at a bank a number of years ago - how their lack of understanding and the use of three seemingly innocent words destroyed the relationship this bank had been building for years. Two Weeks Early My father worked two jobs most of his life to support my four siblings and me. So he was very proud when he was able to buy a small house for us in St. Paul, Minnesota. He took out a 30-year mortgage with a bank just three blocks away. This bank is also where he m...
The Perpetual Debate Over The Hotel Booking Bar
Larry Mogelonsky | September 21, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Every marketing manager you employ will tell you a version of the same story: Your website needs to have a 'Booking Bar' prominently stapled onto the home page and every page thereafter – big, flashy and impossible to ignore. The central concept is that your site visitors will be compelled to immediately interact with the banner to see what spaces are available, compare guestrooms and even select value-added options to enhance their stays. Another assumption is that site visitors are just too naïve or blind to click a smaller button that says 'Reservations' and that revenues will...
CustomerCount Teams with Resort Trades on New Customer Engagement Professional Award
CustomerCount | September 15, 2016
INDIANAPOLIS, IN (September 15, 2016) – CustomerCount℠ and Resort Trades magazine have announced a partnership to recognize outstanding leaders who exemplify customer engagement within the timeshare resort/hospitality industry. Nominations for the annual award, "CustomerCount Customer Engagement Professional (CEP)/ Resort Trades Award" will open Tuesday, September 13th with the recipient being announced in February. According to Robert Kobek RRP, president of CustomerCount, the nomination process will include completing an online nomination survey to compile the nominee's qualifications and qualities. "Our online feedback system...
Five Scary Facts About Millennial Travel Purchases
Larry Mogelonsky | September 14, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) The rate at which consumer purchasing behavior is changing is downright scary. What worked only five years ago is now something for the junkyard. It's a difficult world to understand and, importantly, you must be keen to grasp the elusive spending habits of millennials – the generation that is destined to become the primary influencer in the hospitality industry within ten years' time, if not already! A recent focus group of a dozen late-stage millennial travelers – that is, between the ages of 27 and 33 with no children and healthy median salaries – yielded some exception...
Fixing the Problem of Too Many New Brands
Larry Mogelonsky | September 7, 2016
Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Right now, the hotel industry is experiencing a virtual gusher of new brands. There are so many new faces on the logo tree that even as a keen observer of our niche in the world, I am having difficulty placing what brand goes with what house. I imagine that launching a new brand registers some excitement in the corporate head office, adding a somewhat pleasant diversion for the c-suite executives from the real work of fighting the real issues such as the encroachment of alternate lodging providers, elusive millennial travel desires, waning loyalty or the market domination of the OTAs. While th...
Loyalty Points Are No Trade Off For Housekeeping
Larry Mogelonsky | August 31, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Traveling for work puts me up close and personal with a wide variety of hotels, but even though I love dabbling in the luxury segment, the wallet just isn't fat enough to make that a year-round thing. Instead, I opt for business-oriented properties, often downtown or near a convention center, and shrewdly designed for the harried guest. As you all know, this is a humungous category of hotels worldwide, and any new features that help optimize revenue for this market are often rapidly gormandized across all major brands. I could address the omnipresent issue here of whether such widespread ad...
ALICE Concierge Delivers a Customized Solution at NYC’s Dream Downtown, Quickly Helping the Concierge Team Take Guest Satisfaction to New Heights
ALICE | August 29, 2016
NEW YORK, August 29, 2016 – In just a few months since adopting the new ALICE Concierge tool, guest services at Manhattan's 314-room Dream Downtown is better able to track guest requests, respond to them quickly using a single online platform, and spend their time where it is most valuable: taking care of guests' needs directly and personally. Since implementation in January, Dream Downtown has seen an average monthly increase of 43% in concierge requests, and a 36% increase in after-hours requests, all handled efficiently under the new system. ALICE Concierge leverages the power of technology to help hotel teams respond to guest ...
Redefining Modern American Cuisine
Larry Mogelonsky | August 24, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) When it comes to food, the United States of America has 50 states and 320 million people with clam chowder in New England, burritos in the Southwest, fried chicken in the South, deep dish pizza in Chicago and so much in between. How are we supposed to summarize the culinary habits of this gigantic nation under the banner of 'Modern American Cuisine' let alone 'American Cuisine' when there is so much diversity? In the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, before the rise of craft enterprises and our present food revolution, perhaps we could have written about the homogeneity of American cuisine &nd...
