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Taming The Guest From Hell

Back in 2006, the concept of the Guest from Hell was introduced to the industry in two articles entitled Besting and then Muzzling the Guest from Hell published by several industry organs. The feedback demonstrated strong support for the idea of an international database for the hospitality industry that would put an end to the free run of free service some guests have enjoyed by following the formula of “complain loud enough, be mean enough, and the suckers will comp you.” This strategy echoes Hitler’s “The bigger the lie, the more the people will believe it” — as long as they fail to face up to the unpleasantness and do nothing about it.

Typical of the feedback received was, “Your articles have given us strength to carry on. It seems these people gravitate to new facilities such as ours in the hope less-experienced staff and managers will be easier prey….and they may be right.”
“Please let me know if anything comes of the national database. It is a wonderful idea and will find tremendous support from the hospitality managers if not the entire industry.”

Several readers shared their own experiences with guests from hell, such as the following: “Reading your article about guests from hell has made my day. I had only been in this business for less than a year as the GM of a modestly sized hotel in a small Mid-western town, when I was ready to look for any other work. Why? Because of the stress caused by the few bad guests out of the thousands of good guests we had served. I believe, as you, that these are indeed serial criminals acting the way they do just to get free lodging.

“Take one guest who had reserved a room for one night. The next day, he asked to extend for a day and we granted that. The next day, his wife complained that a housekeeper had stolen make-up from the room.  We checked with the staff, but no one had noticed any make-up in the room. Still, we purchased comparable make-up for her and I offered a discount on the cost of their room (as a result of which my owners now want to pre-approve all purchases). The next day, the couple was supposed to check out and did not do so, although all their possessions had been removed from the room; so we ran their card and checked them out. That night they came back upset that their key would not work. The gentleman ranted about having a five-day reservation and would not listen to anything else, including any apology. We put them back in the same room, rearranging future reservations for other guests in order to do so. I even extended the additional discount to all five days of their stay. When they finally left, it was a distinct relief for everyone involved.

“A few days later, the gentleman called the hotel demanding to know what the additional charge was on his credit card statement. I asked him to send me a copy of his statement so that I could research any unauthorized charges. When I pulled up his folio, the ‘additional charge’ was for the first two days and the other one was for the next three days. I refunded the first two days’ charges and ended my letter to him with, ‘I hope you find future stays in other hotels to be more enjoyable’ …hoping he would take the hint and never return.

“I have also had guests demand the manager come in late at night so they could argue about rates; one of these guests brought my front desk clerk to tears with his abuse, then complained to our HQ when I asked him not to return to our facility.
There are also the saboteurs. We had a couple complain to our headquarters that the toilet constantly flushed all night and they could not sleep. It was not flushing when I was in their room helping them with Internet access, but after they left, it was running constantly because someone had moved the flapper off by 90 degrees. He complained that the AC would not work and he could not get cool all night.  She complained that it was too cold and she could not get the heat to work.  Maintenance found that the PTAC thermocouple had been bent out of shape and was unusable.  It had been working fine while I was up there earlier. They filed an official complaint that counted against us, and yes, they got their comp room.

“I guess that in this business you see the full range of people and the 98% who are pleasant just seem to fade into the background due to the noise of the 2% of guests from hell. Thank you for offering a glimmer of hope for the future.  Maybe with that database of guests from hell we would be better prepared and wouldn’t lose so many good people to less stressful jobs, like bomb squads and hostage negotiations.”

In searching for a partner to create and manage this Guest from Hell database, early advice included: “Your article was quite something. I am told that Talbots has computerized customers who continually create problems, particularly with their gracious return policy. They track these folks and their history and actually get to the point where they inform this type of customer that they are no longer welcome to shop at Talbots. Hospitality and sensibility only go so far when someone has ransacked the relationship. Typically, the guests from hell you are referencing receive free meals, rooms, cocktails, etc, and sometimes they even bring suit—a nuisance and expense. Perhaps consider working with and being sponsored by insurance companies that cover hotels for such suits (presented on the expense side, it would fall under their umbrella, and insurance companies probably already have this info somewhere, as all businesses are subject to ruse), as well as the larger hotel chains and the AH&MA. Good lord, credit card companies have protection built in, too, for any charge, which may be the seamless protector needed and offered as a service or specialty to their market.”

However, the editor of the magazine publishing the articles said in July 2007 that he would like to use his resources to run the database. He put his Sales and Marketing Director onto the project and the Institute provided the initial text for the Web site and overview and policies on how the program should run, as well as a program of steps to take to bring it to fruition. After providing initial feedback on the name of the database (Guest from Hell was fine for editorial, not a serious business), the Sales and Marketing Director ran with the concept, brought in investors and by the beginning of 2008, launched the database as Hotel Safeguard.

Keeping the Database on Target

The danger of keeping a database on guests is that it can set the hospitality industry on a course that belies its true nature: hospitality being, after all, a caring welcome for strangers, no questions asked. We cannot turn into Stasi or FBI agents, suspicious and challenging of our guests, secretly collecting information on them in ever more intrusive ways or using the threat of blacklisting to bulldoze genuine guest complaints, justifying shoddy service. The answer is to define clearly the very few who are to be reported on, and hold vigorously and unfailingly to this definition. Otherwise, like the Federal Income Tax of 1913, or the current Alternative Minimum Tax, both of which targeted a small percentage of the very wealthy and gradually expanded to include everybody (Income tax currently, AMT predictably eventually), all guests may have files kept on them eventually.

This database or directory should not be for guests who occasionally have issues and are either comp’ed by the hotel to redress an imbalance in service or product delivered, or who seek to be comp’ed in proportion to an actual failure to serve or damage done.

Nor is an angry, inconsiderate, rude, and generally highly unpleasant person really the definition of a guest from hell. Yes, there are hellacious guests and we’d prefer not to service them, but in hospitality, one is there to serve graciously. Such unpleasant guests are part of the terrain, they are often not always so, and it is not for hotels to screen guests according to their character.

To illustrate the point, let’s take this story from a hospitality professional: “As I walked into the front desk area of a beautiful property, a woman was going ballistic at the hotel manager, ranting and raving and giving him a mouthful in a very serious manner about how she didn’t need to bring business to his hotel. I couldn’t help but ask the lovely front desk girl what the problem was all about, as I thought something really bad had happened. Can you believe that the woman had asked for a horseback ride to be arranged and, in order to be fitted with the correct horse, had been asked her age, height, and weight! What a very sad person she must have been to make such a commotion over something so trifling.”

What hoteliers do have a right to do is prevent fraud. Anger and antisocial conduct in and of themselves do not show intent to defraud. Consider these two stories.

“In 25 years, the strangest guest(s) was a family staying at large hotel near Disney I managed in the mid 1980’s. The husband reported money had been stolen from their room. The new Manager on Duty reported it to me as I was leaving for the day so I decided to assist. On arriving at the room, we were met by a husband, wife, and two kids. The husband was fuming and beet red, telling us how $10,000 had been stolen from his room while they were at the attractions. I asked to see where the money had last been seen. Yelling and calling us all kinds of names, he showed me a black overnight bag. I asked him if he travels differently when with family versus for business, and could he have put the wallet someplace else. Across the room lunges his 4-foot 2-inch wife, bounding up on the bed in a feeble attempt to go eye to eye with my 6 foot 2 frame while calling us names that must still be hanging in space over Disney.

“I called the law. The law arrives and took their report. Included in the wallet were credit cards and travelers checks. I offered the use of my phone and office so he could place cancellation calls. Again, he continued to call us names when in the office, in front of his kids and others. He placed a call to his boss instructing me to tell him what had happened. Feeling for the kids, we offered to buy them dinner in one of the restaurants. During the meal, he told anybody and everybody his opinion about what had happened to his wallet. He demanded to speak with the housekeeping staff and I told him that would not happen. His response was that he would talk to anybody he wanted on a Sunday morning.

“The next morning, as I entered my unlit office, the phone line lit up. Looking down at it I said to myself  ‘That has got to be Mr. Guest from heck.’ I answered the call. It was his wife. She wanted to tell me that they had found the wallet. She asked me if I could call their credit card and Traveler Check Company to cancel their cancellation. Hours later, the wife appeared in the lobby to checkout while her husband sat in the car…maybe, just maybe, too embarrassed to make eye contact. Method of payment? Credit card or traveler checks….those had been canceled…of course, I helped them out to help the kids.

“The award for second place goes to the case of the Lost-and-Found hand gun. Same hotel, highly populated by families with kids. A guest checks out. Room cleaner calls to report gun found. I approach it with caution, empty it, cover it in a towel and take to my office for inventory and placement in the safe.

