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How One Hotel Group Used Tech to Achieve a 5.26% Increase in Overall Guest Satisfaction

6/25/2020

About the Author

What was your first job?

Working for Forte Hotels as a Central Reservations Agent at age 16 and selling Forte Hotels worldwide on the end of a phone.  

Who inspires you?

I have always had a great respect for Richard Branson. He has this incredible persistence and passion to keep trying.

What are your hobbies?

I find time most days for a gym workout. This keeps me sane and allows me time to think clearly every day. 

What technologies excite you?

I absolutely love anything that saves me time, money, and makes me more productive.   

What is one other job that you would like to try?

I absolutely love cars, so a vehicle test engineer was always my dream job. Coming back to reality and failing that, I have always fancied Food Concept and Menu Design  

Which three people would you invite to lunch?

Mr. Marriott (SNR), Richard Branson, and Elon Musk.

What is your favorite movie?

One that sticks out is LEON; it is such a beautiful and clever movie. 

What is your favorite vacation spot?

Brazil! It is so beautiful and filled with wonderful people and food.

At Eclipse Hotels Group (EHG), we pride ourselves on achieving the highest levels of guest satisfaction at all our hotels. But having worked in the industry for more than 20 years, I know it’s not that easy. With so many variables contributing to guest satisfaction, it’s challenging to identify what could cause satisfaction and then research and source solutions (all while keeping hotels operating).

So, where do you start?

Sameer Damji, EHG Managing Director, took inspiration from an exceptional guest experience and implemented it across our portfolio of hotels in Europe and the Caribbean. While on holiday with his family in the United States, Sameer checked into a hotel only to find out that his room was not ready to accommodate them. After a phone call to the front desk to alert them of the issue, it was promptly addressed, and a crisis avoided. The recovery involved a call from housekeeping, delivery of the requested items and a follow-up call to evaluate his experience and satisfaction with the outcome. Impressed by the speedy resolution and incident recovery of the hotel’s operational teams, Sameer inquired about how they managed such tasks, and that’s how he first learned about Quore. Having an owner who is so committed to Customer Service Excellence, really makes a difference. 

At the time, many of our functions were managed using manual processes which lacked accountability and relied too heavily on good intentions rather than robust, trackable processes. Tasks were communicated between teams using radios or paper notes which were prone to error, especially during busy periods. It was also difficult for hotel teams and managers to easily understand the status of tasks such as preventative maintenance and guest requests. It would have been challenging for us to consistently execute a service recovery to the standard that Sameer had experienced. 

Eclipse hotels have always placed highly among the quality rankings of the brands that we operate, but we continually strive to improve our performance for guest satisfaction. We are especially interested in using technology and innovation to implement improvements, and that’s what really drove us to evaluate if Quore could work for our properties.

We deployed Quore at all of our hotels globally and are delighted by the results. We now have group-wide standards for complaints, housekeeping, maintenance, risk management, health and safety and CapEx management. Further, we can centrally monitor the operational performance of all our hotels and identify any negative trends early. 

The tools Quore provides have helped us save money, but more importantly, they’ve improved the service we provide to our guests. Most encouraging has been the impact on our guest satisfaction scores; we have achieved a 5.26% increase in Overall Satisfaction, a 2.18% improvement in Problem Handling, a 5.9% improvement in Room Physical Condition and a 3.46% increase in Room Cleanliness, providing our guests with additional peace of mind.

We feel that this is just the beginning of what we can accomplish with Quore. It took us only a year to achieve a more than 5% increase in Overall Satisfaction, and as we refine our processes, we fully expect to keep improving in all of these areas. Although Sameer’s family might disagree, we’re grateful for the incident they encountered in the United States, as it challenged us to reevaluate our problem recovery execution and to apply a technology solution for a more consistent guest experience. 

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