GOSTELOW REPORT—”Our butlers, led by Rudy Cuadro, definitely increase customer satisfaction and bring repeat business,” says Richard Launay, who on March 30, left after eight years as general manager of the 160-key Hotel Sofitel Legend Santa Clara, Cartagena, Colombia, and regional vice president at Accor.
His entire 298-strong team felt they had lost their leader (as a boy back in Brittany, France, Launay wanted to teach but as so often happens, a part-time hospitality job led to Le Méridien, where his own leader was then-CEO, Bernard Lambert, and on to Accor).
Cuadro, in charge of a team of four, was brought up in Cartagena. His ambitions were to be a professional dancer or a marine biologist but, similarly, a part-time spending-money spell waiting tables diverted him to hospitality. “I moved on to the Sofitel, for more prestige, and Mr. Launay transferred me to the bell desk so I had more time to interact with customers. In 2014 he asked me to be a butler, and in 2017 I was appointed head butler,” Cuadro recalled.
This is no cookie-cutter Sofitel, and its butler team is unique in many ways. The five-floor hotel is built into, and onto, the shell of a 17th century convent: The main cloister courtyard was the nuns’ produce orchard. Now it is filled with indigenous trees and plants, and what is today a significant outdoor swimming pool, with the end of the terrace almost cantilevered over the Caribbean.
Butlers all have five sets of white suits, conceived by top Bogota-based designer Lina Cantillo and incorporating, on jackets’ side panels, embroidered motifs copied from nuns’ robes. The entire team is unusually integrated into the whole operation of a hotel that has an average 70% occupancy, year-round, with stays of around five nights.
“As head of department I am at the GM’s 9 a.m. morning meeting. I hold my own team meeting at 3 p.m., which catches both my morning shift, who work 8 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., and their colleagues on the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. I decide which butler should be deputed to which guest, though we continuously communicate with each other and with the conciergerie,” Cuadro explained.
He has purposely appointed team members with specific skills and interests. One is a history buff, another owns a local restaurant and is absolutely up-to-date with dining in town. Another, off-duty, volunteers teaching computing to local youngsters.
Depending on their room or suite category, about 90 guests every night qualify for butler service. This facility is layered one through to five (the last, the highest category, is reserved for heads of state, regardless of accommodation). “Layers three to five get butler airport pickup, in a white Mercedes with chilled waters, ribbon-tied glasses and an artisanal wood box holding three different types of nuts. All the butler-qualified guests, however, get whatever personalization they want during their stay,” he said.
This often includes accompanying “their guests” through Cartagena’s narrow streets and a vibe that is reminiscent of New Orleans. Especially at weekends, butlers lead private speedboats for a 50-minute trip to Isla Grande and other Rosario Islands. Cuadro never says no, though he has deflected one request away from a night-time pursuit (the guest thanked him warmly, the following day).
His most unusual unpublicized request was helping an elderly woman whose husband had missed his flight, who could not sleep unless her legs were rubbed (she was snoring after five minutes).
At least 80% of guests are on vacation. “One regular, from Austin, Texas, said he wished he could be a butler for a day. The following morning he found a complete butler uniform, white shoes included and all the right size, laid out. He even had his own business cards. He spent hours parading the pool area, handing out cards, saying he was the bad-boy butler and could he do anything,” Launay said.
Aware of the constant need to broaden his butlers’ horizons, the GM – who believes butlers are more important than management – has encouraged language lessons (Cuadro speaks faultless English, plus Portuguese and Spanish, and some French). He has stimulated their use of personal skills – the head butler teaches guests salsa, and a few minutes later is back on duty, standing vertically in his butler gear: “He has this incredible ability to be the right person at the right time,” said the GM.
Cuadro is also lead trainer for Accor’s Heartist employee motivation initiative. “After two sessions in São Paulo, Brazil, I now spend about 10 hours a month, in work time, training the rest of the staff, in small batches. Just as I have learned so much from Mr. Launay, I am honored to teach my colleagues how to do an even better job,” said Cuadro, whose wife, incidentally, is a kindergarten teacher.
So, at the end of his time teaching others so much, here, what will Launay do next? He smiled, but he did admit that he is not professionally done yet. He will announce his next move when he is ready – but first, a break.