“Several days later, the guest calls housekeeping to see if he had left his gun at our hotel. The call is transferred to me. The caller announces ‘I cannot understand why that imbecile transferred me to you. All I want is my gun back.’ I asked the caller to describe the gun, with manufacturers name and serial number. To which he replied, ‘I guess you are the hard ass there.’ My response was that I was just doing my job. After we exchanged stats and pleasantries, I asked when he would be stopping back to pick it up? He said ‘You  ******ing idiot, I live in the Great Lakes area and will not be back there for years. Just mail it to me.’ I had to explain to him that I could not mail it to him as it is against the law and weapons can only be shipped from one dealer to another. At that point he said ‘Just stick it in a box and mail the ******thing, you *****’ To which I said, ‘OK, you can pick it up at the County Police Department,’ giving him the number and address. To this day, I can still here him yelling as we closed our phone conversation. Thanks for listening: better and cheaper than a psychiatrist.”

To make the grade as a Guest from Hell, there really has to be the distinct intention to defraud, and a pattern of doing so or attempting to do so from one hotel to another. In such cases, the game or focus for hoteliers switches from providing hospitality to playing cop.

That is what should have happened at a hotel where I was training the butlers, but did not happen because no mechanism existed for defining and pushing back against guests from hell. It was what gave me the idea for such a database. Picture a hotel opening where the staff had pulled off miracles to open on time (the owner and his family even rolling up their sleeves to sweep floors, organize, push, debug and drive through the myriad projects and sub projects involved in constructing and opening a large, five-star standard hotel). With great anticipation, the opening ceremony goes smoothly. The full house includes one gentleman and his entourage in the Presidential and adjoining suite. We first started to notice trouble when this guest ordered breakfast from the butlers and from room service. He requested different items for different times from each department. When the butlers and room service independently delivered the requested items at the requested time, the guest complained they were early/late and had forgotten items. This upset the employees initially until they compared notes. At checkout, the guest listed these and myriad similar “failings” and demanded the entire week’s stay for himself and entourage be comped.

It was.

Subsequent enquiries with two hotel chains found this individual to be blacklisted within each chain for what essentially is fraud. It is this kind of deliberate effort to steal or defraud, as well as tendency to damage property, which should be the subjects of reports for any Guest from Hell database.

Another way of putting it, is we are not behavior monitors or censors, but hospitality professionals with a duty to employees, corporations, and guests to discourage and eliminate criminality when it raises its ugly head. Every time a Guest from Hell, who may have been written up in another hotel’s database, comes to your hotel(s), you are behind the 8-ball and have to go through grief before becoming the wiser. For the one-time effort of transferring any existing database and ongoing input of information, and a fee per hotel, you can have access to a far more complete database than your hotel alone can create, save on comps and their narrowing of the profit margins, increase employee equanimity for better service, and leave the chore of running the database to another.

So the next time a guest trashes a suite or noisily demands to be comped at the end of a stay for reasons without merit, you don’t have to fawn or smile a smile you do not mean and hope that the steam coming out of your ears isn’t visible. You can do something about it! Skewer away!

This article also published in www.4hoteliers.com, www.hsyndicate.com, www.hotelnewsresource.com and Airline News Resource (www.airlinenewsresource.com)

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What To Do If There’s Nobody At Home

We all know what are right attitude and good service, but how does one bring them about in others?

The answer to that question should be worth your attention, if not $64,000.

The basic philosophy behind the answer is that presence precedes action both in terms of sequence and importance. Without the ability to be, one cannot do—an understanding that could have put Hamlet’s mind firmly to rest. It could likewise save many megawatts of energy on the part of trainers the world over, trying to inculcate(1) into their hopeful charges various mantras and set patterns of behavior in dealing with guests.

The point being missed is that the simple ability “to be there, in the moment” is the starting point for three vital skills, all of which add up to ability, and without which, actions invariably end up being inappropriate:

  1. Can you perceive what is there in front of you (as opposed to what you think is there)?
  2. Can you compute rationally?
  3. Can you act appropriately?

In order to perceive what is in front of you (such as a guest), you have to be in front of the person in front of you. No argument with such a truism(2), perhaps, until we ask for a definition of “You.” Who are you? We are back to philosophy. A question that is easy to answer, in this case, if we imagine your body standing in front of an irate guest who has various things to say, while you are daydreaming about the night before; or perhaps thinking furiously about your employees who messed up in so disagreeable a fashion; or zoning out in any number of ways.

The guest finally finishes talking and you do a quick replay of what you thought he said, and your response results in another ten minutes of invective. “You” in this case, does not refer to your body. While some people might guess it refers to your mind, the thing you are busy computing with—“Your mind was on something else”—this is not correct, either. “You” are the person who is aware of being aware, who is aware of the thoughts about your juniors, or the pictures of the night before, and busy looking at them instead of the guest.

If being in the moment is so important, why can’t or don’t more of us do it more often? How come our minds keep wandering, we become impatient or angry with the person in front of us, or bored, or any other attitude? These are all a departure from being there comfortably in front of another person and really tracking with what he or she is saying, doing, and needing.

Well, 20th Century pill-pushers have most of us convinced that these modern potions and elixirs will fix our wandering attention. Yet every single person I have seen on these legalized drugs or trying to shake their addiction is a mass of random thoughts and introversion that make it very difficult indeed to be in the moment, observing calmly, computing and acting rationally. With 80% of the US population on these drugs and the rest of us beginning to enjoy them in our water supply, I’d say we had one reason people’s attention is not always in the moment. Obviously, street drugs, some of which are as powerful as their psychiatric cousins, have the same effect, but we tend to try discourage street-drug-popping employees from remaining employed. So this may not be a factor, except in the case of employees who have indulged a bit too much in the past—drug residues remain locked in various parts of their anatomy and occasionally go into circulation and thus effect.

Another element that makes it hard to be in the moment is thinking we understand something while not actually doing so; or not understanding something at all. If this guest with a big issue uses words we do not understand, or mumbles something so we cannot hear it, or uses a word for which we understand the wrong definition, or has a limited ability to express himself, there is a subtle disconnect on our part from the guest, and if enough of these non-comprehensions occur, we start to feel frustrated or worse at the guest, compounding the problem that we are not understanding their problem and so are not going to be able to deal with it to their satisfaction.

Or maybe we have had an argument with a significant other. That’s an upset and a problem and maybe, if we have something we did to him or her that we haven’t come clean on, also a source of anger toward them (paradoxically): the end result is attention anywhere but on the guest.

Many more factors compel a person out of the moment, but rather than belaboring the point, suffice to say that trying to beat in SOPs over these distractions does not resolve them and so success remains ephemeral.(3) When employees walk around with an unfortunate attitude or serve salami in the soup instead of croutons, then one has to cut back and fix the “ability to be in the moment” before one can make any progress with “Well, this is what really goes in soup,” and “This is the kind of attitude guests tend to appreciate when servicing them.” The ability to be in the moment no matter what is going on in one’s own head (such as dislikes of certain types of guests), one’s private life (such as financial problems), or one’s body (such as pains, or drugs numbing or speeding up life), is the desired end goal. Handling the different elements that drive one out of the moment is of course the best long-term fix. But this lies outside the scope of a hotel executive’s purview.(4)

By definition and requirement, British butlers are a phlegmatic (5) group tasked with observing what is in front of them so as to anticipate and provide invisible service. That was my starting point as a butler, so meeting with shortfalls in those under my charge in terms of superior service, I realized the basic issue was this question of inability to be there in the moment and thence observe what is right in front of one’s face. Under-butler standing behind a guest who has just lit a cigar: does the under-butler observe that the room has no ashtray, thereby predicting an imminent need and so acting swiftly and discreetly?(6) No, he is off in the stratosphere about goodness knows what, reason unknown. So the inevitable happens: the guest has to ask for an ashtray, about which the under-butler may or may not have an attitude, and then the guest has to focus on calibrating the required angle of his cigar to accommodate a one-inch length of sagging ash while the cigar slowly extinguishes itself and the under-butler tracks down an ashtray in a flurry of coattails and perspiration.

The search for a solution to this malaise led to a most unlikely place: A series of drills created almost six decades ago by the researcher, Mr. Hubbard, who was the first to recognize this issue of people not being in the moment and the various reasons they are not. He created drills that would enable the counselors he was training to be in the moment during counseling sessions that would sometimes last hours on end. The requirement being interested observation and concern that was completely invisible and natural to the other person. Nothing introduced by the counselor that could distract the other person, continual observation of the other person’s world, computing and anticipating futures, and taking appropriate action. It would be nice to think Hubbard was inspired by observing his Rhodesian butler in action a few years earlier, but that would not be the actual case.