ALICE Brings its ALICE Suite Platform to Hotel Des Trois Couronnes, a Leading Hotel in the Heart of Europe
ALICE | August 23, 2016
NEW YORK, August 23, 2016 – ALICE, info.aliceapp.com, announced that the Hotel Des Trois Couronnes, Vevey Switzerland, has adopted ALICE Suite - a SaaS solution that completely connects the guest to the hotel, and connects all service departments within a hotel. ALICE Suite now drives guest engagement as well as back of the house efficiencies for dozens of hotels in Europe and North America thanks to the immediate benefits it provides hoteliers – helping them respond to guest requests more efficiently, generate ROI from ancillary services, build more positive guest reviews, and achieve cost savings at the same time. Hotel De...
Three Tips to Create a Memorable Experience For Your Guests
Bryan K. Williams | August 22, 2016
by Bryan K. Williams Could it be? Is it even possible? What are the chances that every touchpoint is memorable? Each team member is engaged. All leaders act as though they are not just managers, but rather CEOs of their respective departments. Vince Lombardi famously said…. "We will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence." The real leaders live and breathe that philosophy. Good is never good enough. Only excellence will do. It usually only takes a few minutes, but I can always tell when I've encountered a culture of ...
Say Goodbye to the Business Center
Larry Mogelonsky | August 17, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Reaching its zenith in the mid-1990s following the proliferation of the personal computer, I have many fond memories of the hotel business center. Such facilities were a high priority for road warriors who needed to refine presentations, print materials, prepare travel itineraries or work on just about everything else, all while hotel staffers stood at the ready to assist wherever they could. The advent of mobile devices, tablets and streamlined laptops have proven to be the business center's downfall, rendering it as obsolete as the stapler and three-hole paper punch (anything involving pa...
With Summer in Full Swing, ALICE Empowers Concierges to Score the “Hottest Ticket in Town” for Guests
ALICE | August 16, 2016
New ALICE Concierge Technology Draws Rave Reviews from Hotel Concierges at 22 NYC Hotels and more than a Hundred Nationwide NEW YORK, August 16, 2016 – The hotel concierge no longer has to rely solely on pen and paper to keep her teams organized, and keep guests satisfied. ALICE Concierge, info.aliceapp.com, a new technology platform that empowers concierges to provide optimum guest service, offers the ability to track all guest requests and vendor information in one system. With vast functionality featuring reminders, itineraries, Google-like search, and text messaging with guests, hotel concierges can handle and respond to guest...
Quality Is The Only Thing That Makes A Brand Credible
Larry Mogelonsky | August 10, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Soft branding is a popular trend these days, showing no signs of slowing down at all in the face of billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. Unquestionably, soft brands fill a specific demand within the traveler mindset – those who desire an independent property to add an extra layer of exclusivity to their trips while also expecting certain standards to be upheld. It's a fascinating space and one that has yet to reach full maturity or capacity. Tapping in for a phone interview to elucidate how properties can succeed within a soft branded space is Filip Boyen, the newly crowned CEO of...
Humility Is A Virtue With These Three Words
Larry Mogelonsky | August 3, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Our industry is currently facing some highly complex issues with no obvious answers – the OTAs, third-party review sites, alternate lodging websites, dilutive brand expansions, thrifty millennial purchasing habits and many more. Managers and consultants are all under the gun, expected to weather these storms like a titanium-hull icebreaker with a clear trajectory that cracks through any obstacle. While it would be great if to have a crystal ball and speak with absolute confidence as to how events will unfold, alas that is never the case. We mortals can never say for certain that a giv...
What The Rio Olympics Means For Your Hotel
Larry Mogelonsky | July 27, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Rio 2016 is upon us, and that means two solid weeks of having a reason to actually watch broadcast again instead of tuning in to Netflix or trying your luck at Pokemon Go. With the television landscape becoming increasingly fragmented by cable, satellite, social media and internet streaming options, reaching many people at once via traditional, 20th century media placement methods comes with its fair dose of anxiety. One interesting effect of this channel nichification is that large-scale events and compressions are now all the more precious. Think nationwide and world-sweeping live broadca...
Roaring Through HITEC 2016
Larry Mogelonsky | July 20, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) This is something I find myself saying almost every day now. Senior hotel managers must understand technology or they're dead! And for good reason, technology will save your property if you are smart about it. And so, this brings us to late June in New Orleans, Louisiana for HITEC 2016 to learn about the latest and greatest in hospitality technology. While the evenings would find my stomach hungering for crayfish remoulade and Cajun-spiced gumbo, my two days at the eponymous tradeshow were a flurry of amazing new devices and software that can help hotels solve their business needs. Unlike p...
