Customer Care: Hilton Green Park Hotel
The hotel that I have chosen is Hilton London Green Park Hotel. This hotel is situated approximately 45 minutes from Heathrow airport via tube and is located within the easy reach of all the local tourist attractions and major business centres a perfect combination of business as well as for tourist visit in London.(55)
It majorly lies between two streets that is the oxford street and the Edgware road which connects to majority of the streets leading to central London and other parts. This makes it convenient for the people who want to go for meetings and or visit a potential business site. The interiors of the hotel are very classy and make it easy for a business traveller to get the max of what he wants, the entire hotel is non-smoking one and has a business centre to hold meetings right at the comfort of the hotel.
Majority of the guests that frequent this hotel are tourist as this hotel lies exactly at the heart of London and majority of the tourist attractions like the Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Trafalgar square, oxford circus, etc are within the easy reach. The hotel has a full fledged concierge service which assists the guests in finding the best possible routes for guests and also gives them suggestions on which place they should visit and how can they go about. But many of the tourists don’t like the fact that the entire hotel is a non-smoking hotel and also it has only 1 restaurant and 1 bar and has no other variety which the guest can see or experience, but just because of its brand and the location it still goes ahead and attracts a lot of people. (295)
Customer care involves putting systems in place to maximise your customers’ satisfaction with your business. It should be a prime consideration for every business – your sales and profitability depends on keeping your customers happy. (Business Link). What is customer care. Customer Care Policies are an integral part of any functioning business, there has to be some set rules and procedure which will act like a guide in fulfilling the goals and objectives of the hotel and more importantly lead to a customer satisfaction which is the top priority of any organisation. Depending on the type of organisation the types of services that may be offered might differ which includes but is not limited to telephone, help desks, after sales, service recovery, or may be a simple face to face conversation but all that matters is that the guests problems are given a ear and that they feel important and worth the stay.
Today the market is very competent and the guests have a variety of choice to make so it is very important that companies have to go ahead and capture a major stake in the market and that is possible only if you retain the guest. Retention is only possible when the guest is satisfied and to be more elaborate the company today has to go beyond expectations or rather exceed expectations and that is possible only with strong customer care policies and it needs to be strictly adhered to and practiced devotionally. Abraham Lincoln once said “I never had a policy; I just tried to do my very best each and every day” so sometimes it’s not only about the policy but it’s on how you go beyond the policy to help the guests and that’s what makes a lasting impression on the guests minds and he will certainly be a repeat guest for you.(400)
Three customer care policies in Hilton London Green Park Hotel
Quick and fast: – As mentioned earlier this hotel usually caters to the needs of the business travellers and clients and hence they lay more emphasis on the needs of these guests by providing them quick check-ins and taking pre-authorisations (if required). Some of the basic things that they pay attention to are:-
Giving them quite rooms away from the city roads, elevators and areas from where noise can be expected as these guests usually just come in for a night take rest and then leave for another destination.
Providing them with the facilities of early breakfast in their rooms and giving them express check out facilities.
Business travellers and guests are given more attention in terms of any grievances that they may have and hence service recovery procedures are in place which includes giving them free wine bottle, upgrades, or may even include a free night depending on the situation.
Feel like home: – It is said a hotel is a “home away from home” and hence this hotel emphasises on all the guest coming to this hotel for leisure and recreation purposes and hence the guest is preferably given a room which faces towards the city or has a park view but in either case the guest is asked for the preference of his/her room. The beds are designed in such a way that a family of three (including a kid) can easily manage to sleep on the bed. Local sightseeing and local runs are arranged by the concierge as per request. The facility to provide an extra bed/cot at a nominal rate is also available. What makes it more competitive and interesting is that all the children aged 18yrs and below get to stay free if they are accompanied by their parents or grandparents and children aged 10 years and below get their meals and drinks free plus there is a garden where the kids can spend their time.
Feel like a king: – This is one policy that Hilton hotel always emphasises on, knowing what the guest wants or expects and that too at the right time makes you a winner in the market segment. The hotel maintains a proper guest profile which includes some personal information about their choices and also about their birthdates etc. So if the guest is staying with them on their birthdays or their anniversary then they send them greeting cards, some gift hampers or a simple wine bottle to say “we are happy for you”. The gifts might not be that expensive in terms of the investment done by the guests but yes this is enough to “wow” a guest and will make him feel a part of the family. Also the long stayers and frequent visitors are contacted on regular basis and they are informed of any special promotions or offers that the hotel might be running at the moment.
Effectiveness of customer care policies in the hotel
Whenever a policy is in place it is of utmost importance that it needs to be evaluated for its effectiveness and whether that particular policy is really working for the organisation or not. Now this could be done in variety of ways which included taking customer feedback, polls, opinion surveys, etc these things makes the organisation realise where exactly they stand and what best could be done to prevent that. Most of the hotels usually focus on retaining the guests but Sarah Cook in her book Customer Care Excellence mentions that it is equally important to record the customer retention rate and also to analyse it on frequent basis.
Hilton establishes a system called Hilton honours in which it can find out responses from its guests and what they are expecting in terms of hospitality organisation and also another program called Satisfaction and Loyalty Tracking (SALT) where they keep a constant track on how many guests returned back home satisfied and how many of them will be coming back to the hotel. This helps in identifying where they currently stand and how it is going to affect their business in the long run.
