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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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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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Why Good Employees Are Hard To Find

I believe we have a crisis in the hospitality industry–a dwindling pool of service-oriented individuals–which is making it difficult for HR and management to provide the level of guest service required at high-end properties. Obvious causes, such as low wage scales, could be identified at first blush, but an unlikely source has emerged recently as the real culprit: the marketing and selling of worry to well Americans who are sold psychiatric drugs to resolve that cleverly crafted worry. Half the US population is on these drugs now. The relevance being that the side effects of these drugs include woodenness and disassociation at the less dramatic end, through frustration and anger outbursts, to suicide and murder at the extreme end-none of which are particularly conducive to guest satisfaction.

The issue has been increasingly in the media, lead by British doctors who have forbidden first children and now adults from taking “antidepressants.” Court cases and media have at the same time exposed inadequate testing and altered results to hide bad outcomes. Even the FDA, long beholden to the interests of the pharmaceutical lobby, is begrudgingly following suit in the US, hence those black box warning labels appearing on many psychiatric prescriptions. Suicides are the main worry, but the many heinous crimes hitting the airwaves over the last decade (mothers butchering their children, children shooting or torturing their parents or other children, to name just a few) have added to the list of outcomes when people take these drugs. A book just released, Selling Sickness: How the World’s Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients (Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels) and the recently released movie based on John le Carre’s fictionalized book, The Constant Gardner, both point to a motivational shift by pharmaceutical companies: away from curing sickness to making vast amounts of money; the main strategy being to bring drugs to market by pathologizing life’s normal fluctuations and the creation of “lifestyle medicines.” Premenstrual tension, for instance, is now a “mental illness” called “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” requiring a psychiatric drug to “manage” (not cure) it.

Instead of relying on evidence to determine a disease and assess the risk / benefit of a medical intervention, doctors are prescribing drugs based on corporate sponsored “public awareness” campaigns that create “illness.” If this seems just fine, then might I suggest re-reading the preceding sentence? We have marketing and PR departments, and executive boards salivating over the bottom line, inventing diseases and then persuading people they have them.

As described by Vera Hassner Sharav of Alliance for Human Research Protection, “The selling of sickness and the birth of a blockbuster drug follows a familiar pattern: the marketing division of a pharmaceutical company identifies a wedge condition, and a set of symptoms or “risk factors”; the company hires a PR firm to come up with a “disease” name, either something catchy (e.g., SAD) or something connoting a serious biochemical deficiency; the company either develops a drug, or recycles an existing one for this new condition; and begins massive marketing to physicians and the public. An advisory panel of experts defines the “disease” broadly enough to include as many previously healthy people as possible, and issues guesstimates about the prevalence of the “disease”; the media pick up the story, suggesting that the ‘new’ disease is greatly “under-diagnosed and poses severe health hazards if left untreated; the stage is set for the birth of the next blockbuster.”

The roots of this travesty can be found in sentiments such as those expressed three decades ago by Merck’s chief executive, Henry Gadsden, who wanted to expand his market by making drugs for healthy people, not just sick people.

It is necessary to grasp the reality of this trend in order to understand a previously unrecognized undercurrent that HRs have been hitting up against in finding and keeping good staff.

We have been hearing the complaint “Good employees are hard to find” for a few centuries now, but now it just might be true. While running a workshop on service for a large group of employees at a four-star facility recently, I was fascinated to see a full 50% of them had no interest whatsoever in the subject, one of them even settling down to read a newspaper during the presentation. Their attitude and lack of caring was evident in the lackluster service they offered guests (hence the workshop being arranged by an anxious management), and was also a source of upset for those staff who did care to care and who did derive new insights from the workshop.

The problem is that there is no way for consultants, HR, or management to reach and inspire these people until they are taken off their drugs and the drug residues detoxed from their system (there are ways to do this). Until then, they will continue to manifest a “bio-chemical personality”, the antithesis of service.

If the US Armed Forces do not accept recruits who have taken psychiatric drugs, then there may be a lesson to be learned here in our industry. The Defense Department has learned from experience that such citizens do not make reliable and effective personnel or teammates.

Maybe the hospitality industry could benefit from examining this factor (the drugging of its personnel pool) in trying to create a team of service-minded personnel who actually do care for guests, and care to service them well. Maybe the paucity of service-oriented individuals is not just the result of genes or some such wild theory, but an artificial condition created by morally bankrupt individuals and out-of-control corporations. In other words, maybe we can do something about it.

This article also appeared in the September 2005 issue of 4Hoteliers.com and Hotelexecutive.com