Raving About the Continental Breakfast

The hotel clerk handed me my room key and then a coupon for a free continental breakfast the next morning. The previous three nights I had stayed in a hotel that included a full, hot breakfast buffet of scrambled eggs, sausages, toast, oatmeal, cereals, bagels, etc. After being treated to the hot buffet for breakfast, the continental breakfast seemed like a cheap, half-hearted effort.

There was a time when a free continental breakfast was fashionable. Now, customers expect their hotels to make a fuss over them. A continental breakfast seems like the very least a hotel could do.

In fact, here's where the market is going and what other hotels are doing:

• The Hyatt Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona offers guests a margarita upon check-in.
• The Gansevoort in New York and Turks and Caicos offer guests a Sony Reader Digital Book for the length of their stay.
• Opus Montreal offers guests Xboxes and PlayStation in their room because packing these can be a pain.
• The Zetter in London boasts an interactive guide to local restaurants, bars, clubs and more - all through the room TV - as well as 4,000 music tracks.
• The Crescent in Beverley Hills leaves a loaner iPod in every room loaded with music.
• Seven hotel in Bangkok lends you a mobile phone preloaded with all contact info for recommended restaurants and bars in the city.
• Doubletree still offers a hot cookie upon check-in (a little thing but a deliciously nice touch).
• Hotel Palomar in Dallas will offer you a goldfish in a bowl as a companion for your stay.
• Toronto’s Hazelton Hotel offers a pillow menu including the Therapeutic Siesta Body Pillow and the Snore No More Pillow.
• The Esperanza in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, will place a painting or sculpture of your choice from the hotel’s collection in your room upon request.
• At the Four Seasons Hotel Washington, you'll get the loan of a Kindle, featuring 80 different newspapers from 15 countries at the breakfast table.
• The Whatever/Whenever service at W Hotels around the world includes free services like staff running errands to get your favorite perfume or foreign newspaper.

So how is that continental breakfast tasting right now? Doing the bare minimum is not how an organization achieves greatness. What was once a nice perk years ago is well below ordinary now. I mean honestly, would you rave to your friends about the continental breakfast? What is your organization doing to add value? How are you separating yourself from being ordinary and mediocre? Become the standard that everyone else follows. Find your greatness.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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What Doctor's Offices Can Learn From Hotels

There are things that some businesses do badly that no other business should adopt as a service strategy:

• help desks that seem to shrug their shoulders on issues, "Yeah, that problem happens on occasion. Oh well. Not much we can do."
• retail stores whose on-line stock check shows there are several items in stock but when you get there, they don't have any.
• automated reminders that it's time for another visit - phone reminders that call you incessantly until you have to lose your temper with them to have your number removed.
• Costco's "everyone's a potential shoplifter" policy that creates lineups at the exit while someone with a highlighter goes through your stuff to make sure you didn't take more than on your receipt.

But then there are some ideas that other businesses should adopt. Hotels, good hotels, have something to teach doctor's offices, dentists, chiropractors, medical labs, etc. I check into a lot of hotels. At the front counter, I simply give my name and the clerk usually finds my reservation within a few seconds. The paperwork has already been done, keys are ready and I can check in quickly. After all, the quicker I get into the hotel, the quicker they have a captive customer spending money.

"Do you have an appointment?" is a question that shows a lack of initiative. Of course I have an appointment. Otherwise I would say that I don't have an appointment and ask if the doctor can see me today? How hard is it to look at a schedule of appointments and match my name with an appointment on or about the same time?


Here's the rub though: if you do have an appointment, it's because you made an appointment (called in and actually spoke to someone), then had the doctor's office call you back a day in advance to re-confirm your appointment asking you to show up a few minutes early and then when you do finally show up for your scheduled appointment, you get asked, "Do you have an appointment?"

Hotels process more guests an a daily basis than the average doctors office, or chiropractor or dentist. So how come they don't ask if I have a reservation? Remember, we're talking about good hotels here - not the ones whose clerks are standing outside the front doors having to butt their smokes when you stand at the front counter. Most people who check into hotels have a reservation otherwise they ask if there are any rooms available. Unless your medical practice is a walk-in clinic, I would suspect most patients have an appointment. Same could be said of dentists. Those without an appointment would probably call ahead in an emergency to see if they could be squeezed in amongst the appointments.

Most people have appointments when they go to see their doctor, dentist, chiropractor, lawyer, accountant, hairdresser and auto mechanic. OK, let me explain that I rarely get asked if I have an appointment when I get to my lawyer, accountant, hairdresser or auto mechanic. They assume that I do or I wouldn't be there. This really just happens in doctor's offices - but there are a lot of organizations who take their lead from treating clients like cattle. They may not necessarily ask if you have an appointment but they do the bare minimum to impress you on your first impression.