Suffice to say, the drills work very well when done properly, because they give employees the ability to be present in the moment, and therefore observe, anticipate, and act. It does not matter how wild a situation or person may become, the employee has the ability to calmly and appropriately face the situation, weigh it up, and act to improve it. Where everybody has this skill, more often than not, situations do not spiral so far out of control that they need to be salvaged with great decibel- and fraught (7) emotional-levels.

If a person can be himself, accurate observation, intelligent computation, and effective action can then take place. Beyond this, however, is one other element that is singularly critical to anyone interested in serving another, whether a writer, actor, butler, or President: the ability to be that other person, to see life as he or she sees it.

What do my constituents really want that will make them vote for me again? What do my customers really want to buy? What does my guest like and want? Yes, we research, ask questions, build databases if we are smart. But beyond that, when all is said and done, are we sitting in our own space thinking, thinking, thinking? Or can we go out and look at another person and just see them for who and what they are? Can we assume their point of view, geographically speaking, literally look at the world through their eyes and listening through their ears and hearing their thoughts?

When we can, then we won’t have any trouble anticipating their next need and desire. When a butler long in experience, including with the British Royal family, told the author that mastering the art of butling is a life-long ambition, he was right on track, because this kind of skill is some of the magic that goes into being the quintessential butler, and therefore, the quintessential service professional.

And it all starts with being.

  1. Instill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persistent instruction
  2. A statement that is obviously true while providing nothing new or interesting
  3. Lasting a very short time
  4. The extent of the concerns or influence of someone or something
  5. Having a dependable and calm disposition
  6. Intentionally unobtrusive
  7. Causing or affected by great anxiety or stress

Published in HotelExecutive.com in Summer 2007, Hotel News Resource in July 2007 and Airline News Resource in 2007.

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Muzzling The Guest From Hell

If response to an article is anything to go by, the recent one about Besting the Guest from Hell (Hotel Business Review and since reprinted by request in various other venues) hit the spot for a number of readers. Who hasn’t had a run-in with a guest from hell and, following the dictum, “The Guest is Always Right (even when they are acting criminally and anti-socially),” have taken it on the chin, turned the other cheek, and dare I say it, bent over—and in so doing, also exposed their sense of what is right and just to a good drubbing. After which, invariably, there is the giving away of the farm to appease the guest; huge amounts of angst about possible repercussions from head office, the media, and whatever other sources of retribution the guest promised to inform of one’s misguided efforts at service; and a lessening of one’s liking for the job, eventually to the point of quitting the profession.

It is essential that the hospitality industry preserve the “hospitality” in its approach to guests; guests from hell undermine the openness and good humor upon which such hospitality depends. Yet this “Besting the Guest from Hell” article is reportedly the first to espouse skewering such guests in order to protect that usually sacrosanct bottom line and that otherwise-well-nurtured employee morale.

Read on to discover exactly how we can take this old “bull” by the horns and deliver the coup de grace.

Consider momentarily two of the responses received to “Besting the Guest from Hell”

“I had the misery of dealing with such a guest when I was the GM for (named) Hotel. Sadly, this cretin called the corporate offices and lied and slandered me ruthlessly. I had worked with that company for four years, increasing occupancy and profits. Yet, this one creature, behaving similarly to the Presidential Suite creep in your article spouted off about legal action and my tenure quickly changed into being micromanaged. Needless to say, I resigned within a year. It seemed his celebrity superseded anything I had done. I did tell everyone in my city and chain about his behavior and we were protected from his ilk. I believe your bad guest list is a wonderful idea. I hope it takes hold. I thank you. It is rare that I respond to an article, I felt yours required positive feedback.”

“Thank you for telling the truth—such a rare thing now—and addressing a topic near and dear to many service people’s heart. Although no longer employed in the Hotel/Restaurant business, my eighteen-plus years in the business, unfortunately, left me with more memories and stories of the bad guest than the good. Throughout my time in the business, I compiled these stories in my head and contemplated my first book, to be titled ‘The Customer is Not Always Right.’ Without ranting on with these stories, but sticking to my intention of giving you good feedback for your article, my one comment would be that the select few who behave this way do it because they have consistently gotten away with this behavior. When managers empower employees to treat these people correctly, and their success rate goes down, maybe they will learn that far more is achieved with honey.”

Without wanting to undermine application of the dictum, “The customer is always right”—invaluable in gracefully resolving genuine customer complaints from guests who are merely poorly served, cantankerous, or difficult…even if they do often embellish their complaints with hyperbole for effect—I feel the time is ripe for a counterattack on those whose intent is not to right a wrong but who make a habit of trying to obtain something for nothing.

For such is the definition of a criminal, whether bopping one on the head and running off with one’s wallet; “making” vast fortunes through hedge funds and other manipulations of virtual money at the expense of the actual, physical economy; or hopping from one hotel to another without exchanging the valuables required to pay the wages and bills. It does not matter how many platinum cards guests carry or tailored suits they wear: if their intent and activity is to maneuver for a free ride by manufacturing complaints out of whole cloth instead of enjoying good service delivered in good faith, then they are criminals.

So what to do? Well, it’s time we applied some good old hospitality technology to what is probably an age-old problem. “Besting the Guest From Hell” recommended adopting the Butler’s traditional “Black Book” of employer misdeeds and character issues. We would upgrade this tool, a hard-backed book filled in with a stubby pencil or quill pen, to a 21st Century Web-based databank solution administered by one or two individuals. Having the same general purpose as a sexual offender list, the Hospitality Black Book would differ in that the list would not be open to the general public or even anyone in the hospitality industry, but only be accessible by the administrators, with oversight by an industry board of advisors. Said information on egregiously offending guests to be solely in the form of facts: date and time of criminal acts; location; exact specifics on what the guest said or did without any opinions or conjecture thrown in; the outcome of the guest’s actions; and a sworn attest from the person(s) making each report.

The administrators would be sworn never to divulge the information, but only to answer any queries from any member hospitality company as to whether an individual has been placed in it. The administrators would collect any new reports on new or old names on the list and would be charged only with ensuring that the information in it is factual before filing it. These administrators would receive a small sum of money from hotels to cover their costs of administering the list (given the number of hospitality venues in the world, the sum could be as little as $5 per hotel).

In the event a guest surmises he is on the list (from the continued refusal by hotels to accommodate him or her), he would have recourse to an independent committee of evidence (made up of four independent hospitality industry and public figures), which would show the reports to the party, get his or her side of the story, and make its findings, including proposing what the guest would need to do to make up the damage to the hotels submitting the complaints (i.e. refunding the comps, public apologies, etc.) and thus allow the guest to clear his or her name. This provision is mentioned only for the occasional time a guest with a genuine complaint has been incorrectly included on the list. Factually, the names on the list will be serial abusers with no slightest concept they have ever done anything wrong and so incapable of reforming.

The above would be the administrative set-up and easy to institute, given software programs, Internet, and Paypal.

While this independent body is being established by whoever wants to step in and set it up, a campaign needs to be run in the industry to identify such guests from hell, provide the parameters for their recognition and the rules of engagement/disengagement, including the meticulous keeping of notes as soon as one has identified a guest as being from hell.

If one has not been able to identify such a guest before his or her arrival and thus been unable to steer them away from one’s facility, one can still check with the independent body the moment a guest seems to show his or her true colors. Thus confirmed, employees would be instructed to keep the notes that will later be submitted to the independent body; as well as have the GM present to the guest who, upon checking out, will be trying to deliver his coup de grace with a demand for a comped stay or heavy discount because of all the “bad service” received.

It might help to educate guests from hell that their number is up. The simplest way to freeze them in the headlights is to produce a popular level book (as suggested by the reader above) and let the media get their hands on it. This book would detail some of the more egregious and wild examples of the activities of guests from hell while sewing examples throughout of how they were eventually brought to justice. The existence of such a book would put such guests on notice and may well cause some of them to tone down their activities. It would certainly empower employees with the knowledge that their nemesis has been caught squarely in the headlights—their criminal behavior acknowledged as unacceptable, and the mechanism existing for dealing with it.

It is only when one cannot do something, anything, about evil individuals, that they can give one the blues and blunt one’s desire to serve. So when there is some way to fight back, there is no need for employees to sink into a funk, or for the hospitality industry to feel skittish about employees and the bottom line being assailed by the ill-willed. Morale and income can only improve as a result, if only because, as one head butler indicated after reading the original article on the subject, the amount of money his resort would save in egregious comps as a result of curtailing the activities of guests from hell, would be significant.

To start the ball rolling on the campaign, please send in the horror stories of your experience(s) with guests from hell. Doing so may well prove a catharsis of sorts, as well as enabling this long-needed counter-attack. Final publication will not include your or any guest or hotels names, only your initials. Language and grammar will be cleaned up, so do not feel shy if your writing skills may be wanting.

