As part of my job, I am required to travel extensively throughout the US and that means a great deal of hotel stays. Sometimes I am blown away by the hotel, I stayed last month at the Bicycle Casino hotel in California last week for example, an outstanding hotel which deserves all of the success which it has. On the other hand, I often stay in some terrible hotels and ones which really should know better. Something which always confuses me about hotels, and this goes for budget and expensive hotels, is their inability to get the basics right when it comes to running a hotel. Now, I am no hotelier but as someone who is a regular guest, these are the basics which your hotel simply must get right.
Customer Service
For me, there is absolutely no excuse for bad customer service and I expect to be made to feel happy and welcome, from the moment that I book to the moment that I leave the hotel. In a world where vacation rentals are taking a huge chunk of hotel market share, service is the one thing that hotels have which vacation rentals don’t and it should be exceptional. As a hotel owner, it is your responsibility to ensure that excellent customer service is being offered at all times and that you are dealing with poor service as for me, this is unacceptable.
Cleanliness
I have never been in a hotel that did not have cleaners, in spite of this however there are a huge number of hotels which I stay in that are absolutely filthy. I feel as though the cleaners in these establishments simply get complacent and do the bare minimum in terms of cleaning each room. It is not just the rooms that need to be spotless, the amenities and the restaurant should also be incredibly clean. Even if you are a budget hotel, this does not give you an excuse to offer poor hygiene, get it clean and make sure that it is done to a high standard.
Wifi
It blows my mind that in this day and age you can find hotels in the United States, fore example, that cannot offer excellent wifi throughout. Huge amount of people rely on the hotel wifi to get work done or to speak with their loved ones and I do not expect to have to move closer to the router in the foyer, just to be able to send an email. Hotels should have several routers throughout their hotel so that everyone can have access to great internet. This is something that is incredibly low cost for the hotels, and makes a huge amount of difference to the guests. If your wifi isn’t excellent throughout, make sure that the next thing that you do is to invest in ensuring that it is.
If you fail n these basics, you can guarantee that you are losing customers, don’t run the risk of this, get the basics right.
