Tag: Training

Categories
Published Articles

Butler Service Today Five Leading Hotels Share their Secret

Why have butler service in a hotel? In the cases canvassed, there were two basic reasons: either because the hotel owners conceived they had the best property in the world/on the PGA tour/etc. and they believed the corollary on the service side could only be supplied by the addition of butlers. Or because they wanted to give their most important guests such a level of service.  The five hotels participating in this article have provided guests with this butler service for the last 6-16 years, building the desired reputation and reaping the rewards. Contrasting this with hotels that have signed onto the butler concept and then disbanded the service, it is obvious that butler departments are not always guaranteed success.

How did they do it, those who succeeded?

First of all, by overcoming the obstacles they met on the way, starting with launching the service. In the case of the iconic Burj al Arab in Dubai, the problem was finding qualified staff in a country that did not have many locals to draw upon. When you have to man a department of something like 160 butlers, it is easy to see why this would be a challenge. In the end they sourced their staff from about 100 countries. Falling Rock in Pennsylvania, a privately held resort designed in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright and boasting a challenging Pete Dye-designed golf course, also provides 24-hour butler service to its 42 rooms and suites. Their main challenge, being on a huge estate in the countryside far from any cities, was likewise recruiting butlers, which they resolved by targeting regional colleges and universities.

Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe did not have such issues, but struggled with the more prosaic problem of making their pantries flow sufficiently to keep up with the demand for butler services. In the ideally situated Seven Stars Galleria in Milan, their challenge was being able to deliver the same level of service required in a private estate, while being in a hotel environment. This resolved with a perception shift that each room or suite was a single house with the most important guest in it. One of these hotels also mentioned justifying a large payroll as a challenge, which they overcame by providing the expected level of service with concomitant guest satisfaction. They all also hired experts to train their staff, rather than trying to fudge the training by in-house solutions not based on the butler model.

Ongoing challenges have related, for Burj al Arab, to their butlers leaving after two years—not because of dissatisfaction, but because, having worked at the hotel, they became valued commodities in the West, as well as their home countries. The solution was hiring mature butlers, providing better pay and living conditions, allowing the butlers to multi-task, and of course, promoting internally so there was a career path worth pursuing.

At Harrah’s, lack of consistency was resolved by having pictures of each set-up, from morning breakfast to elaborate dinner tables and everything in between.

Similarly, the other hotels found they needed to continue the focus on training in order to maintain standards. In the case of Falling Rock, the initial training was sufficiently strong and effective that they were able to continue annual training in-house. Their ongoing challenges have been “the stress of striving for our 5th star so we can be one of the top 25 resort hotels in the world [they achieved 5 Diamond from AAA soon after opening and have maintained it since, and have been awarded 4 Star the last two years by Forbes/Mobil], and keeping the team motivated during incredible busy times.” Team-building and venting sessions have apparently helped keep the team motivated.

In Seven Stars Galleria, the most challenging aspect of the head butler’s work is making sure the guests are satisfied from the moment they arrive at the hotel, as many stay for just one night. This is resolved by empowering the butlers to deal with whatever comes up so that the guest is always given superb service and treated as the most important person.

What’s So Special About Butler Service?

Given that butler service is superior, and that part of it can be attributed to the attitude/mindset and communication skills of the butler, what do butlers actually do en suite to service guests. The key is actually in the phrase “en suite,” because that is the niche that hotel butlers open up for hotels as lines of service to guests. Until butlers arrived on the scene in hotels three decades ago, there was very little hotels could do for guests in their suite, other than clean them, provide amenities occasionally, and room service. Those hotels who have successful butler service list the following actions they can perform to wow their guests or merely make their stay more fun/convenient/pleasurable/tailor made to their needs, etc.

Preparing the suite for arrivals, welcoming with a beverage and hot/chilled towelette; touring the guest; unpacking (and later packing) their suitcases so they can go about their business or vacation straight away; concierge service and being a continue source of information during the stay; helping with IT and business/personal secretary requests; running a bath, usually with all sorts of trimmings from caviar and champagne to less exotic fare; checking-in and –out; promoting hotel facilities (and upselling); wardrobe management, laundry, pressing and shoe shine (Falling Rock provides golf spike detailing!); providing room amenities; replenishing the private bar; providing F&B functions from simple food delivery to serving and clearing multi-course meals (in larger suites) and organizing and managing a wide range of parties; escorting to any and all appointments on-and off-property; personal shopping and personal assistance; wake-up service; and most importantly, anticipating guest needs or dealing with their requests if not anticipated. There are other services that can be delivered, but none of the five hotels questioned offer them.