Ten-X Begins 2016 With Nearly $200 Million in Hospitality Closings
Angie Hospitality | July 18, 2016
IRVINE AND SILICON VALLEY, CALIF. – July 18, 2016 – Ten-X, the nation's leading online real estate transaction marketplace, announces its hospitality division has closed on 50 assets totaling $190 million from January 2016 through May 2016 on the on the Ten-X Commercial online platform. The Ten-X hospitality division's momentum follows a record-setting 2015, where the company closed 117 hotel transactions with sales proceeds exceeding $461 million, nearly double its 2014 hospitality performance of $256.3 million. Ten-X has closed on approximately $2 billion in hospitality assets since facilitating the sale of its first hotel...
5 Ways to Make Customers Feel Good
Katie Scheer | July 15, 2016
By Katie Scheer The factor that has the highest impact on the impression of a buying experience is how the customer feels they are being treated. Understanding the importance of this is essential for all businesses because it is what is needed in order to build loyalty. So let's amp up our customer service by making all of our customers feel VALUED and GOOD! 5 easy ways, with supporting tips, to make this happen: BE RESPONSIVE Make it easy to do business with you. Be quickly available by phone, email, and on social media. Always do what you can to proactively handle expressed (and unexpressed!) needs. ACTIVELY LISTEN Allow op...
Do’s and Don’ts of Hotel Texting, from a New York City Concierge
ALICE | July 13, 2016
A few tech-savvy hotels are skipping email and social media and are directly texting their guests. Arrive Hotels which just opened in Palm Springs has done away with telephones in the guest room and instead asks guests to text the hotel for whatever they might need. Sixty LES is also embracing texting as a method of communicating with guests. Even bigger brands like Marriott and Four Seasons are texting guests, albeit through their mobile apps. While millennials who have pretty much grown up with smartphones may not be fazed by a text message sent from a hotel concierge, older guests might be, simply put, weirded out by an invasive mess...
Showcase Your Chefs To Entertain Guests
Larry Mogelonsky | July 13, 2016
By Larry Mogelonsky, MBA, P. Eng. (www.lma.ca) Earlier this year, I was invited up to the BMO Institute for Learning (IFL) in the suburbs of my hometown of Toronto. The purpose of my visit was to guest judge the regional IACC Copper Skillet Competition for Ontario whereby chefs operating in conference centers were given all the same ingredients and only two skillets in order to complete dishes in less than 45 minutes. As one of two evaluators alongside Rose Reisman, we marked each chef's creation based upon taste, presentation and applicability to a banqueting or catering scenario. This year's contest included: Luc McCabe from the NAV...
ALICE Expands Further in the UK, Partnering with the Brooklands Hotel, Surrey
ALICE | July 13, 2016
With Connected Conference Rooms and More, Brooklands Offers a Totally Rich Guest Online Experience Delivered through a Single, Cost-Saving Operations Platform NEW YORK and LONDON, July 13, 2016 – ALICE, a SaaS platform that completely connects the guest to the hotel, and connects all service departments within a hotel, announced that the Brooklands Hotel, Surrey, adopted its ALICE Suite solution. "We are happy to announce our partnership with the Brooklands, which operates in a market that is well positioned to benefit from our full suite of services, tailored to the property's specific needs," said Alex Shashou, ALICE's Co-Founde...
Third-Party Management Companies Move to Embrace New Technology
Concord Hospitality | July 8, 2016
Technology is a non-negotiable in the lodging industry. The exciting news is that hotels are able to use technology to provide value-added services and conveniences that personalize the guest experience in more ways than ever. The challenge is that technology is advancing at a pace that makes it nearly impossible to keep up. This is one of the areas in which a third-party management company can be especially valuable. Hotel brands typically dictate basic requirements like core property management systems, but third-party management companies have the flexibility to innovate beyond these systems and exceed basic requirements. Here are a ...
San Francisco’s Hotel Zephyr Partners with ALICE
ALICE | July 5, 2016
Guest Service Team at the 361-Room Hotel in Fisherman's Wharf Collaborate on the Hotel Industry's First-Ever Comprehensive Operations Platform - for the Benefit of Guests and the Property NEW YORK, July 5, 2016 – ALICE, a SaaS platform that completely connects all service departments within a hotel and connects the guest to the property, announced that Hotel Zephyr, one of San Francisco's newest boutique hotels, has adopted its ALICE STAFF solution. Hotel Zephyr is the first property in Davidson Hotels & Resorts' new lifestyle & luxury collection, Pivot Hotels & Resorts. ALICE STAFF is the only complete, easy to use re...