First published in Hotel Business Review on 6 September, 2006
This article was also featured in Hotel News Resource, Airline News Resource and Hotel-Online.com

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Putting the Sizzle into Condotels – A Brand New & Growing Venue For Butlers

The symposium on condo hotels in Hollywood, Florida on 22 and 23 May, 2006 was a good opportunity to take the pulse of the industry, make useful contacts, and also educate key players on the value butlers bring to high-end condo hotels. In attendance from our industry were the Executive Director of the International Institute of Modern Butlers, the Head Butler of The Cloister and the Front of the House Manager of The Lodge, both prestigious properties off the coast of Georgia, USA.

To recap, condohotels are basically condominiums in or connected to hotels that allow owners access to the resources of the hotel, including management of their condominiums.*

Condos in hotels are not all the same. Residential units in condotels are lived in by the owner; others limit the amount of time owners may live in their units, expecting them to allow their units to be rented out by the hotel. Owners like the idea, because they generally only want to use their condos occasionally, and the rental income (shared by owner and hotel) offsets or covers the cost of their unit: all of which adds up to these units being viewed as investments and second/vacation homes. The downside to these rental units is that owners may not furnish or decide on the décor of these units, although they are usually allowed to store on site and then use personal items such as portraits when they are in residence. Hoteliers like condotels because they make it easier to acquire financing for development, as well as providing a healthy income stream year round.

Almost half of the condotels on the market or under construction in the US are ocean front, the rest mainly in urban areas, casinos and theme parks. Other markets where condotels are expanding significantly are the Middle East, China, and South America. One developer alone in Brazil has fifty condotels. While condotels began to appear in Europe and London in the Seventies, the first on record appears to have been in Miami Beach during the 1940s.

So what does this all have to do with butlers? Rather a lot, actually. Owners pay anything from about $300,000 to $25 million for these properties. But no calculator can create or measure their true value because what the owners value is the lifestyle their condotel offers them. Hoteliers have to deliver experience, not just four walls. As with any effective marketing, it is the sizzle that sells, not the steak. The sizzle in condotels is not really the marble baths with gold-plated fixtures, as these kind of amenities are almost the baseline of expectation. The sizzle includes the spa, restaurants, gym on or off site, the theaters, etc. But even these are also part of the basic expectation, otherwise the owners would not have been looking in that particular area for a condotel.

No, what guests and owners want more than anything else (as mentioned by a few speakers at the symposium) is to be pampered. They want to be wowed inside and outside their suites. Speakers mentioned maid and even concierge service as examples of pampering. Only one person mentioned the “B” word. That is because perhaps the majority of condotels are not in the five-star range that would require butler service. As another speaker pointed out, concierge service speaks of a 4-4.5-star service. And because we have yet as a profession to make inroads into the condotel market, most people, even in five-star environments, have not made the connection between pampering and butlers. To be sure, concierges pamper and offer marvelous service, but they are limited to front-of-the-house activities. They rarely do anything in guest or owner units short of delivering items or perhaps taking care of emergencies for absentee owners.

I think we have to recognize that as butlers, we are Johnny-come-latelies in the hospitality environment. We have to keep talking up the sizzle for high-end hotel and condotel owners, developers, and managers, or they will continue to think in terms of the more limited concierge and maid services.

Well, the good news is that we spread the sizzle a bit through one-on-one chats with developers, owners, and managers, as well as during the final panel presentation. We now have interest from quite a few large and boutique projects in the US, Caribbean, and China.

We would like to help you do the same. If you see possibilities for introducing butler service into a luxury condotel (or even hotel) being built or completed in your area, please contact us so we can assist you in presenting the concept to the owners, developers, or managers.

There is no doubt in my mind that condotels represent a huge market (halfway between private residence butling and hotel butling and combining the benefits of both) that only needs a few butlers boldly going where no butler has gone before to blossom into a whole new field of employment for our ranks!

* As a note, condos in America are owned residences sharing the same building and management, with common areas and gardens cared for by the management company. In England, these are known as “flats” or “apartments,” but in the US, those terms are used only in connection with rental units.

This article also appeared in the 16 June 2006 issue of 4Hoteliers.com

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Besting The Guest From Hell

“You call this a five star-hotel?” I’ve been in Motel 6’s that provided better service. You people are all the same, slipping service standards and all you are interested in is tips. It’s freezing in here, the A/C doesn’t work, the bed’s too small, the place stinks, I’ve been kept waiting by room service again, although why I bother eating here I don’t know, the food tastes atrocious, everybody says so. Get me the manager!”

Not your favorite type of guest. They come, they complain about everything, and when it comes to checking out, they complain some more and loudly until the alarmed manager perhaps comps their stay. Sometimes they set up the employees to fail, such as happened once when a guest ordered breakfast from the butlers whom I was training at a newly opened hotel, and also from room service. He requested different items for different times. When the butlers and room service independently delivered the requested items at the requested time, the guest complained they were early/late and had forgotten items. This upset the employees initially until they compared notes. At checkout, the guest listed these and myriad similar “failings” and demanded the entire week’s stay for himself and entourage in the Presidential Suite be comped.

Yes, one can blacklist such people, but what about those who then call in under a false name, or have someone else do so? And what about this being the first time such a character and his/her entourage comes to your hotel-as happened with the gentleman mentioned above? Once he had gone, a quick check with two large chains found him blacklisted.

In defense, does one create a national database of blacklisted guests? Butlers in London used to have their little black book with information on “employers to be avoided.” Word of mouth still exists in the butler community along this line. But in the larger hospitality profession, apart from in-house blacklists, any national database would be suicidal in our litigious society.

So what is a hotel to do with the guest from hell, whether they go the whole way and demand to be comp’d, or just create havoc for one and all during their stay? It seems we must suffer them with smiles on our faces and daggers in our hearts. Except that just results in personal anguish for all employees touched by such people, financial loss for employees and the hotel, as well as reduced service for other guests, as employees are sucked into trying to keep the antisocial guests “happy” and mute their disturbances.

After centuries of serving often cantankerous employers, the British butler, working with a modern understanding of the mind, has something to offer in answer to this question, as you will discover in Besting the Guest from Hell.

Besting The Guest From Hell

The basic answer to the guest from hell is to focus on educating employees on this kind of personality and then letting them have fun predicting what the guest will do or say next. When employees recognize the characteristics in a guest, they also know why they behave as they do, see them for what they are, and can predict how they will behave. Employees no longer think “mea culpa” and “mea lose my job” when assailed by such guests. One sees through the intensely mean-spirited and unjust smokescreen and confusion to a miserable individual whose only ability to create an effect has been reduced to upsetting others.

With such an understanding, one can still provide the smiling service expected of one, but without the dagger in one’s heart. For violence, expressed or unexpressed, only exists in the absence of understanding. The analogy I like to draw is the martial art of Aikido. The basic principle is not to resist or try to stop the antagonist’s motion, but to redirect it. In other words, one does not present a target for the opponent to connect with.

By empowering employees, one un-empowers the antisocial guests, for the only power these actually have is that generated by the employee in responding to the unjust and unkind remarks. An individual in a lunatic asylum thinking he is Jesus has no followers outside the asylum. He has no power. But if people outside the asylum give weight to his words and form a cult, then he would have power. It’s the same with the guest from hell. Recognize his or her ravings as those of a lunatic who has yet to be labeled as one (and may never be, because in real life such people can sound very convincing and may even have numerous letters after their name, titles in front of it, and great wealth), and he will have no power. React or give credence to his claims, and one empowers him.

That’s the philosophy part. What about the application?

The inescapable truth is that such people are completely incapable of telling the truth. The angry, noisy type will at best twist the truth to make their point more egregious, or at worst, blatantly lie in a manner that is most destructive to the target of their ire. Those who are too timid to be angry, sometimes known as “passive aggressive” or “covertly hostile,” will be most ingenious in their complete perversions of the truth, covering their tracks with great finesse.

The only thing an employee can do wrong is to believe anything such people say. The only correct way to deal with the information such people give is to start from the premise that whatever they just said is not true. This is particularly important when dealing with irate or covertly hostile guests for managers who might feel inclined to act against employees based on the guest’s utterances.

To be sure, employees can mess up, and some guests, even those who are not normally vicious, can react angrily or repress their anger into covertly hostile statements. The manager’s job is still to discern the truth, and the fact is that any statement expressed in anger or covert hostility by any guest, will find the truth being twisted or completely falsified.

So how does one recognize such guests? The angry ones are not hard to recognize, although they may be unpleasant to confront. It is the ones who smile while stabbing you in the back, either with some statement that makes less of you in some way or talking derogatorily about you behind your back, who are more difficult to nail down. This is the schemer who, if called on his real activities, will insist you are misunderstanding her or being overly sensitive, etc.

