Service awareness role-play cards came into use at The Ritz-Carlton Guangzhou, China, in September. “The idea is to capture the most frequent complaints and comments from guests and allow role-playing to be ready to prevent occurrences”, says Matthias Vogt, general manager of the 351-room property. Newly arrived members of the team, and those on work experience, are better prepared for guest problems.
The hotel opened in January 2008. He knew guest engagement could be better and for the past two years the quality department had summarized all guest comments, looking at each department in turn.
They looked for what they call MRBIV: mistakes, rework, breakdowns, inefficiencies and variation. Cards, shown here, were designed and printed at a cost of US$15 per department. They show, in both Chinese and English script, such issues as “I am your repeat guest but I am so surprised that no one greeted me,” “I found a welcome letter in my room with another guest’s name,” “The water pressure is so weak that I could not take a shower,” and “I have been waiting in queue for 15 minutes: can you speed up the check-out process?”
There are 66 cards per set. Departmental learning coaches practice the problem scenario during daily line-up, working in tandem with LEARN resolutions (listen, empathize, apologize, resolve and notify).
“Since introducing these cards, customer satisfaction has improved 47.6% and the overall guest engagement result also has a 13.6% increase,” said Vogt with satisfaction. Front of house team members have benefited most from this program and he notices they are more confident when facing guest complaints.
