Guest Services Experience: Elevating Hospitality Standards

In the hospitality industry, customer service works a bit differently. As you’ll be delivering a service, you’ll also need to pay attention to the overall experience. 

The job calls for more than simply showing up when there’s a question or a crisis. To increase customer satisfaction, you’ll need to think of ways that you can elevate touchpoints to surpass expectations. 

What’s the Guest Experience?

The term guest experience is used a lot in the hospitality industry. In short, it refers to all the interactions a host and other employees have with guests. 

It’s not just limited to during the actual stay and can refer to interactions before guests check-in. For example, when potential guests land on your website, this too should be seen as part of the guest experience.

What were their impressions? Which emotions did they experience right up until they wrote that review?

You can think of the guest experience as the sum of their interactions, impressions, and emotions. 

To create a memorable guest experience, you need to offer more than just first-class customer service. Sure, customer service is key, but it’s only one part of the whole guest experience. As Jems Alfriano Malore, Assistant Guest Relations Manager at Delonix Hotel, puts it, “Customer service is the first step toward providing a better customer experience.” 

Why Is the Guest Experience Important?

The experience guests had while staying at your property carries a lot of weight in whether or not they’ll book your property again. If they had a bad experience, it’s unlikely that they’ll give you a second chance. Plus, you can also expect a bad review. 

If the experience was average, there’s no real reason why they should book again. It’s a maybe in their books.  

Creating a memorable guest experience is the way to win repeat customers. Basically, your goal should be to offer an experience that they’ll want to try again (and again). 

Aside from being able to rely on guest loyalty for revenue, guests who had a great time are more likely to leave a positive review. If they don’t book again, their review will help you to attract new guests. 

In just one year, the number of active listings on Airbnb grew by nearly 20%. Yet, there are still only 365 days in a year (even if you follow a four-day workweek) and your potential guests have only limited time to travel. 

There’s enough supply to meet demand. If you want your business to remain profitable, you’ll need to make guest satisfaction a priority each and every time. 

What’s more, hospitality businesses that offer a first-class guest experience can also charge more for their rooms. There’s been a shift in recent years and consumers are becoming more willing to pay extra if it means that they’ll be enjoying a unique experience. 

What Can Impact the Guest Experience?

There are obvious factors like cleanliness of the property, location, and selection of amenities. 

Guests’ interactions with employees will also play a huge role. Were they provided clear check-in instructions? Was there a welcome book that explained how to use appliances? If guests still had follow-up questions, was the host approachable and available?

Then there are the less obvious impacts like the accuracy and level of detail of the property description.

Three Simple Ways to Improve Guest Experience

When you’re setting goals, ensure to add these three goals to your to-do list. Memorable moments can be created when you focus on the following basics:

Create a friendly environment

Guests should feel at home. At no time during their stay should they feel as if they’re an inconvenience. 

It’s the small gestures that often make the biggest difference in their stay. For example, if you do in-person check-ins, assisting with luggage helps to set the tone. 

That said, there are still various examples of how you can make the guest feel welcome without meeting them in person. A handwritten, welcome letter along with a bottle of sparkling water or fresh bread from the local bakery can deliver the same positive first impression. 

Add personal touches 

Guests have become used to the concept of personalization. Businesses in the hospitality industry can also find ways to incorporate it. 

For example, if you know that the next booking will be a family with two toddlers, you can recommend family-friendly restaurants. On the other hand, if you’ll be hosting honeymooners, tailor your recommendation lists to restaurants that offer fine dining. 

The same applies to amenities. Families will be interested in places like a theme park, while honeymooners will prefer to spend their time at a spa. 

Be available

Here’s the thing about working in hospitality, you need to be available 24/7. In the event of an emergency, you’ll often be the guest’s first point of contact. 

In fact, some states even have regulations about appointing a contact person who will be able to respond at any hour of the day. So, it’s not just an expectation among guests. That’s why leveraging hospitality recruiters who understand the unique demands of these roles is so valuable. Hospitality recruiters can source talent prepared for the unique schedule flexibility this industry requires.

If you can’t offer round-the-clock support, it’s best to add another member to your team. Depending on the size of your property, it might make sense to appoint reception staff. 

What Does a Guest Service Representative Do?

Bigger properties like hotels and B&Bs typically hire guest service representatives (also called a guest experience specialist or simply receptionist). This employee will be responsible for providing front desk services like payment processing. They’ll also need to provide information on a wide range of topics like nearby facilities and amenities. 

Some of this position’s other responsibilities generally also include:

Processing check-in and checkouts:

• Admin tasks 
• Attending to guest requests
• Greeting guests
• Delivering messages

In some cases, they might even be required to deal with conflict. As such, it’s key that they have very strong interpersonal, listening and communication skills. 

Other qualities and requirements are:

• A high school diploma (ideally with a few years of experience working in customer service)
• Excellent writing skills
• Solid organizational and time management skills

An Alternative to Hiring a Guest Service Representative 

For vacation rental properties without a dedicated front desk area, hiring guest service representatives doesn’t really make sense. Instead, you’ll have to rely on employees like a cleaning team or perhaps a butler to help you with different duties. 

In this case, investing in a vacation rental software solution will be a logical next move. It offers a wide range of features to help hosts and property managers maintain service quality. 

For example, with a tool like iGMS, you can:

• Send guests reminders to leave online reviews
• Organize messages and email into a single feed to streamline communication
• Leverage templates and triggered messaging to send them more information about specific services
• Track your business performance via an analytics Dashboard
• Receive guest payments and create invoices by connecting your Stripe account