All those years of blood sweat and tears in hospitality; working so hard day and night, finally you have made it to the much-desired managing seat, congratulations to you, you deserve it!
But as soft and comfortable as this seat looks and feels, the responsibility and the work it comes with is probably the reason why it is that comfortable. But no worries, we have got this! I am not saying that becoming a manager for hospitality is an easy job, it is the most tiresome and toilsome task to please people, look after them and do your job with such effort that the management wants you to take charge of the responsibilities. But, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Your real test begins when you are in charge of managing the experience of customers in hospitality.
Trends in Hospitality Management
So, as a hospitality manager now, sounds too good to be true, but it is true, and it is hectic because so much depends on you now. You are responsible for everything that happens around you and so you must be proactive and keep check of everyone and everything around you. Running a hospitality business includes all the nitty-gritty that keeps you on your toes for hours and hours, you have to direct your staff, you have to satisfy the customers, you have to hit the revenue goals, you have match up to the owner’s expectations and you are supposed to keep an eye on the ongoing trends as well. This can be done by collecting and analyzing customer experience at www.alterrate.com which provides high end services to its users.
For example, currently the trends that are extremely popular in hospitality management include:
- Millennials, which according to the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research, 50 percent of the total travelers to the USA by 2025 will be millennials.
- Tech friendly hospitality environment because people need to be served with up to date services. It is the duty of the manager to see if the management has prepared to meet these needs or not.
- Health and well-being are a new trend which is becoming very popular. People are considering their food choices and living facilities very carefully. They like places where health is the topmost priority.
- Food selection is what people are becoming overly concerned about. Due to a large influx of international travelers everywhere around the globe, hospitality has had to redefine their menu and catering. Preferences such as vegan choices, halal or vegetarian choices have become very important.
Yeah! I know that sounds like too much to do. So many things on your plate, right!? But doing all that and getting by it is one thing and it only bears you a handful of what you can achieve. Afterall, maintaining what has been achieved is the most difficult part of the journey. Once you have made a rapport, now you are supposed to make sure it stays that way, possibly forever and www.alterrate.com is there to help you with it.
So, what’s the trick?
Look, you have been doing so much hard work but previously you were just following guidelines, now you are supposed to make some of your own. Hence, for this role, hard work is not going to be the key player, you will have to come up with something more and that something is ‘smart and efficient work’.
Doing your tasks smartly and efficiently can get you to places; it makes you unstoppable. You become the best man/woman for the job, and we are here to help you to be efficient and not just hardworking. So let’s jump into a 5 step crash course in hospitality management which will help you improve your hospitality skills, make it easy for you to cope with whatever that befalls you, help you make smart choices and love your job even more.
1. Get yourself a Mentor
As soon as you step into this area of the field, it is time to get some help from your mentor. Someone who can advise you along the way as you are just starting up. A mentor can be someone who has had the experience of hospitality management, a sincere advice from an experienced person is all you need to boost up your skills and make the best decisions possible. Searching along your professional network you sure will find people with whom you can grab a coffee and talk about all the questions you have, all you have to do is listen to them actively.
Secondly, a mentor does not only have to be someone who is your senior. It must be someone with some experience or someone who is going through a set of experiences. For example, you can learn a lot of things with someone who is working below you. You can see people’s hardships and the way they operate and from that you can gauge the nature of work, its requirements, and the goals you need to set for your team.
If someone is neither above nor below you, but they are brutally honest with you, they can be your mentor as well. They will look at your performance and plain simply explain what was not right.
Your customers are your mentors because they leave reviews based on their experiences. They do not have anything to gain from your service other than a pleasant experience, so they are the most honest insight into how you are performing in your role. A similar analysis on customer experience analysis can be accessed on www.alterrate.com to make things easier for yourself and your business.
Moreover, mentorship goes both ways. Either find one or enable a group of people as your advisory. Finding direction is the most important step for anyone in their career especially for a person who is in a people’s management, customer-oriented role.