Apart from their general attitude affecting their ability to tell the truth, other warning signs include the following:

  • They utter upsets or bad news as generalized statements: “Everybody knows service is poor here,” “They’ve all been saying your housekeepers are illiterate.” If you were to ask who “they” are or “everybody” is, you’d find out it was just one person, probably expressing some similarly vague statement or some issue that applied to a completely different area.
  • They only ever talk about how bad things are, always putting a negative spin on events or communications they are relaying. When another person says, “This steak is a bit overcooked,” the guest from hell can be guaranteed to relay this to other guests, employees, and management as “The chef should be fired, he doesn’t have the first idea how to cook. His meats are all hopelessly dry.”
  • They compulsively criticize and make less of others, their abilities, possessions, activities, looks, etc. With the covertly hostile, this will come across as “My what wonderful furnishings (smiling). Honey, didn’t EconoLodge have the exact same motif?”. (Not to insult EconoLodge or Motel 6, which are perfectly good chains catering well to their specific publics, but I think you understand my intent here).
  • If they are upset with someone or something else (such as at their work or in their family), they’ll take it out on housekeeping or the valets or… (wrong target).
  • They do not believe that anyone owns anything, so they’ll be the ones who damage fixtures and take everything not actually nailed down in their suite.
  • They will never admit to any wrong doing, and will poo-poo any harm done to others as their being too fussy, thin-skinned, deserving it, etc. On the other hand, the slightest thing done wrong to the guest from hell will be made into an unforgivable wrong that can never be righted. *

Ever met anyone like this? They are hard to spot because they are hard to face up to, and the way they behave is designed to throw people off. There are other ways to recognize such people, but the above noticed early in a guest’s stay will be good clues that trouble is a-brewing.

That’s the time to a) alert all employees dealing with them that a guest has dropped in from hell, and b) have each, while still providing superlative service, note in writing each and every instance of chicanery. There are all sorts of language and communication skills that can be employed to handle even these guests smoothly, based on techniques and attitudes developed in part over the centuries by butlers.

Most importantly, being forewarned and on the lookout for nefarious behavior will put the employees in the driver’s seat in handling the situation, rather than just becoming upset over the guest’s actions. Secondly, if they hand these reports in to supervisors or the Rooms Manager (who can do additional research with other hotel chains), he or she can prepare a report in time for that guest’s checkout. Then if the guest demands to be comp’d or partially comp’d, you are ready for them. And if they come back later with trouble, such as legal suits, demands for redress, complaints to Head Office, then you just yawn, dig out and send off the report with a cover note.

Had the GM of the hotel that comped the Presidential Suite for a week, confronted the gentleman (security in attendance) with the documentation of his exact actions (which in his case included smoking persistently in the no-smoking suite despite repeated requests not to, necessitating a hefty cleaning bill for the hotel), and his history of criminal actions at other hotels, the guest would have backed down, said it was all a misunderstanding, and never had the gall to show his face at that hotel again. Or he might have blustered with legal threats and in all probability taken it no further.

Which brings us to one last point of philosophy: what drives these people? Without becoming too technical, they have no self respect, they do not feel they can produce decent and admired effects (what most of us are happy to and strive to do), or indeed produce anything at all. In other words, they are parasites. They consider their positions in society weak as a result, and so their constant effort is to weaken and undermine others, in the expectation that their own position will be less weak as a result. They are actually criminals, whether the law has caught up with them or not.

So, don’t let them intimidate or frighten you into cooperating in their criminal ways. Doing so will only compromise and degrade your view of mankind, from which the majority of your well meaning guests hail (come).

Nothing I am proposing is meant to imply that one does not seek in every way to provide superlative service to every guest. Just do it with your eyes open, paperwork in place, and a healthy dose of ethics and probity (moral correctness) if a guest from hell tries his or her ways on you or your fellow employees!

If any of this is not clear or needs amplification, feel free to write.

This article also appeared in the June 21 – 2006 issue of HotelExecutive.com, Airline News Resource July 2006, and Hotel Industry News, November 2006

*) Based on the works of Mr Hubbard, with further information on the characteristics available here

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What Are My Chances Of Being Placed In A Domestic Service Position?

The most important thing to understand when assessing your chances of being placed by a Domestic Agency is, “What does a Domestic Agency do?” The answer is very simple, but it explains why they may or may not be able to help you find a job.

The function of a Domestic Employment Agency is to find candidates to fill job vacancies for clients. In exchange for this service, agencies are paid a substantial fee by the client (The main reason they are in business). Simple, right? Then let’s consider what the value of this service is to the client, and why they pay the agency’s fee. Well that is simple too. A client will pay a premium to hire someone who has been proven successful in the exact same situation over many years. It is almost like buying a “guarantee of satisfaction,” or hiring a service that has been in business for a long time with similar clientele.

Therefore, the ideal candidate for any position will be experienced at the exact job description and have a lengthy work history to back it up. If you are one of the top applicants in a particular field, you already know it, because you have “been there” and done the job for many years, hopefully for the same employer. You are the applicant the agencies are screening for every day and can often place very quickly. If you are not one of the top applicants, you must try to fit a position where a compromise or exception makes you the best fit.

These “exceptions” are made in only two instances: When the job description is very unique and does not fit a particular category, or if there is a shortage of qualified, matching applicants for a position. In these cases the agency must choose from candidates with the most applicable skills and job history to fit the position. This would be considered the gray area where an agent must determine your placement potential based on several criteria. The order of importance is as follows:

Work History / References
Your employment resume is 95% of the placement criteria!

Have you worked in a private home, doing the exact job you are applying for? (as an employee, not volunteer or for family). If you have no experience in the position you are seeking, most agencies won’t even speak with you. Agencies are not in the business of “giving you a chance,” or helping you explore a new career direction.

Can we verify this employment and will the client speak highly of your work with them?
What a former boss says about you is weighted very heavily. Do you have a reference letter and current contact information? You should if you want to be placed! (Note: Some bad references are given by difficult employers in unfortunate situations. Agents know this and can usually tell the “true” statements from the lies. Of course this is only possible with several other “glowing” references!)

How long have you stayed in each position, and what was the reason for your departure?
A longer run with each job is better, showing loyalty, longevity, and dependability. The more short-term positions you have had, the worse you look as a candidate.

Applicable Skills
In addition to your work history, the specific skills you offer to an employer from other related jobs are important. For example, if you have an accounting background you might be more attractive to an employer requiring management of bills, budgets, and accounts. Or if you have been a fine dining server in a restaurant, you might be adept at helping set and serve table for entertaining. This does not mean that if you mowed your own lawn for 10 years, that you can oversee the landscaping and care of formal gardens! Trust me, we have heard people make far more ridiculous assumptions. And remember, even though helpful, related skills are only a part of the small 5% left to consider after your actual work history.

Education
This is a tricky topic, because some employers want an education related to Domestic Service, and some think it is not worth much. In the eyes of an agent, the client’s request determines how important any type of education is. Some employers will only hire candidates with four-year college degrees, while others don’t even ask if you have completed High School! Overall, no matter what the educational background of the applicant is, no related work history = very little chance of placement. The recent exception to the rule is the growing popularity of Butler and Household Management schools. There are occasional client requests for applicants with a specific degree from one of the schools like Starkey, Ivor Spencer, International Butler Academy, etc. Though not often, the training from these schools can sometimes combine with other practical experience to give you a chance at placement.

In summary, the agencies are trying to make perfect matches for each position, just like in any corporate recruiting. On a technical level, the history of a candidate’s work performance determines the best fit in a job, with other factors playing a smaller role in the complete package. So when looking for placement through an agency, know that your experience determines 95% of being a good candidate, and the other 5% might make you the right selection for a particular job opening.

We encourage applicants with related experience to apply with any agencies that will accept your resume because there is always a chance that you’ll fit some position out there. Newcomers to the Domestic field can find more helpful information in the article “Finding Your First Domestic Position.”

David Gonzalez
President, DPN

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Finding Your First Domestic Position

When considering a career change or starting out in the domestic field, there are a few very important considerations. The first and most important is “Why do I want to work in private service?” Second, “What are my immediate and long-term goals in the industry?” And third, “How can I be competitive in the job search process?” Carefully and truthfully answering these questions will dictate how to proceed.

WHY?

Many people looking for work in private service for the first time have an incomplete idea of the actual requirements for a position. Titles and job descriptions give some insight into the type of work expected, but the intangible and hidden details are where the true nature of the business is discovered. For example, can you honestly say that after years of building your own career and lifestyle that you now want to focus on the fulfillment of someone else? You need to understand that this is the one goal of service: to provide support for the employer above all. Are you capable of watching your boss spend more money in one day than you make in a year? You must have a disposition that allows for such dramatic realizations.