Compare this to hotels without butler service, where one checks into an empty room and talks through the phone to front desk, and occasionally has food delivered: traveling is a lonely business, so butlers putting the mansion-away-from-the-mansion back into the equation certainly adds value to a hotel’s offering. Think orchestrating wedding proposals; floating-gazebo dinners; tracking down long-lost relatives and arranging the reunion; training a guest on sabering a champagne bottle so he could impress his fiancee; replicating elements of a guest’s home in their suite; the more mundane five-hour drives to deliver lost items and smoothly handling medical emergencies—these are the above-and-beyond the normal hotel stay that butlers make possible.

Which is probably why guests tend to rave about their experience at these hotels, with “nearly 100% exceptional feedback from our guests,” as one GM raved in turn, and comments like “the best service they have received in all their travels,” as one head butler reports.

The media have similarly trumpeted the wonders of these hotels and their butler service: Butlers, like Rolls Royces and Bentleys, super-yachts and private jets, symbolize the ultimate in the striving for and enjoyment of superior service, possessions, and lifestyles. They contain several of the ingredients that the press typically salivates over.

The one fly in the ointment for butlers is that mystery-guest-certifying organizations like Forbes/Mobil, AA, AAA, RAC, Leading Hotels of the World have yet to catch up with the phenomenon of butlers, even though they exist with a wide range of service offerings in something like 400 hotels around the world. As one representative explained to the author in Spring of 2010, they do not want to penalize hotels without butler service by having butler criteria. There is an easy way to resolve this, using the criteria established by the International Institute of Modern Butlers and offered freely to these organizations to incorporate into their own where butler service is offered.

Butler service is the way of the future in a world where even the wealthy (and why not) are demanding maximum bang for their buck—service levels to justify the high rack rates demanded in luxury hotels. And by the way, with various hotels straining beyond the five-star rating in an effort to reflect the service they actually do deliver, it might be time to come up with 6-star and maybe even 7-star ratings to reflect hotels and resorts with butler services, private infinity pools, and so forth.

Which brings up another point, while on the subject of these organizations: the ratings have become sufficiently confusing between competing systems in a global environment—and with knock-offs and self-assignments occurring—that the ratings have lost meaning or usefulness to the consumer in some part. One whole country (which shall remain anonymous) adds two stars to their actual level as a marketing gimmick. At the International Hotel Conference held in Venice during October, 2010, panelists referred to hotels by such terms as luxury, upscale, mid-upscale etc., in their attempts to define hotels. It’s off-subject for this article, but worth exploring and resolving, perhaps, as we move increasingly into a global marketplace.

Other benefits of butlers in these hotels are the ability to personalize service based on an ever-accumulating database of guest preferences (a long-standing butler tool), provide a single point of contact for guests who takes ownership of any problems and removes worry and chores from the guest experience; and the development of a relationship that encourages repeat visits, with guests requesting the same butler.

Butler service has justified high or higher rack rates in these hotels (at a time when occupancy is up and profits and rev par down in the rest of the country, Falling Rock has enjoyed increased rack rates 5 out of the 6 years since they opened). The number one reason guests at Burj al Arab return is because of their butler service. Burj al Arab enjoys 35% repeat guests, Seven Stars Galleria and Falling Rock experience 40%.

Internal Perceptions

Not to paint butlers as super heroes, they are generally simply dedicated and service-oriented individuals, but is that how other employees view them?

Not in all hotels, for sure, where the butlers didn’t get what a butler really is and so earned the opprobrium (harsh criticism or censure) of their colleagues. Possible conflicts and areas of jealousy were avoided in these hotels, however, by understanding that this new beast, the butler, was an unknown quantity in hospitality, a recent entrant. So efforts were made to increase the understanding of the other departments of what a butler is, why they are of value to the hotel and thus to all its employees, and, also how they enhance, not cut across, staff income streams. In additino to meetings and briefings, two hotels employed cross-exposure/training to increase understanding and so acceptance. The result has been respect, mutual respect and the building of long-term relationships that add up to real teamwork and thus excellent service.

One hotel among these five, however, is fighting an uphill battle probably because they did not start off on the right foot—finding it difficult to make other departments accept their role in servicing guests. Their current effort to salvage the situation is to be as helpful as possibile to other departments in their servicing of guests.

How about the perception of the butler department by the butlers in these hotels? With an industry churn of about 31% per annum, Harrah’s has experienced zero churn over the last three years; Falling Rock 20%; Burj al Arab 14-18% until the Front Office merged with them, at which time the numbers increased to 25%, the same rate as the hotel where there is friction between the butlers and other departments. Whichever way you cut it, butler departments, when well run, have lower churn than the industry as a whole. Maybe this comes about because “there is no greater feeling when, as a butler, you can provide a service to a guest who has it all and still impress them.” and “Exceeding the guests’ expectations is the biggest reward we could hope and strive for” and “I am convinced the hotel butler role is the best guest-experience- maker a hotel can have.” In summary, “Our guests come to our hotel for our rating and our reviews, but they come back because of our service and our staff.”

