Whether one was in the morning or afternoon shift, the main purpose was in making the guests “feel at home”. The 37th part of a series describing the unknown triumphs and travails of doing international business

AK Ramdas

Our hotel was situated in the “old town” of Alexandria, where, some two hundred years earlier the first lot of settlers had come in to live. It was on the Potomac river and trading was brisk. In fact, there are some very old buildings and hotels in the area that can trace back the history, and are declared ‘national’ heritage and monument sights.
 
Besides, Alexandria, being part of Virginia state, was the gateway to Washington DC, the capital, and because of the space limitations, thousands of government employees always lived in the area. The town, therefore, was always buzzing with activity; it had a great variety of restaurants, sight-seeing historical sites, and the connecting link to cross over to Maryland state over the bridge on Potomac. Route No. 1 passed through the town!
 
One of prime jobs as the supervisor was to know the town itself; I did this best by walking around the area, road by road, after my shift was over during day time, making notes of restaurants, landmarks, etc. The hotel was one of the few that was all ‘suites’ and generally occupied by business travellers visiting DC and meeting the IT companies in Virginia. So, we catered to their breakfast and supper (dinner) needs and did not have regular lunch at our restaurant.  The general practice, in business has been, all over the world that most have a “work-through-lunch”, having a quick sandwich, and a leisurely dinner!  Of course, our restaurant catered to group lunches upon order, which is why, it was in the evenings when guests would come for booking tables, seek recommendations after mentioning the choice of food that they wanted to eat, and have our complimentary vans drop and collect them!  Not only I went on these trips regularly, but drove the coach myself, to experience the work involved.
 
We had some 22 suites on the ninth floor, catering to Platinum members who were served complimentary breakfasts; there were times when we had run out of rooms on this floor because of high traffic of Platinum guests. We had to assign them to different floors, but yet they had access keys to the elevators that would take them to the Club floor so that they could enjoy the benefit for breakfast in the mornings and snacks in the evenings. Of course, there were days when the assigned in charge of the Club room failed to turn up and the front desk had to cover up this lapse, by taking over that additional responsibility too. In case we had a staff problem ourselves, we had to issue complimentary breakfast at our restaurant, by giving away the coupons! In the first couple of months, I had to undergo training of running the Club room as well in case of emergencies.
 
Attached to the front desk was a little kiosk that contained various items of sale for the guests. Essential items like toothbrush, paste, shampoo, soap (all kinds of toiletries) were in the suites on a complimentary basis. But the shop had all other items, including snacks, soft drinks, cameras, films, shoe polish, etc. Since I was a regular visitor to Wal-Mart, I found many items, such as umbrellas and eatables that were cheap, and we introduced them in our shop.  We had cigarettes on sale also, but, because of government regulations and strict enforcements, we did not make a sale until we demanded and inspected a photo ID of the buyer that he/she was old enough to make the purchase! By keeping a strict control on the sales, and cash register, I was able to bring in a good turnover, soon after I took over.
 
Unlike the Courtyard, at the Sheraton Suites, all the associates at the front desk had their own little ‘banks’ for their operations. At the end of the day, i.e. their shift, they had to record the dealings and drop in the collection in the safety box, which was in the control of the accounts.  There were surprise checks at regular intervals to ensure that the banks were not misused by the associate. In case of misappropriation, the person concerned was relieved of the duty.
 
When I joined the Suites, we did have an exclusive floor, designed for ‘smokers’ only.  On some days, when we were sold out, we had no choice, but to allocate the rooms to non-smokers, who did not accept them, but when bookings were made, our sales operators were trained to clarify the position of this possibility on such days. We did our best to have the housekeeping do the special cleaning and spraying, but we did have trouble with guests, who were compensated in many ways for this unfortunate situation, arising out of total sell-out.
 
On the second floor, we had a gym, which was open always (accessible by the room key for the guest), but the swimming pool had its operating times, as, due to the Alexandria County regulations only a lifeguard, certified by them, must be present, when it is open to the guests.  We could not, therefore, employ even the Olympic gold medallist, if he/she was not certified as a lifeguard by the county. This was the general regulations in most other places, as well.
 
The gym had a great number of items for the guest to use; but the selection and type of equipment was uniform for all the Sheratons of the same category, but only the number of units may increase, in relation to the size of the rooms in each location. It had nice and pleasant warm water during cold wintery months, while it was cold water for summer. In either case, however, in case of first thunderstorm, due to the possibility of lightening, we had to clear all the users out of the pool immediately.

There were emergency phones available at all important locations, such as above, in order to meet any contingency. Children were not permitted to use the gym unless they were accompanied by a responsible adult member of their family. As a matter of courtesy to the guests, we delivered USA Today every morning to all the occupants; the (Platinum) guests, staying in the Club level had the Wall Street Journal additionally.  If someone wanted the Washington Post, they had to get it from the shopee at the lounge.
 
Whether one was in the morning or afternoon shift, the main purpose was in keeping the guests happy, comfortable and to make them “feel at home”.  Every complaint was promptly attended to by the associate concerned and if the guest made difficult demands, the supervisor and/or manager took over the situation and resolved the issue. Guest commentary cards were not only collected, but serious follow up action taken so that such mistakes, if any, did not recur. We were repeatedly told that one unhappy customer is likely to talk about his/her experience to ten other prospective guests, which was detrimental to our interests. We had to remember that an unhappy guest would voluntarily talk about his/her bad experience, as against a happy one, who would only make a good recommendation, when he/she is asked for opinion!
 
All the front desk associates had to go through the first aid training programs and take part in other customer-related workshops that were regularly conducted by the Human Resources director. Krista and John from Courtyard had become part of the Suites, much to my liking, and Jodie Chang also joined us a little later to take over the sales manager.
 
I was getting well acquainted with the Geac System and as new associates joined, it became my responsibility to train them as well and take care of their needs until they were able to handle the work independently.
 
The rush for check-out would become very high just after breakfast in the mornings, as guests would be in a hurry to leave, catch their flights and so on. Yet, in the process of doing this job, we had to keep a good conversation with them and seek their comments on the Guests Commentary Cards; if they had confronted any small issues, they may have overlooked them. If this was not take care of during the check out process, they may be rightly tempted to write this down when they get a questionnaire about their stay, which was sent by emails. If we did not enquire about their stay and how they enjoyed it will also be considered as an affront. So, not only we learnt to remember the names of our guests, but also their likes and dislikes, particularly if they were becoming a regular visitor.
 
The guest commentary card was analysed at the national level and the corporate office would evaluate the reports, by a team of experts, and place the hotel ratings suitably. We had to remember that we were in competition with other Sheraton Suites, nation-wide, and we had to stand out as the best. Not an easy task, we were in good wicket.
 
We learnt to create a sense of belonging for the guests and we all went the extra mile to accomplish this feat, as far as possible.

AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce and was associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts. From being the advisor to exporters, he took over the mantle of a trader, travelled far and wide, and switched over to setting up garment factories and then worked in the US. He can be contacted at [email protected].)