In this interview on Forbes.com, journalist Robert Reiss interviews Ritz-Carlton President Simon F. Cooper to find out how they make the Ritz experience so special. We see 10 great practices that every company can learn from:
1. Arm staff with a great product - "First, location--making sure we get absolutely the best location, where our luxury customers want to stay. Second, product--building the right physical product for what our guests want today and what they will want tomorrow, which means an investment of between $500,000 and over $1 million per room. That's the platform. Third, people--our ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. They animate the platform. But you must get the first two right. If you're not in the right location, or if you don't have the right physical product, then employees, ladies and gentlemen, can only do so much.
2. Measure the customer experience - "Our functional indicator is "The room was clean." On the emotional side, our indicator is "I had a sense of well-being." We know we must first pass the functional question before the guest will focus on the emotional question.
3. Hire the right people - "We hire typically about 2% of the people who apply for jobs with us. "
4. Be explicit about values and culture - "Its unique culture starts with a motto: "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.... Ritz-Carlton codifies its expectations regarding service in "The 12 Service Values," "The Credo," "The Three Steps of Service," "The 6th Diamond" and other proprietary statements that are taught to all 38,000 employees throughout 73 properties in 24 countries."
5. Invest in great training6. Keep employee turnover low - "For employees, the most important internal metric we measure is voluntary turnover, which is an indicator of talent acquisition and training. "
7. Daily "lineup" - "We use what we call "lineup," which is a Ritz-Carlton tradition. The concept comes from the early restaurants of France, where the chef got his whole team and all the waiters and waitresses and the maitre d' together at 5:30 in the evening. It's a sort of round table. Everybody is there. The chef communicates what they are going to be serving. For the Ritz-Carlton, we want every single hotel, everywhere in the world, every partner, every shift, to utilize lineup, which typically takes around 15 minutes every day....And it's based on having the same message everywhere, every day, and then each hotel layers on its own message.""
8. Share "Wow stories" - "Part of the lineup everywhere around the world is a "wow story," which means talking about great things that our ladies and gentlemen have done. That is a wonderful training and communication tool, where every department layers on the department message.
9. Empower every staff member - "We entrust every single Ritz-Carlton staff member, without approval from their general manager, to spend up to $2,000 on a guest. And that's not per year. It's per incident. When you say up to $2,000, suddenly somebody says, wow, this isn't just about rebating a movie because your room was late, this is a really meaningful amount. It doesn't get used much, but it displays a deep trust in our staff's judgment."
10. Thoroughly research and understand customers - "We do a great deal of research that focuses on a broad study of luxury products and the market for high-end goods and services. Often you can see a trend coming before it becomes one by analyzing the data and studying the researchers' conclusions and predictions. At Ritz-Carlton, we want to set trends, not follow them. On the other hand, we do not position ourselves as a trendy hotel company.
The interview is a great read. Enjoy it here:
http://bit.ly/5YKBLM
About us: Medallia software enables the whole company to listen to customer feedback and systematically act to improve the customer experience: http://medallia.com
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