From the management side, a GM who recognizes the value of butlers says: “the butler profession will continue to grow in the coming years. However, a butler staff is definitely a huge investment: wage scales increase, training is a huge investment, and amenities normally increase in cost when a butler program is implemented.”

Then there is the hotel where the butlers are struggling, even while earning a reputation for the service they provide: the friction between butler and other departments traces back to the manager’s perception of butler service, “not seeing or understanding the link between the butler and guest satisfaction and loyalty, and the butler’s role in differentiating the property in the local marketplace”—a bit like a farmer using a Rolls Royce to haul hay”.

Where do Butlers Belong?

The hotels participating all agreed that all five star/diamond hotels needed to offer butler service if they expect to provide top-level service; one even suggested that some four-star hotels should also offer butler service. Why? The wow factor and what it does for word of mouth, repeat visits, occupancy, rev par, and the bottom line.

For those wanting to establish butler service, all hotels agree that experienced butlers should be hired if possibile, certainly managers, and those with a passion to serve; train them repeatedly; and focus on attention to detail, especially in compiling and following guest preference databases (which makes anticipation possibile).

Butlers are still relatively new to the hospitality industry, which is behaving a bit like it is reaching puberty on the subject: all angst and knobbly knees about how to proceed…which makes these five hotels early developers and good role models for those following close behind. If service is the name of the game, then added service opportunities seem to be a no-brainer. Certainly, more and more guests will feel this way, the more they experience the ideal.

This article was also published by HotelExecutive.com, Hospitality.net, Hotel-Online.com, Naga-News.com, InSelfDevelopment.com, International Hotel and Restaurant Association (www.ih-ra.com), HSMAI Europe, Interceder.net and HotHoteliers.com

Categories
Published Articles

Ethics? That’s HR – I’m busy with Guests

It was somewhat disappointing to return for another round of training at a particular five-star hotel a year after training the butlers, only to find that, in this case, little had been implemented from the year before and morale was in the basement, with staff at each others’ throats and quite a few leaving or planning to leave. Hotel executives were similarly non-plussed: the guest feedback had taken a dive after soaring following the initial training; and against this backdrop, a new head butler, and those butlers who were working hard to provide good service, were soldiering on, heads down against the wind of fortune that found them somehow, yet again, in a group that had started in high spirits and ended up in service taking a back seat to politics and backstabbing.

Sound vaguely familiar? Seen shades of this before?

It is something we teach in butler classes, and how to avoid it. But the lesson had not sunk in, obviously, the year before. We also know that one cannot teach the paperwork side of a business if the technology of the business is not known and applied, because then nobody has time for the paperwork when there are so many flaps to handle because of poor service. And more fundamentally, one cannot teach the techniques and procedures of a business if ethics is unknown and unapplied.

All very well, but what is ethics?

It was something I applied to reach bottom on the low morale and (relatively) poor service among the butlers at this hotel…of which more later.

If one look up ethics in a dictionary, one discovers it is defined as morals. When one looks up morals, one is told it is ethics. Obviously, if the difference were understood, the writers of dictionaries would point them out. However, one person does seem to have separated out this time-honored philosophical conundrum: the controversial 20th Century American philosopher, L. Ron Hubbard. According to his writings, morals are the accumulated knowledge of a group (whether a civilization, culture, or smaller group) concerning dangers it has observed when certain actions are taken (e.g. taking a shine to your neighbor’s wife). These, and their positives, are then written into a moral code that is enforced by peer pressure and even written into laws.

Why?

Because it is found that when a moral code is violated, a group falls apart, it does not survive. So from a point of survival / continuance, one has to have some rules of the road for mutual interaction.

As groups do not write a law or moral precept for an action that its members do not engage in, it can be seen that the puritans, who enforced quite a few morals on each other and were considered moral people, were factually faced with and fighting rather a lot of immoral activity.

The same was true for butlers in private estates. They upheld very strict codes of conduct to the point of restricting the lives of the staff: any dalliance with a member of the opposite sex would result in dismissal, for instance, so butlers and household staff rarely married and put a tight lid on what is really a natural impulse.

Why?

Because centuries of bitter experience had proven that it was too difficult to provide quality service against the inevitably charged atmosphere of relationships being formed and breaking apart tumultuously (not to mention maids taking leave because they were suddenly “in the family way”).

So morals kept the ship afloat, so to speak, but at a cost of repressed family dynamics for the staff—sacrifices that anyone who has seen that classic butler film, Remains of the Day, will understand fully.