2. Your team is your strength, it defines your customer experience
When it comes to what we eat, we are very picky and conscious about it as it directly impacts our health likewise be picky when hiring your staff. Every person in your staff is a team player and hiring your team players mindfully is the foremost priority, you are looking for people who are not only highly professional but also highly skilled. People who are sincere with their work and give positive outputs. Hiring the wrong person will only create mess for you and that mess will keep on piling up. One wrong person is a disturbance for the entire management. When every member of your staff is organized, professional things work out way smoother and better. It enhances the overall experience of the customers right from the entrance proceeding in. Hiring throughout the year and not when there is an opening is the best way to pick and choose between options to finally hire the best man/woman possible for the job.
You should also think about team training for your employees keeping in mind the latest trends seen at www.alterrate.com. As I have already mentioned the ongoing trends that are influencing hospitality management, they can have a real impact on your performance and these deliverables are met by your team. If your team is not prepared for what is new, then you should prepare to say goodbye to your rapport in the industry.
Proper training after regular intervals keeps the staff in check and their learning as well. They get in touch with what is in demand and how it should be managed for the guests.
3. Leading and Interacting
You are a people’s person. Your job requires you to tackle every aspect within your command intricately. You are managing people with the help of other people; people that you lead. To look at it, you are a leader but leading does not only demand for just giving commands, it is diplomatic. You have to get things done in the best way. It requires you to interact with the people you lead, to listen to them, to know their problems, their struggles and to soothe them with words and actions that will oblige them. You are supposed to bring your team players together with you on the same page and move ahead.
There are a number of people you will have to deal with, it includes:
- Employees
- Vendors you deal with
- Business partners
- Stakeholders
- Consultants
but most importantly,
- CUSTOMERS
That is why analyzing customer experience is important for you and hence are the services of www.alterrate.com. Here are a few tips that can help you become good at interacting:
- appreciate the people even if it is for something very small. Everyone deserves to be appreciated for their efforts and if it is coming from their leader, it will motivate your employees. This will motivate them to deal with your customers in a better way. Thank the guests for their presence and make sure you tell me in every possible way that you and your team are happy to be of their service. It will send your rating soaring into the sky.
- Give them realistic deadlines and be honest with your guests. Sometimes, the worst thing any hospitality management does to its customer is lie because they are running late. Do not lie to people, it sets a wrong precedent and your customer will never return.
4. Make your guests feel pleased
Continuing with the previous point, it is always about how your guests feel at the end. You heard me right! Your guests are your responsibility and to take good care of them should be your topmost priority. While dealing with your customer the most important part is to oblige them, the way you and your staff talk, your tone and your body language should ALWAYS be polite. This is the key to hospitality. Polite should be your mantra, every day, and every minute that you are on duty stick with this mantra and your professional milestones are not far to reach.
Other ways to enhance the overall experience of your guests is to take frequent surveys from your guests, ask them about their experience and what they feel needs improvement because there is always room for improvement; your guests are your best advisors. It would be great to leave them a note, an email or something like that to catch up and tell them the corrections that you have made in response to their feedback.
Keep one thing mind, your customer is ALWAYS RIGHT! There is nothing wrong or right at your end when it comes to hospitality management (unless of course it’s about life or death, which it usually is not). Listen to your guests and let them tell you what they need and you can do that by going to www.alterrate.com. All they want from you is a genuinely good experience. People respond back very nicely when they feel they have been heard properly.
5. Keep yourself updated
It is not only important for your team to stay updated; it is even more so for you. To know is to grow, keeping yourself updated on the news and trends of your industry is the key to improvement. Services are getting better and things are always changing. Keeping an eye on what is new in the market and introducing it to your customers always hits the mark. Be the one of the few with the facility, be the one of the first ones to introduce new things to your customers. Make yourself aware of your surroundings, what is happening around you, in your industry. Always keep an eye on your competitors, competition only brings out good for the customer and if the customer is obliged your goal is achieved.
Knowing more will make you smart. You will be able to arrange for facilities and come up with ideas long before your customer asks for it. Hospitality managements that “introduce” new services to customers are always the market leaders.
To conclude, the whole point in becoming a good hospitality manager and earn handsome customer reviews is to keep an eye out and act smartly. You do not have to work hard but efficiently, smartly and take benefit from www.alterrate.com. If you will catch up on things in a timely manner and build good relationships with people around you, it is going to set you apart from the herd and that is all you want to do.
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