Likewise, although several skills from the business world apply to domestic work, can you spot the little things that create harmony in a luxury lifestyle? Can you be a Jack of all Trades to assure things get done, no matter what? If so, you may be headed down the right path. If not, look for another direction with your career. The best way to know for sure if you are cut out to handle a domestic position is to ask a veteran. Get in touch with someone you may know in your personal network, or perhaps ask an agency for a referral to a top candidate. Most people in the business are proud of what they do and are happy to give you some of their time. This is truly the only way to understand what happens on a day-to-day schedule, and the best way to know if it is for you.

WHAT?

What are your overall goals in the workplace for the next year? The next 3-5 years? The next 10 years? Do you have a plan that you are working toward such as owning your own business, retiring, going to school, etc.? If you know the answers here, you may be able use the domestic industry as your next steppingstone. For example, a domestic couple with some experience, excellent health, and flexibility with relocation can easily earn a salary of $70-100k and have all of their living expenses paid. With some planning and discipline, a 5-10 year stretch can put away enough money to meet some long term goals like starting a venture of your own or taking some time off.

On the other hand, a position in domestic service does little to advance one’s corporate career, if that is a future goal. So it is important to think a few steps ahead and look at your motivation when entering the private sector, because it is such a specialized and unique environment. Of course, if your true intention is to create a long-term career path within the industry, you are in the right place and the right frame of mind. If not, consider other options.

Another stumbling block in the job hunt is being able to prove your dedication. Newcomers and those returning to private service after a long time may find it hard to convince an employer that “this is what I really want to be doing.” Have a very concise, carefully thought out answer to the question: “Why do you want to do this type of work?” Using the specific information from a contact in the business, you should match the required duties of a position with skills and tasks you have been successful with or exposed to. This should give the impression that you know you can handle the upcoming job duties. Once you have it in your head and your heart that you want to do this type of work, it is time to begin searching.

HOW?

The most asked question of any agency is: “How do I get started without experience?” First, if you made it to this point of the article and were honest with yourself all the way, step 1, CONVICTION, is complete. Step 2 is PREPARATION. If you have not read and understood “Becoming a Better Domestic Employment Candidate”, you are not ready to proceed. Before you go any further, you must have the specific tools to be successful. There is a chart with detailed explanation in the article, so check it out. Step 3 is RESOURCES. Not everyone can do it alone. If you are reading this article, you probably are looking for some assistance in the search. Why not, its mostly free and those who help you typically will benefit in some way.

Agencies
Get on the phone and get on the Internet to gather all the information you can stomach. Call agencies and ask for advice or referrals. Go through a few interview and application processes with them. Make sure to read “Working with Domestic Agencies” to know the behind the scenes of what to expect. One of the best agency situations is a temporary agency. It will take some legwork to find one that has domestic or combination positions (domestic/executive), but this is one of the best ways to get experience with house management or personal assisting. For example, if you can get a job assisting a busy executive in their office, look for a situation where you can manage the personal duties as well. This includes gift buying, personal errands, pet care, scheduling and overseeing work at the residence, personal travel arrangements, etc.

Publications
Although classifieds are one of the oldest ways to search, they are also one of the best. Often employers will try their own search before calling an agency and those willing to hire for a “starting” position probably won’t use an agency. Check in the papers local to where you want to work and live. Most papers put their classifieds online, so check the Internet as well. Another great source for ads is the Caretaker Gazette. It is the only paper specializing in ads for caretaking and professional domestic positions, with some nice related content. Look them up online or call for information at (715) 426-5500. Another great feature of classifieds is that for a small fee you can place your own ad looking for the right employment situation.

Networking
If you are good with people, put the word out on the street about what you’re looking for. Tell friends, relatives, former employers, etc. and start spreading the news. Most of the positions in the domestic service industry are filled this way. If you were looking for someone to work with your family and home, wouldn’t you ask a trusted friend or associate? Of course. Just by getting your name in the right social circles you could end up with an amazing job. And perhaps a good showing will lead you to the next family on a referral from that one, and so on. Many long-time domestic professionals never go through a job hunt and frequently receive offers from friends of their employer. That is the level to aspire to.

Schools
There are several schools to train you in domestic service. This is a path for the truly committed, so as before, step one (conviction) is VERY important here. Schools are fairly expensive and do not guarantee placement upon graduation, but certainly the knowledge, experience, and dedication it takes to complete the courses is a step in the right direction. Also, each school will have a placement service or leads for you to network for a job. (More resources!) Consult with the different programs out there to see if it makes sense for you based on your goals and your finances. The better ones are listed on modernbutlers.com

In conclusion, a few basics are important to get started in the private service field: Be sure of what you are after; be prepared for the opportunities; and use all available resources to give yourself the “lucky” break into the business.

David Gonzalez
President, DPN

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Thinking Globally – Acting Locally

How does one turn individuals from no matter what culture, country, familial and social background, who follow certain moral codes or not, into the epitome of a British butler and the quintessential service provider? Not a question most people ask, but it is one that has challenged trainers at the International Institute of Modern Butlers and which parallels the task facing trainers around the world trying to bring about some standardized level of high-quality service by employees in their hotels.

We look for those with a service heart, with service experience, with some starting point upon which to hang the service culture established by corporate. And the result is generally mixed, ranging from very good to passable, more often the latter. Perhaps nowhere is it more important to think globally and act locally than in the hospitality industry of a global economy.

Trying to enforce a global model, a same-brand identity in all corners of the world results in the kind of behavior that can rankle with guests: such as having butlers slip notes under guest-room doors at regular intervals reminding guests to use their butlers; or guests being told “It’s my pleasure” by every employee in response to the slightest of acknowledgements by the guest. Sometimes, hotel-grading standards enforce this on hotel staff, such as the requirement that the guest’s name be used at least three times by each employee. This sounds natural enough when a butler is with a guest for several minutes, but what about the valet, doorman, and bellhop? They have seconds to fit in the mandatory greeting in triplicate, and the guest hears his or her name nine times within the first minute of arrival. What is happening here is a tendency to put a rule where an individual’s judgment should be; to make a rule stand in for the evident lack of ability of individuals to exhibit basic social graces and service functions. But does this not boil down to a failure to bring about an understanding of the principles of social interaction and graces, and of service, and be able to apply them when called for? In other words, as trainers, we seem to have hit a brick wall on having employees think for themselves and act responsibly.

We seem to have fallen for the line that people have to be programmed in the same way that one programs computers or robots. This seems like the only option that works, but the problem is, it does not work beyond a certain level, just like robots. Take the task of training a couple from the Far East as butlers in a private residence in three days. It was not possible, beyond training in certain set actions and phrases, which the couple would then use from then on out, whether or not they were appropriate to the occasion.

Where understanding is lacking, employees will ask earnestly for set patterns to follow. Even though they make very poor robots and have the ability to think intelligently for themselves, they want some stable datum to fall back on in order to deal with the confusion of some situation or in servicing a guest. There are many reasons for this tendency, including the Chinese School method of learning by rote…repeatedly reading something aloud until it is memorized, but with no faintest idea of the meaning of the words being spoken, or how to apply the procedures they may describe.

We are encountering the same in Western society, as education and reading standards continue to fall over the last four decades (in the US, since the Secondary Education Act of 1965 redirected schools away from teaching the three “R”s and onto psychiatric programs and drugs). Today, according to the US Government, half the adult population in the US is either functionally illiterate (44 million or 23%) or sufficiently illiterate not to be able to be trained (worldwide, the figure is 1 billion, or 16% functionally illiterate). When most people read today, they either go blank, having no idea what they just read, or they can repeat it all back but have no idea what it means, or more pertinently, how to do it (a la Chinese School). Has this happened to you ever?

In this sort of a climate of learning, it becomes very hard to train employees to think for themselves, to act intelligently, to apply the basic social graces, to serve with finesse. And so we resort to set patters and procedures in order to bring about at least a modicum of service.

But the problem with this approach is guests are not treated as individuals, but as items on a conveyor belt, a commodity that has to be dealt with. There is no real live communication, and often, entirely too much communication when acute observation and an understanding silence on the part of the employee would work far better.

So this is barrier #1, the solution to which is teaching people how to study effectively (the subject perhaps of another article) and so think for themselves, rather than requiring programming. The next hurdle to top is again one that relates to creating an ability in employees that is completely new in the field. Actually, increasing the ability to do two things: a) To be present in the moment and b) to observe the obvious.