In the US, we have seen a strange moral code developed and enforced by the government based on political correctness that teaches the avoidance of certain words and punishes five-year-old boys for kissing little girls and parents for applying light discipline to their children.

So on one side, we have those who insist on morals that suppress natural urges and survival actions. Take Prohibition, for instance— people will drink, and no amount of laws and ransacking of bars with axes will do away with that. Prohibition was repealed eventually, and we have most people drinking socially and only a relative few drinking to excess or while driving (i.e. harmfully). The correct or workable moral precept not being “Nobody shall drink alcohol on pain of imprisonment,” but “enjoy drink in moderation, and don’t drink and drive.”

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, we have those who say morals are passé and should be abolished. Leading the charge in this camp are psychologists and psychiatrists, who since the passage of the Secondary Education Act in the United States in 1965, have inserted themselves into the US education system to the point where their group (including counselors) now outnumber teachers. They have abolished moral education in schools (what teaching does occur is along the lines of [actual example], “If your mother and father were in a boat with you and only two could survive, who would you throw overboard?”) and encouraged to “do what makes you feel good.” We do not find basic guidelines in text books or classrooms for young minds to consider, such as “do not engage in sex at the age of thirteen because you may become pregnant or catch a disease” or “do not take mind-altering drugs because they will destroy your mind” or “do not murder your fellow students with a Uzi when you are angry with them or the world in general.”

Is it any wonder, then, that we witness school shooters, drugs and sex in middle schools, and something like 20% of the student body on psychiatric drugs and most of them having taken some street drugs? Doesn’t seem like this no morals approach works either. But with two generations now exposed to this lack of “moral compass,” many homes are not providing this education either, so it falls to churches, synagogues, and mosques where people attend them.

Morals are vital to a society, but they have their frailties: principally, that they require ethics to steer them intelligently, or they become a rote and enforced action that does not always lead to the greatest good, happiness, and survival—and so people come to protest morals. Nothing that is enforced wins in the long run. The answer is not to throw out all morals, but to understand and use ethics.

What then is ethics?

It is the real-time, self-determined assessment of what action to take that will result in the greatest good (survival or happiness, short- and long-term) for the greatest number of interests impacted by one’s planned action, and then taking that action.

A self-determined determination to do the right thing and a culture that encourages this drive are the missing ingredients in the work place. And that hotel with the butler department in a state of disarray was a prime example of ethics not being known and applied.

Staring aghast at such noisy and non-productive conflict, where does one begin to isolate the problem?

Simple, really: Just look and listen to what is actually in front of you. The first person who spoke to me on my arrival in the suite told me how he was going to leave the hotel’s employ as soon as he could and use our institute certificate to land a job at a certain palace because this current hotel was too terrible to be borne. This was an oddity that I just noted: we all have bad hair days, and making inappropriate and negative comments does not mean the sky is falling.

The next time he spoke to me, however, he said the very same thing, in case his message had not arrived the first time. Every time he spoke thereafter, usually in the presence of his colleagues and in a loud voice, it was to cast aspersions on and deride his workplace. About the third time this occurred, I pulled him up sharply and he reigned in his exuberant dysphemisms (the opposite of “euphemisms,” and where “dissing” could have come from, if it hadn’t come from a shortening of “disrespect”).

I then noticed that he was chronically off base in his understanding of the materials he was being taught in the classroom, usually loudly voiced before the teacher had finished speaking.

Then, two days after he had been rigorously drilled on a specific butler service (morning wake-up service), he managed to come into my suite quietly, place the newspaper and drink by the bed, and leave without saying a word or doing any of the other tasks normally associated with such a service—an explanation of the key error is not required. Thankfully, I happened to be awake already and called the butler coordinator to find out who had made such an error. I found myself stepping out of the shower ten minutes later to face an expostulating butler in my suite, asserting vociferously his inability to understand “how they (the night butler and butler coordinator) could have done such a thing to me.” I told him very sharply that I was not impressed with his trying to shift the blame so illogically to others for his own error and invited him to leave.

He had shown his true colors, warranting a closer inspection, and that is when the fun started. Because I had finally stumbled upon the tiger who had been busy chewing up the department over the past year.

Interviews with butlers and butler managers revealed a pattern of going to A and saying how bad B is, and then sidling up to B and saying how bad A is, and then standing back while A&B duke it out. It had become so bad that this individual had been expelled from his ethnic group and none of the butlers would talk to him. Yet they still allowed him to bad mouth others and the hotel, creating disaffection among the older and newer staff alike.

But that was only half of it, as is usually the case when there is this much smoke: he was also busy stealing from colleagues, from the hotel, and from guests, as well as borrowing money from many staff and not repaying it. And he took the night shift so he could pimp for guests as it was “good money.”

