“Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen”
Horst Schulze is one of the titans in the hospitality industry, having co-founded both the Ritz-Carlton and The Capella Hotel group and especially shaped the former to become one of the most admired hospitality brands in the world. He shared his operational and leadership philosophy in this book.
The quote on top is his apt summary of his philosophy, making sure to emphasizing excellent treatment to his team so they can give excellence service to the customers. The book is chock full of useful list that further break down this philosophy. A few that I need to remember more for my job are:
- People you serve want three things: 1) Service/product without defect, 2) Timeliness, 3) Those serving to be nice. Figure a way to give these to your customers
- Your companies have four supreme objectives: 1) Keep customers, 2) Get new customers, 3) Encourage more spending, 4) increase efficiency. Ground your actions on these four tasks
- The process of building great employees has four steps: 1) Selection, 2) Orientation, 3) Teaching of process, 4) Sustaining what’s been taught
- Being a leader involves five steps: 1) Understand the vision, 2) Commit to and communicate the vision, 3) Execute the plan to achieve the vision, 4) Maintain focus at all time, 5) Energize employees towards the vision
- Customer service is everyone’s job. Don’t fall into the trap of leaving it to just the frontline workers
Some of these points sound pretty simple but we will all be surprised how many companies lose sight of these points and lose customers in the process. The book goes into many of these points and more in a lot more details. When it comes to serving customers better, and which companies don’t want to do that?, this is an essential read! At the very least, it’s a good reminder of the basic of what makes a great company that people want to come back and stay loyal to.