These sound simple to do and are, but present a challenge to all who first attempt them. Too often in terms of being there in the moment, an individual will actually be thinking of something else in the past while addressing a guest: some upset, some problem, something they messed up on; or of something in the future, such as their upcoming vacation or the size of the tip they will receive in two minutes; or they think about something in present time, such as the bust line of the guest or of what to say next. All of these add up to being distracted and interiorized, instead of extroverted with all attention on the guest and servicing him or her.

In terms of observing the obvious, an individual will look at something and make all sorts of conclusions and suppositions from it and then present this package as a statement of what they see. For instance, asked to look at a guest, an employee might say, “I can see he has experience.” This is not an observation, but an extrapolation based on what is seen. All the employee can actually see, when pushed to clarify his statement, is that the guest “has wrinkles around his eyes,” which to that employee connotes “experience.” This is one of the key reasons twelve witnesses to the same accident will describe twelve different accidents. In the hotel context, if employees observe to observe the obvious, in other words, what they actually see, hear, smell, and feel (touch, not opinions) about their environment and guests, then they will be able to record that data in a rapidly growing guest profile for future use, as well as deal with the situation or guest appropriately.

The kind of observation that butlers (should) engage in is unobtrusive, the kind that notes without asking what the guests preferences are in terms of areas such as the arts, sports, food, drink, dress, transport; personal, familial, and cultural celebrations and customs, morals and ethics, and generational differences within families.

Alert employees able to think for themselves, will add to such a data base and use it. No amount of rules can bring about such attention to detail because the starting point, an alert employee, is missing. These are the underlying skills that smooth the way for interacting smoothly with diverse cultural groups with the alertness, intelligence, panache, equanimity, attention to detail, anticipation, and professionalism of the British butler.

Easier said than done? Yes, but still very much within reach.

This article also appeared in the Hotel Business Review section of HotelExecutive.com, in the 12 June 2006 edition of 4hoteliers.com, Airline New Resource July 2006, and Hotel Industry News, November 2006

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So How was Your Butler?

Ratings Keep Hotels Honest & Validates Serious Players

In an industry that is premised on service, increasing numbers of high-end hoteliers have decided to raise the bar by instituting butler service. Increased rack rates, customer loyalty, enhanced word of mouth and, on the employee side, greater retention and raised standards facility wide are the reward where true butler service is offered. A key question, however, especially in any country lacking a broad and long tradition of butling, is: “What exactly is butler service?”

Anyone who has experienced butler service in hotels and resorts may have seen butlers stretched so thin as to be invisible, pool attendants re-titled butlers, or any of the myriad other ways in which marketing departments and managers have demonstrated creativity in tapping into the prestige of things butler. While real butlers appreciate the recognition afforded their profession when offerings of superior service are personified by a butler figure, they are not themselves served well in the long run by this cheapening of their profession. More importantly, guests can recognize a gimmick when they see one and are left in a poor frame of mind at being handed a Mickey Mouse version of the service they had expected and paid for when booking into a facility.

As the standard setter for the profession, the International Institute of Modern Butlers has felt compelled to pick its way gingerly through the rubble of the castle walls and stand firm against the enemy: the inclination to cut corners on the way to status and higher revenues—always a self-defeating exercise in the long run. The Institute’s weapon of choice? A rating system that parallels AAA and Mobil ratings but which is focused on butler service in hospitality venues. The purpose of the rating is to help guests and travel agencies make informed decisions about the nature of the butler service being offered by a venue they or their clients may be considering; and to assist managers and butler employees in improving their butler services and achieving recognition for their efforts. Ratings are done by various sources: the hotels themselves, the Institute’s personnel and other butler professionals, and now, following Conde Naste’s model, by guests providing their input via www.modernbutlers.com/standards/butler-rating.aspx

The article that follows details the successes enjoyed by some hotels that have made earnest efforts to implement butler service and use the rating system to improve their offerings; as well as feedback and advice from managers and head butlers on instituting genuine butler service. All hotels have been given ample opportunity to self-assess, so those listed on the Web site as offering butler service who have not been rated would have some reason for pleading the Fifth that they may want to share with prospective guests and travel agencies doing their due diligence.

Where butler departments are established properly, they enjoy varying degrees of success based on their adherence to the basic purpose of butling: the providing of a discreet service that anticipates guest needs.

Failed butler departments are caused by violating a few basics: not selecting proven service professionals for butlers; not training them on the persona, mindset, communication skills, and service skills of the butler in a hospitality setting; launching the butler program without bringing the rest of the employees aboard, so it appears as a threat to their income stream; and trying to cut costs by cutting service, resulting in harried butlers providing an irreducible minimum of service to too many guests.

What drives these shortcuts? In my experience, it has been one or more of three distinct impulses:

  • Money motivation, where the goal is solely to increase revenue by riding on the coattails of the butler profession, with little patience for or interest in the financial outlay, sweat equity, and intelligent thinking necessary to deliver the actual service.
  • A manager either not understanding or taking a personal dislike to the idea of butlers. In one instance, an inexperienced and unethical GM was busy accepting personal favors, protecting his incompetent protegés, and creating a culture that put loyalty to his own agenda ahead of servicing guests. He resented being shown up by the service expectations of the popular Head Butler and the butler team. So the GM did everything possible, both covert and brazen, to undermine and end the butler service so desired by the hotel owner and guests. As the Head Butler at this establishment noted with typical understatement, “GMs unfamiliar with the service would do well to respect the advice of their Head Butler. If one has not worked with butlers before and does not understand the concept fully, it will be very difficult to provide the support/level of understanding required to make the program a success. Instituting a butler department is a project that requires dedication and support on all fronts—ownership, management, and operations—in order to succeed.” This story is still playing out, but the Head Butler is standing firm while taking over increasingly the functions of other departments being mismanaged by the GM that had been cutting across the ability of the butlers and the hotel to service the guests.
  • A manager focused on slashing costs. In one instance, an owner had invested heavily in establishing a butler department (on one floor of a brand new facility) that proved very popular with guests and media (almost always the case). Yet when the revenue began to flag facility wide after the grand opening (as a result of inadequate sales and marketing), he thought one solution lay in the savings that could be accomplished by firing all the butlers, and proceeded to do so. The hotel continues to flounder to this day, having lost its signature service and earned itself a poor reputation in the local community upon which it depended for its personnel, all on top of the original inadequate sales and marketing efforts which were not remedied by these firings.

Successful outcomes might include The Cloister, recently rebuilt and reopened on Sea Island, Georgia. Butler service was initiated at the behest of the owner, Bill Jones III, to all 125-guest rooms and 32 suites. Fiona Williams Cameron, the Head Butler who led the team that established the 55-person butler department, offers some pointers for the kind of success that led to a Four Butler facility with Five Butler service to its 32 suites.

“The more input you can have before infrastructure is in place, the better off you will be in terms of avoiding potential operational issues for the staff, leading to better service for†the guests. In terms of operational issues, it is only normal that various departments will be uncomfortable with a new concept, so communication is key among department heads.Lastly, we invested in a large amount of training for the staff and will continue to do so.

“The Hotel Butler Rating System is a wonderful benchmark that will help guide hotels in the direction of this personalized and quality service while also keeping competition alive. Achieving these standards is mainly dependent on training in the modern style. As an example, we have worked to find a happy medium between ‘good service’ as ‘discreet service’ and the warm, friendly service characteristic of Southern Hospitality that our guests are used to receiving.”

Leopoldo Perez is the head butler at One & Only Palmilla, voted best resort in Latin America by Conde Naste for the last two years. Butler service to each of the 172 rooms and suites has been a key element in this success. A dozen of these suites receive dedicated butler service, making One & Only Palmilla both a Four-  and Five-Butler facility. According to Perez, “All guests in suites with dedicated butlers are given cell phones for direct contact with their butlers (and nobody else). There is very little the butlers cannot do for guests, as long as it is legal, of course.

“Critical elements in building our butler department have been, firstly, having a trainer to guide the department in the right direction. Secondly, having management support and understanding of what the butler department brings to the property, so they were willing to invest in resources, staff, and training.

“Our guests were not used to butler service at first, especially in a relaxed beach-resort property such as ours, so they did not take advantage of our service and were not commenting on us in customer-feedback surveys. So we created new procedures and amenities, advertised on the Web site and collateral, and increased our staff numbers. The guests then began to notice and use the butlers, thinking of them as ‘my butler.’ We now enjoy 60% repeat guests and 20% of these ask for the same butler. We have doubled the number of butlers to 44 because of the demand for butler service.

“The physical layout of our property is not the normal monolithic building with suites easily reached by butlers on each floor. Our 172 rooms are in twelve separate buildings spread over 25 acres, which makes it difficult operationally to provide butler service. We have handled this by assigning rooms optimally and increasing staff numbers. We also set up mini pantries in each building so the butlers have easy access to their tools and supplies, instead of trekking to the two main pantries on site. And we have added butler runners to keep the pantries and mini pantries stocked and to take needed or requested items to the butlers for presentation to the guests.