In investigating the situation, one other rather more “intelligent” (i.e. sneaky) butler was found to be the king of pimp but otherwise not obviously causing upset. I say not obviously, because when he was caught pimping for a royal personage and called on it, he of course denied all charges and persuaded the royal personage to express umbrage and threaten the welfare of the hotel manager and head butler who were closing in on the butler in question.

And so by threats and underhanded means, these two were working their self-centered ways and causing enough upset and confusion so that their own misdeeds were camouflaged.

So the question is, why did the butlers and the butler managers not stand up and protect each other and the department and hotel? The answer is reasonableness, meaning (not the use of reason to improve situations but) that they felt compelled to find reasons that would explain the existence of the non-optimum condition (“Oh, he’s just like that,” “his mother did not breast feed him enough,” etc.) and so allow it to continue instead of recognizing it for what it was and resolving it straight away.

As soon as I understood the situation, I opened their eyes to the subject of ethics (part of which has to include stopping plainly non-survival activity) and then took action to put an end to the rampage of these two individuals that put the hotel and it’s employees at risk (and guests, given these two butlers’ slack habits, such as cleaning fruit plates with their uniforms and filling coffee pots with tap water; and certainly pimping and the dangers such can entail) just so they could gain some advantage for themselves. I canceled their past Institute certificates and did not award them one for the current training, and alerted management to their specific crimes so standard Human Resource policies could be followed (which they were).

Again, had the butlers understood ethics, they would have acted to bring about an environment that supported good service, instead of allowing the perpetrators to continue to sour the environment and the hotel executives to scratch their heads about why the department kept being a sore spot and didn’t seem to respond to their managerial efforts.

Perhaps Thomas Jefferson summed it up best when he wrote in a letter to George Hammond in 1792, “A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”

There is more to ethics that is worth knowing, but of one thing it is plain: without ethics, we are flying blind in trying to run butler departments, hotels, and chains, where unethical individuals are allowed to run amok in the full knowledge of their colleagues; and certainly in nations, where promises made are not kept and where actions are taken that benefit only the few.

This particular story had a happy ending because ethics was known as a subject and applied. The results were best expressed in a letter received today: “I am so thankful for the training from the Institute. I have been able to deal with challenging guests and my colleagues as well. Many guests appreciate my service verbally and some by tips. But the most memorable are the guest feedback forms giving me 98% & 100%.” The Head Butler confirmed the week before that “We had a Gap Audit and the butlers scored 100% on room orientation and wake-up service, and all interactions between the auditor and the butlers were positive, with excellent feed back.”

How many more such stories are there where the bad hats are terrorizing the good citizens with impunity—and where someone could re-write the script so those in the white hats run the bad hats are out of the town so everyone can carry on with the business of simply servicing happy guests?

Copyright © Steven Ferry 2010 All Rights Reserved

This article also appeared in the January 11, 2010 issues of Hospitalitynet.com, the January 12, 2010 issue of 4Hoteliers.com, and HotelOnLine.com.

Categories
Published Articles

From the Hot Sands of Saudi to the Snows of Vail

Well, China postponed, so back to the US and one last project for 2008: after 120 degrees in the Saudi desert, snow in Vail is a welcome change. But first a pit stop in Denver with a family whom I have never met before and whom I had had the insensitivity to want to meet on Thanksgiving eve to discuss business. “No, come and stay the night.” With business colleagues like this, who needs friends? I did stay the night, we jam in a meeting over dinner, I tell Kelly her laying of the table was spot-on for the next day’s feast (she was nervous, you see, about a “Butler Emeritus” seeing her handiwork up close); Mike and I chat on the way back to the airport and agree to move forward. See http://thesociety.com/ It’s actually very exciting, as The Society coordinates and services the owners of over 5,000 holiday rental villas around the world, and we will be providing those clients who want it, with the invisible, anticipatory service characteristic of the butler.Here is the McFadden family a few days later, celebrating some special news.

The trip to Vail takes almost three hours, starting at about 5,000 ft in Denver and arriving at about 8,500 feet.

The Arrabelle at Vail Square sits right at the bottom of the ski lift and a short way from cross-country trails.

The butlers all dress in what I seem to recall as Swiss ski wear from the Sixties and the hotel is mocked up as a Swiss Ski lodge.

What I love is the fireplace in my suite, the heated bathroom floor, and limitless cups of complementary hot chocolate brought by the butlers. Second to that have been the ready smiles of the butlers, whom I had trained in the summer, and who are as glad to see me as I they. Apparently they have been doing very well over the last half-year since opening, offering superior service the likes of which visitors to Vail are not accustomed. These butlers are actually all ski-aholics, so they indulge in their passion for the slopes when not indulging in their passion for service.