Stop thinking of your receptionist as a receptionist. Change your Attitude. That person at the front counter is the Executive Vice President of First Impressions for your company.

Mediocre, apathetic organizations make it difficult to do business and first impressions are lasting impressions. But then, as I've been saying for a while, there's no effort required in being ordinary.

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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
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Set Your People Up To Win

At the door last week, was a rep from my cable and Internet provider. She introduced herself and displayed her company employee card clipped to the outside of her jacket.

"I'm here to see if I can save you a few dollars by bundling our services," she started out.

The she asked, "So, can you tell me what services you are currently subscribing to from us?"

Huh? Wouldn't she already know what services I subscribe to before she got to the door if her purpose was to actually save me money?

What I soon figured out is that the cable company, instead of using a third-party call center to phone to pester me, sends people out into the field to knock at doors. They probably have a better closing ratio than the phone since no one answers their phones anymore. But why did she have NO information about my account?

This is what makes an organization look dumb, mediocre, ordinary: sending their people (contracted or not) out to represent the company, to talk knowledgeably to their customers, to sway new customers to increase the number of service subscriptions, and yet give them absolutely nothing to go on - no help, no "warm call," no support, no nothing. Any ordinary and mediocre company can do that. Most do. There's no effort required in being ordinary.

If you were an organization of greatness, you'd make sure that the reps you send would at least know a little something about me - even what services I subscribe to. If you're going to save me money, then you had better know exactly how you could do that before you get to my door. This pathetic sales attempt at my door was not about making me, the customer, the focus of the call.


I checked their web site under the "Careers" section. It's where I found their "Values" statement: Together, we designed a value system that will guide us and that will represent to our team and our customers how we do things here. Our values are: Accountable, Balance, Customer Focused, Loyalty, Integrity, Positive, Can Do Attitude and Team Player.

Do you want some advice cable behemoth? How about you walk your talk and actually do what your "Values" statement says you will do: support the people out in the market who deal with your customers by at least giving them a modicum of information and set them up to win instead of finding ways of getting doors slammed in their faces and your company to get a bigger black eye as a company out-of-touch with its customers?

Just another mediocre company paying lip-service to their company values.  It's no big surprise that on the same page of their web site I also found: We are always looking for motivated individuals to fill a wide range of positions in a variety of locations. No kidding.

 

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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


Subscribe to Kevin's Attitude with ATTITUDE Blog by Email
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The Attitude Of Unfairness

There is a new Legislation being argued in the US Senate these days that would make it easier for unions to form. It’s called the Employee Free Choice Act and it is creating quite a bit of concern throughout Corporate America. And Corporate America should be concerned – but not by the threat of a union. Corporate America should be concerned with the perceptual attitude of its employees that they might even consider the notion of needing a union.

People join unions because they feel that management is treating them unfairly. Examples of patronage, promoting friends, firings without cause and poor management skills leave the employees with an Attitude of mistrust. So what are the options? The biggest option is to join or form a union. The Employee Free Choice Act being discussed in US Senate right now would make it very easy for your workplace to be unionized quickly. And all that is required is simply a feeling, a suspicion or attitude of not being treated well.

If feelings of unfairness are rampant in your organization then you are a prime target for unionization under the proposed US Legislation. But that's not to say that unionizing is bad. In fact, there are still some Neanderthal managers in the workforce today who do short-change their employees, who still belittle and intimidate their workers and who do treat them unfairly. And for those organizations, being kicked in the ass by a union is probably the right thing. If there are managers on your payroll who still operate this way, get rid of them before the legislation goes through.

There doesn’t even need to be anything wrong in your organization - no evidence is required. All there needs to be is a “feeling” of being taken advantage of – an Attitude of “Us versus Them.” There doesn’t need to be evidence of unfairness – just the perception of it. Do you see the difference?

It’s not the union that managers should be afraid of. It’s the belief that a union might be necessary at all – that’s what should scare managers. If your people “feel” that they are being mistreated or taken advantage of then your organization has a Sick-Attitude that you had better address right now. The longer you wait and hope it goes away, the more likely it is to affect employee productivity, corporate relations with customers and, in turn, profitability. When morale is low, so are profits. If profits are low, where are you going to find money for union wages?

If your people are even contemplating organizing, you have an Attitude problem you need to address right now. Your place needs an Attitude Adjustment. If you don’t address it, you will pay … one way or the other.
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