“My advice to other head butlers is that even if you are already experienced, bring in a professional in the field to help launch the service. Secondly, if the hotel has not yet been constructed, you as head butler need to speak to the architect about designing the spaces and areas needed by butlers to service guests. Thirdly, you need to create your network, attend butler conventions, become a member of professional associations such as the International Institute of Modern Butlers, and use the network of individuals in the profession to give you knowledge and guidance. That’s how it has worked for me.

“From the GM’s perspective, it is very important that you understand what a butler is and decide what you want your butler service to do for the hotel before launch; then sit down with the head butler and communicate your expectations.

“The rating system has proven very useful. Many hotels are advertising that they have butler service as the next great thing in personalized and excellent service. Many guests are experiencing this butler service, often in hotels where they may not have the necessary resources to provide butler service or the proper training. So guests tend to be disappointed with their experience, which of course reflects on all hotels offering butler service. The ratings will allow guests to know what kind of butler service they will be receiving. In the same way, it gives hotels such as ours that offer butler service, the opportunity to see where they stand with regard to that service, and what they need to do to take it to remain at the same or move to the next level.”

George Sotello is the GM at One & Only Palmilla, and he reports, “The butler department has become an icon for the resort. Well-traveled guests know what to expect from their butler experience and feedback has been extremely positive. From the moment the guests meet their butler, there is an immediate connection, the guests understanding that they can call upon their butler to fulfill their every need. Some guests, coming from North America where butler service is not common, do not know what to expect from their butlers. We are working on an orientation CD to send first-time guests before they arrive. ‘Blow away the customer’ is our credo, and we rely on the butlers in a good part to deliver on that promise. We have had many guests contact the resort after leaving, stating that after experiencing the butler service at the resort, they feel lost and wish they could have a butler at home.”

Mr. Nakano, the Managing Director of the Rosewood property, Hotel Seiyo Ginza in Tokyo, has also utilized the Butler Ratings to help extend the butler service model across many guest contact points in the hotel, in addition to providing butler service to all guests—a first for Japan. As Mr. Nakano puts it, “No-one seems to realize how profitable butler service can be: it would be of great benefit to organizations considering implementing butler service to be coached on how it could enhance the organization’s ability to make more money and perhaps save costs through re-organization and consolidation. Our Rooms Division, for instance, is run by the Head Butler; his team of butlers also manages our PABX/Communication Center for all incoming calls to the hotel in addition to all Room Service orders and delivery. We have thereby eliminated the need for a separate PABX and Room Service department and staff. Few people appreciate how valuable and convenient butler service can be.”

Obviously, these benefits accrue where the players are serious about putting a real butler department in place, and a useful tool in achieving this is the Butler Rating System.

Rating Your Butler

Hotels and resorts offering butler service are rated here. This list is influenced by input from anyone qualified (i.e. anyone who works/worked at or has visited the facility upon which they are commenting) providing their feedback via a link on the same page.

Specific comments are not posted, but are used in assessing the real-time state of butler service—rather than annually as with other rating bodies. The Institute, likewise, does not take a passive/judgmental role, but works with hotels to alert them to issues so they can respond and/or act to improve.

The ratings range from “No Butler” to “Five Butlers” (briefly) as follows:

No Butler
The butlers are called such, but have no training or understanding of the nature or skill-sets of a butler, often having a modifier in front of their title, such as “fireplace butler,” “technology butler,” or “baby butler.”

One Butler
There is literally one butler on the floor, rushing to service guests who are kept waiting or improperly serviced. There may be more than one butler, but training on the skills of the butler or the grace of a butler are lacking, even though some of the service is being provided.

Two Butlers
The butler-to-guest ratio is still too strained, so guests are kept waiting or not fully serviced, but basic elements of butler service are performed and the butlers have been trained in their profession either in schools or on site. No night butler on duty and no butler coordinators to connect guests with butlers.

Three Butlers
There are enough butlers in shifts to manage guests, including night butlers, butler coordinators, and a head butler. The Butler department exists as its own department, not under Housekeeping, Concierge, Room Service, F&B, or any other department. Guests are offered a good range of butler services and these are satisfactorily executed. Butler service has been established and fine-tuned with the assistance of trained professionals.

Four Butlers
Butlers provide excellent, often invisible service to guests who are wowed by the attention to detail. Includes a full complement of butlers who have sufficient presence with the rest of the employees that they have raised their level of service and can obtain instant service for guests. Butler Department personnel receive ongoing training and quality control to keep them sharp and there is a Deputy for the Head Butler who facilitates this training and other organizational steps to keep the Butler Department running smoothly.

Five Butlers
Guests have their own private butler to attend to their every (legal and ethical) needs and desires, including accompanying them on excursions as chauffeur and guide. In the case of guests lacking companions, this level of service may extend to the butler being a companion for a guest, even being skilled enough to play such as golf or tennis (but sufficiently diplomatic always to let the guest win by a narrow margin—and never crossing the line). Where spa service is offered, the butler may also be the spa therapist or so knowledgeable in spa methodology that he or she presents a seamless experience for the spa-going guest.

The full list of requirements for each level can be found here.

This article also appeared in HotelNewsResource.com and AirlineNewResource.com

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Published Articles

Spa Service – One Key Flaw

Spa Service – One Key Flaw…It Ends the Moment a Guest Leaves the Spa to Return to His or Her Hotel Room

Many high-end hotels and resorts offer spa services and are looking for a way to excel even further and so differentiate themselves in the minds of their guests. The same could be said of the butler service offered by many such institutions. Both programs add value and prestige, but is there a way to improve these service offerings? The short answer is, “Yes!”

Spa service has one key flaw: it ends the moment a guest leaves the spa to return to his or her suite. The way to make a guest’s experience a complete one, and offer a total immersion in the “get away from it all” relaxation and rejuvenation, is to make the butler service an extension of the spa experience, wherein spa-trained butlers provide their usual high-end service in the hotel, but with the added knowledge and techniques that enable the spa environment to continue in the guest’s own suite.

A guest, for instance, may well undergo a catharsis or detoxification as a result of his or her spa experience knowing how to deal with this with understanding and empathy can create quite an impact on guests. Moments of drama aside, when a butler knows and understands the spa program of a guest, he can converse about the guest’s experiences with good reality, should the guest so desire, and can also take actions to enhance that program‹such as adding a complementary (not complImentary!) bath salt to the bath, rather than one that conflicts with the spa program.

The spa butler is really the architect of the ultimate spa hospitality experience, designing and arranging the entire spa guest experience. The spa still delivers the spa services, but the butler acts as the main point of contact before, during and after the guest’s stay. Because he understands and knows what the guest is going through, and the basic spa methodologies, he can be there for the guests and extend the entire stay into a smooth experience for them. That’s the simplicity of the program.

Translated into the real world, this program means the butler asks and cares about the guest’s goal in coming to the spa; he cares about the guest’s room, ensuring that the space reflects the guest’s needs and wants. The butler supports the guest by being a sounding board and conversing with understanding and empathy. He introduces the guest to the people, places and services he or she will be experiencing at the spa, answering all questions and resolving all concerns. He smoothes the preparations for each spa experience and helps the guest through the ramifications of each spa treatment, asking the right questions.

The spa butler understands the mechanism of each spa treatment in order to give accurate and convincing explanations of treatments to the guest. The application of hot or cold therapy to the body may seem odd or even silly to the guest without an understanding of the expected physiological effects and benefits. Earning the guest’s confidence and compliance with intelligent answers to his/her questions is an important part of the spa butler service.

Types of Guests
There are at least four categories of spa guests. Identifying them is key to serving them successfully.

“Fluff and Buff” guests are delighted with the ultimate in pampering. They are investing time, energy and money in the expectation they will be treated as kings and queens. They are enjoying a mini vacation from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

“ROI” guests are looking for a return on their investment. They are spa savvy, meaning that they have been to spas before and have preconceived notions about what a great spa experience is and should be. They expect their spa experience to deliver on the health enhancement and therapeutic expectations they have formulated.

“Solution seeker” guests want a spa experience to alleviate pain and discomfort from their ongoing medical conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, osteo-arthritis, etc. and are hoping to find relief and answers that will alleviate some of their suffering.

“Transformer” guests are committed to transforming their own worlds, understanding they play an integral and vital role in optimizing their health and well being. They trust the spa to have highly specialized facilitators who honor the holistic nature of man.

By knowing and understanding each guest’s goal and being there for them in their pursuit of that goal, the butler forms a unique relationship with guests and so brings about the ultimate spa hospitality experience.