I did crack out my Helle Hanson ski suit ($415 on sale fifteen years ago and worn just 5 times before I moved to Florida) and packed it ever hopeful of snow. Luckily, the cycle of fashion has just come full circle, and my style of suit is once again on the cutting edge. One hard day of skiing and I spend the rest of the week letting the knees recover, so the Helle Hanson adorns the back of the closet once again. It was very useful for the butlers to practice their packing skills, though.

The second round of butlers being trained prove themselves to be as sharp in class as on the slopes, so we have made good progress and, as always, I am reluctant to leave their company, doubly so as their boss, Kathleen, is leaving for California (family reasons). Still, in this hospitality industry, one seems to strike up friendships with wonderful people only to have them move on and…re-appear somewhere else where one can bump into them again! I count myself very fortunate to have met so many frankly capable, decent, upbeat, and earnest-but-fun-loving people. I suppose that’s what it takes to survive in this line of work. And guess where the GM, another gem, is from…Switzerland.

The economic blues are starting to set in, with other hotels in the area experiencing low occupancy (Arrabelle is still fine), but hopefully the snows that arrived the day I did, and the holiday season, will give people hope and cause to blow off the blues. Due to weather-related delays, Continental slips me onto a direct flight on an economy airline direct to Tampa. Wasn’t too comfortable, but it’s sure good to be back home for a few weeks, and arriving the same time as my original planned flight. A long hug for wifey when I stagger out of baggage claim, bags in tow.

And there was peace on earth....

Here’s to an upbeat 2009 for one and all.

Categories
Butler training

Butlers in the Wilds of South Africa

Another boat ride and flights through and long layover at Dubai airport found me finally in Johannesburg airport, where I enjoyed a couple of days with my sister and family, including Plato, the old Rhodesian Ridgeback. First time visiting Sis in South Africa since she moved there three decades ago, so I had some explaining to do. Actually, she was busy as heck meeting deadlines for the first ten days, so I had arranged to train at two hotels before we began our (working) holiday together.

We did manage to attend a lecture at the Military Museum by the former Chairman of Anglo American on his take on Africa and its future, as well as China. Fascinating stuff, especially he being the only one to survey and brief the Chinese leadership. This was a few years back, when the Politburo elite feared an American implosion on the mortgages resulting in a worldwide financial collapse in demand and their own potential collapse as a government when not able to keep giving their increasingly demanding populace the kind of expansion (8% growth minimum) that keeps their standard of living rising. And look where we are now. Funnily enough, testament to the mantra that he who dares, wins, the Chinese politburo contact thanked him afterwards for his consulting, telling him that had he been English or American, they would never have asked him to speak. The irony being that this gentleman works in South Africa but is as British as they come. I am afraid we cornered him during the break and became so engrossed that we all missed out on the nibbling of biscuits and sipping of tea.

This gentleman, Mr. Clem Sumter, sees crime as the main issue South Africa faces in order to maintain its stature as the gateway to Africa. I might agree with that. While we were there, a friend of my sister was followed into her estate as the gate closed, but at least the robbers told her if she did not look at them, they would just take what they wanted and leave. And so they did. Most robberies, it appears, are just for some food and money. One of the butlers I trained in Joburg had an organized gang drive up right after he had left for work, and when he returned, the only thing left was the bed. There are solutions, of course, like criminon.org, a program with a 70-99% success rate in reforming criminals permanently.

Then it was off to train butlers at three lodges: Waterfall, Atlantic, and Safari, all part of the privately held luxury Tintswalo chain (a local Shangaan word meaning “the intangible feeling of love, gratitude and peace that you bestow upon someone who has given you a meaningful and worthy gift”). This is a deeper meaning than one normally discovers in the names of hotel chains and in a way reflected the earnestness with which the staff took their positions.

"Atlantic" is built at the bottom of a steep cliff, inches above the Atlantic where it meets the Indian Ocean by Capetown, with a magnificent view of the Sentinel rock and the occasion whale sliding by languorously.

The hotel is built around an existing intricate and dense stand of trees on an old campsite, a condition for building in the nature reserve Chapman’s Peak, touted as one of the most scenic oceanic routes in the world. The grand opening occurred while we were there (my wife, Monica, had joined me by then, flying down on the unlikely named Mango airlines) with the Consul General of the Republic of Hout Bay officiating and his red-uniformed gunnery officers and men firing two old cannon into the Bay (and not hitting anything, luckily). In case this is a country unknown to you, the citizens of Hout Bay declared themselves a Republic in 1987 and even issued their own passport that some countries recognized (accidentally) when presented by arriving tourists.

 Swinging by Johannesburg to pick up my sister, we drove all day to Kruger Park, or more particularly the park on its border, Manyeleti, in the local Shangaan language meaning Place of Stars: A most apt name, because during a night safari, we saw a panoply of Southern hemisphere stars in stark relief, heralded by the moon, Venus and Jupiter.

