News & Press
Developing Relationships for Profit and Satisfaction
By Linda Hay, Communications Team - November 17, 2009
Calendar year end, fiscal year end, performance evaluations: stress!!! The annual review of guest satisfaction scores can induce fear in any hospitality professional, especially if it is tied to their own compensation! 
And the ever-present question is how to improve them…
There are the standard answers, of course, but they all boil down to one thing: don’t mess up. It always sounds great, but living in the real world, mistakes and misunderstandings do happen. And there’s the issue of expectation creep: the higher your service levels, the higher guest expectations become. The question becomes: how do we deal with that?
Digital Alchemy’s answer is to dialog with your guests. Sometimes it is face-to-face, but when your guest is in meetings and dinners and functions from early to late, that can’t always happen. And they may have temporarily forgotten about that annoying running commode from the previous night until they turn off the lights and TV the following night.
What they are unlikely to overlook, though, is an opportunity to respond to a brief email from the manager or head concierge that restates their commitment to a quality guest experience and asks a simple question: How can we make things better for you? The guest can easily respond in a moment of boredom in one of those endless meetings, as they check their mobile email. Don’t be surprised if a request comes from meeting Room B for more diet soda, or you get informed that the A/C is out of control in guest room 307.
The beauty of this is that you have a chance to be the hero while the guest is still on property. You can still affect the overall quality of their stay, before they ever see your post-stay comment card. Studies have shown that problem resolution during a stay increases scores dramatically. These emails are sent in an automated manner, so you don’t forget, with Digital Alchemy’s newest product Mid-Stay Communiqué. Each piece is easily read in standard email formats or on small mobile screen.
To learn more on how to raise satisfaction scores and gather more incremental revenue from your guests, start your dialog with Digital Alchemy today. Finish the year strong!