Guest comment cards may have been used since time immemorial, but Royal Savoy Hotel & Spa, Lausanne, Switzerland, has added an innovative streak that exudes a hint of exclusivity. The two-fold cards are titled “Entre Nous” – “between us” – indicating that you have been specially chosen.
“This certainly means that hotel guests, and others dining in our facilities, feel a more special relationship with us,” said General Manager Alain Kropf, who, after 14 years in Asia and the Middle East with, in order, Hilton, Rotana and Shangri-La, returned to his hometown six months before the 196-room hotel’s grand opening in November 2015. “We introduced the cards in mid-2017 and the main advantage to us, as operators, is that we get instant feedback, which is not always the case with the electronic assessments that are the norm today.”
The cards are in English and French, and the interiors have plenty of space for writing comments, which some do, at length. On average 150 cards are handed in a month, to any staff member. They are collected and processed by Manager Guest Experience Mélanie Gaillet, who is also PA to the GM. Most returns, she says, are from locals, many dining in the hotel for the first time. The majority praise the beauty of the hotel, which has been redesigned by Maria Vafiadis of MKV. They also like the adjacent formal gardens, where you can dine for about eight months a year. When hotel guests fill out cards, most useful to the team are technical malfunctions, which can be attended to immediately.
As part of the impression of exclusivity, cards, as the image shows, bear a prominent B. This stands for Bürgenstock Selection. Royal Savoy Hotel & Spa, Lausanne, is, like the mega Bürgenstock Resort above nearby Lucerne, owned by Qatar’s Katara Hospitality, whose CEO Switzerland, Bruno Schöpfer, is marketing them jointly as Bürgenstock Selection.