We took every opportunity to exercise the skills of the driver and tracker assigned to us after each day’s class with the butlers, to go on all the safaris we could fit in. For we were in the middle of luxury in the wild, a spectacular concept, and from our armchairs, the picture window of our villa overlooking the waterhole afforded a TV au naturelle that captivated us for hours; but we wanted more, hence the four three-hour safaris. There was so much game, it was almost as if the animals were taking numbers to appear before our jeep. The very first day, we saw “The Big 5” in an hour flat. Then we saw the “Small 5,” and then everything else between, including a colony of wild dogs that represented 15% of the entire world’s population of such malodorous beasties. Maybe not high on one’s list of things to see, but their group dynamic and hunting techniques make a fascinating story. Had I not forgotten my camera in Johannesburg, I would have taken copious photographs of this cornucopia—a sorry confession from an erstwhile professional photographer.

One is used to butlers in diverse settings, from stately homes to barefoot on beach paradises, so in the wilds of Africa was definitely one for the books. The reasons one appreciates butlers are perhaps even more compellingly clear in the wilds of the bush, and Monica and I did not see any contradiction in enjoying the epitome of sophistication within a primitive setting; for the very juxtaposition created a unique universe. Take the warning on the laundry slip that the lodge would occasionally be overrun by baboons. What this had to do with one’s laundry, and what to do about such an invasion, were left to the imagination. We decided that perhaps the baboons might make off with one’s more personal articles of clothing (being of the right size compared to trousers or shirts), so we tasked ourselves, amongst the many wildlife curiosities we expected to see, to be on the lookout for any baboon troupes already attired from earlier raids. Enquiring further about the baboon question, we were told to double-lock our doors as baboons could open a door that was merely locked. We were advised, furthermore, to exit the suite discreetly if they did manage to enter, rather than yell and scream at the baboons (as one sorry gentleman had done, only to have the entire troupe, now in a high state of agitation, empty its collective bowel from the rafters). The only problem we saw with this advised strategy was that we were not allowed to walk between suites (discrete huts) without an escort, in case itinerant wild cats felt puckish, peckish, or peevish. What exactly the escort would do with his small torch in the event of such an encounter, was never explained with any great degree of satisfaction, either. Such is life in the bush…don’t sweat if you don’t have to, smile, be happy.

We made good friends and enjoyed ourselves very much with the butlers and staff at all three lodges (and hope the Executive Chef has quit steaming and cutting himself to shreds…your cooking is too good to lose you!), and seeing Sis was a real treat. But Saudi Arabia called, so back North through, you guessed it, Dubai, to Jeddah.

Categories
Published Articles

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

Categories
Published Articles

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

Categories
Published Articles

The Future Hospitality Professional

As adventurous as it may be to predict the future, there is no doubt in my mind that we stand today at the same point as Dick Tracy when he conversed through a two-way, walkie-talkie video wrist-watch to a remote caller six decades ago. In other words, the prediction that hospitality professionals of the future will read the minds of guests may sound a far-fetched fantasy and possibly even ludicrous, but it will come to be. Why? Because it has been done to some extent for centuries by that quintessential service provider, the British butler, when in top form; and because the technology to bring all service professionals to that pinnacle already exists.

Here, we are not talking some corporate formula for guest interaction that too often results in canned phrases and plastered-on smiles; or a consultant guru’s mantra for superior guest services that seeks to put a datum where intelligent observation and action should be. We are talking information relay followed by drilling on the “how to’s” resulting in an ability gained. It’s nothing mystic and has no relationship to any psychological mumbo-jumbo, but down-to-earth application of workable principles resulting in guests being properly assessed and treated in a way that they find pleasurable, which always leaves them feeling better than before the service was administered.

Such guest service employees of the future will be closer to Life Consultants than room service and will care as much about guests as their mothers. So says the crystal ball. Predicting the future can be fun. Take the “Future Holiday Forum” held in London, England recently for leaders in travel, technology and design. Their “2024: A Holiday Odyssey” according to a Forbes.com report predicted the future hotel for remote destinations as a foldable/ transportable, self-sustaining, low-environmental-impact pod on stilts in which guests could choose the images to be projected on the walls. The technology for such hotels already exists.

The line-up of future hotels that will similarly soon be with us includes underwater hotels and airship hotels that permit scenic views as one travels leisurely to one’s next destination. Resorts in space no doubt lie in the future, incorporating spinning rooms for all the comforts that we have come to expect from living with gravity.

