Sharing
What follow are our key principles for building a successful system for the notation and sharing within your company of customer information.
Principle 1: Keep Your Systems Simple. Don’t track too much stuff, and keep what you do track right at the fingertips of your frontline staff.
Simplicity is what makes a preference-tracking system sustainable. If you obsessively gather gobs of data on every customer for hypothetical purposes, you’re going to obscure the preferences you need ready access to. You’ll also dilute the energy of your staff, who will lose track of the original goal: relating warmly to customers as individuals and making them feel important. This ‘‘Keep-Your-Systems-Simple’’ (KYSS) approach is almost always the best one, even in very complex customer contexts.
Setting Up the Ritz
Years ago, to begin building the customer service systems at The Ritz-Carlton, the staff were given notepads to write down guest preferences and concerns that they noticed or were alerted to. A guest who had recently sobered up wanted the mini-bar emptied prior to his arrival. One very allergic woman felt comfortable in her room only if she had ten boxes of tissues placed there. If housekeeping noticed that a solo guest turned down his bed on the left or on the right, this would be duly noted as the side to turn down in the evening. These were requests staff at The Ritz-
Keeping Track to Bring Them Back
47
Carlton wanted to honor on each subsequent visit without being asked—in whichever Ritz properties throughout the world these guests next visited.
In their initial, groundbreaking system, the Ritz-Carlton team gave themselves the goal of notating just five preferences—and then satisfying at least three of them. The result was a transformative impact on the guest experience, as has been well documented in the business press, for example in this traveler interview by Gary Heil and his co-authors from their book One Size Fits One :
The hypoallergenic pillows we requested during our last stay are on the bed, all fluffed up—and we forgot to ask this time.
There are numerous extra towels (and we remember we had called room service for extras during our last visit). The cookies on the tray are all chocolate chip, our favorite kind—and the oatmeal ones we received last time but didn’t eat are mysteri-ously missing. When we checked in, the concierge asked us if we wanted tickets to the symphony as we had requested last time.
We begin to realize that The Ritz-Carlton has taken every bit of information it learned about us from our last visit and indexed it in a database. Before our arrival, the hotel staff, from room service staff to the chambermaid, customized our room with the extra touches they knew we would want or need. They seem to know us as individuals and they seem to care genuinely whether our stay is enjoyable. 1
The impetus for the Ritz’s simple tracking system, Leonardo explains, came from an early finding: ‘ We’re always asking customers for their expectations and desires from our properties.
The most common answer we heard—and even to this day
hear—is ‘We want it to be like home.’ But when we probed guests for the unexpressed need beneath this not-quite-convincing answer, it turns out it’s not their home they want. It’s the dream of 48
Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit
a childhood home that they’re looking for—you know, the home where everything is taken care of for you.’’
At home as a typical adult, you are in control, but only on a self-serve basis. In your childhood home (optimally), it was a different sort of experience. Food appeared at mealtimes. You didn’t have to worry about shopping for personal items. When light bulbs blew out, new ones replaced them. When you left, your parents were genuinely saddened by your departure, and they looked forward to seeing you again. Most of all, your personal preferences in all of these matters were well
What follow are our key principles for building a successful system for the notation and sharing within your company of customer information.
Principle 1: Keep Your Systems Simple. Don’t track too much stuff, and keep what you do track right at the fingertips of your frontline staff.
Simplicity is what makes a preference-tracking system sustainable. If you obsessively gather gobs of data on every customer for hypothetical purposes, you’re going to obscure the preferences you need ready access to. You’ll also dilute the energy of your staff, who will lose track of the original goal: relating warmly to customers as individuals and making them feel important. This ‘‘Keep-Your-Systems-Simple’’ (KYSS) approach is almost always the best one, even in very complex customer contexts.
Setting Up the Ritz
Years ago, to begin building the customer service systems at The Ritz-Carlton, the staff were given notepads to write down guest preferences and concerns that they noticed or were alerted to. A guest who had recently sobered up wanted the mini-bar emptied prior to his arrival. One very allergic woman felt comfortable in her room only if she had ten boxes of tissues placed there. If housekeeping noticed that a solo guest turned down his bed on the left or on the right, this would be duly noted as the side to turn down in the evening. These were requests staff at The Ritz-
Keeping Track to Bring Them Back
47
Carlton wanted to honor on each subsequent visit without being asked—in whichever Ritz properties throughout the world these guests next visited.
In their initial, groundbreaking system, the Ritz-Carlton team gave themselves the goal of notating just five preferences—and then satisfying at least three of them. The result was a transformative impact on the guest experience, as has been well documented in the business press, for example in this traveler interview by Gary Heil and his co-authors from their book One Size Fits One :
The hypoallergenic pillows we requested during our last stay are on the bed, all fluffed up—and we forgot to ask this time.
There are numerous extra towels (and we remember we had called room service for extras during our last visit). The cookies on the tray are all chocolate chip, our favorite kind—and the oatmeal ones we received last time but didn’t eat are mysteri-ously missing. When we checked in, the concierge asked us if we wanted tickets to the symphony as we had requested last time.
We begin to realize that The Ritz-Carlton has taken every bit of information it learned about us from our last visit and indexed it in a database. Before our arrival, the hotel staff, from room service staff to the chambermaid, customized our room with the extra touches they knew we would want or need. They seem to know us as individuals and they seem to care genuinely whether our stay is enjoyable. 1
The impetus for the Ritz’s simple tracking system, Leonardo explains, came from an early finding: ‘ We’re always asking customers for their expectations and desires from our properties.
The most common answer we heard—and even to this day
hear—is ‘We want it to be like home.’ But when we probed guests for the unexpressed need beneath this not-quite-convincing answer, it turns out it’s not their home they want. It’s the dream of 48
Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit
a childhood home that they’re looking for—you know, the home where everything is taken care of for you.’’
At home as a typical adult, you are in control, but only on a self-serve basis. In your childhood home (optimally), it was a different sort of experience. Food appeared at mealtimes. You didn’t have to worry about shopping for personal items. When light bulbs blew out, new ones replaced them. When you left, your parents were genuinely saddened by your departure, and they looked forward to seeing you again. Most of all, your personal preferences in all of these matters were well
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