As for space-age technology addressed at specific hospitality issues, we already have 3-D hologram teleconferencing for hotels specializing in conference services. We will soon see smart cards containing all information on a guest, including likes and dislikes, as well as credit card information that will no doubt make check-in and customized servicing of guests easy.

Other technologies to be introduced into the hospitality sector include robotics for cleaning and check-in; biometric security such as retina scans for entrance to rooms and access to safes. Then there is nanotechnology (manipulating and manufacturing at the molecular level). While we are close to imprinting electronic equipment onto our clothing and even skins, there is talk of using nanotechnology to reconfigure rooms per guest wishes, transmogrifying the furniture, fixtures and decorations at the push of a button (so to speak).

However, notice that the talk of the future is invariably in the realm of gadgetry and machinery. Whatever happened to the human element? Are we giving up on our fellow man? Are we just using him or her until some machine can replace him not just on the factory floor but also in the giving of service? Just as Astounding Science Fiction moved beyond machines to focus on the human element regarding things from outer space during the 1930s, so I believe we need to move into improving the human element, rather than always focusing on the mechanical and even trying to substitute machines for humans. And by improving the human element, I mean moving beyond formulas and mantras to increase employee intelligence and ability to act self-determinedly, rather than other-determinedly by rote.

Butler as Future Service Standard

Whether or not Mr. Horst Schulze, former chairman of Ritz-Carlton, was serious when he announced his plans to introduce a six-star hotel chain that was defined in part by private butlers, he was signaling a recognition of the value of a certain something that classic British butlers bring to the guest experience.

So what’s the connection between the British butler of the past and present, and the future hospitality professional? How does one move service employees from transient lower-paid wage earners to professional service providers acting with pride and knowledge, more akin to Life Consultants than room service and caring as much for guests as their own mothers?

Try the code and standards of the traditional butler: trustworthiness, loyalty, attentiveness to guests predicting what they want and attention to detail in providing it before they even know they want it. Always calmly smoothing events into a successful conclusion with a can-do attitude and real caring for the guest; social graces, treating each person with dignity; the soul of discretion; never crossing the invisible line between friendliness and familiarity, attitude free; a superb organizer who always achieves targets set; able to deal with the raw emotions of upset staff, imperious or discourteous guests, indignant bosses, shifty contractors and suppliers and the best-laid plans falling apart at the last moment-all the while maintaining his composure, his desire to provide the best possible service, and ensuring events turn out satisfactorily. Who finally has the energy and humility to ask, “Was there anything I could have improved about my service today?”

That’s the basic butler persona and mindset. But beyond that, we need something more to create the service provider of the 21st Century.

Current Best Practices in guest services result in an industry effort to have all guests greeted cheerfully or enthusiastically. That’s fine for employees who are naturally cheerful or enthusiastic. But how fake the result when they are not. And is it really appropriate when every guest is so greeted when they are neither cheerful nor enthusiastic at that particular moment nor even as a general rule. One size does not fit all.

What is needed is an understanding of the human mind and character, how their emotions dictate their attitudes, and what they will find acceptable to talk about, consequently, and at what emotional tone.

Anyone who thinks that “emotion” is the opposite of “rationality” won’t be tracking with the above. “Emotions” actually refer to the measurable wavelengths emitted by an individual as an expression of his or her like or dislike for various subjects. Some men are enthusiastic about football or conservative about receiving that promotion. Some women grieve over the loss of a relative or dissolve in raptures over a friend’s new hair-do. The exhilaration of an individual who has just won the Lotto can be contrasted rather handily with the apathy exhibited by an individual who has nowhere else to go for help and has given up. Or take the boredom a man might exhibit during a business conference as it enters its fourth hour, or the covert hostility (the equivalent of the phrase “passive aggressive”) exhibited by a woman as she smiles crookedly while saying “What a lovely dress. I saw one just like it in the thrift store yesterday.”

There is more, though: being in the moment or now with guests. Presenting a guest with an attitude, or dealing with them while one’s attention is elsewhere, completely misses the boat when it comes to making them the most important element in a hospitality setting. So the question is: how does one anchor employees in the now? It’s easy. If you know how.

And when you have that licked, you will find employees will be there enough to observe what is right in front of their faces, compute intelligently, and then act effectively to predict and cater to guest needs, and more importantly, read their mind.

And that is why the future of hospitality lies with the ancient butler tradition, married to the latest in “mind-reading” technology to better read and serve guests. Fit that into the equation, and we will find those floating or space-based hotels, as well as the regular landlubber hotels of today, better serviced and continuing to attract guests who prefer the human touch. Robots for humans is about as satisfying as petting a Sony RoboDog instead of your loyal, lively and loving Lab.

This article also appeared in the Hotel Business Review section of Hotel Executive on-line (August 2005), the October 2005 issue of Hotel Online and in 4Hoteliers.com