The secret, yet often missed-out weapon of accommodation industry: Smiling

Cihan Coşkuntuncel Published: August 10, 2021 4 min read
The secret, yet often missed-out weapon of accommodation industry: Smiling

We are sure you meticulously address the needs revolving around your hotel and services for your customers so that they can have a good time in your hotel during their stay.  Apart from that, you actually have a “weapon” that can strengthen the effect of your efforts:  smiling.

Imagine yourself: You ask something and encounter two people, one of whom is smiling, while the other is sulky. Which one would you prefer? Your customers will also experience similar emotions as yours. A ‘sulky’ service will have a direct impact on your relation with your customers and might cause serious losses that you would not even recognize.

We have prepared some essential tips for you to use smiling in an effective way for your hotel.

First impression

Just smile if you want to create a nice impression on your guests when they arrive at your hotel for the first time.  The first impression emerges just when your guest approaches towards the reception to check in.  Providing your service tactfully and in a caring manner during the first meeting can be a key point for your guests on how to evaluate their holiday experiences.  For instance, a guest who is approached with friendliness might act flexibly against possible inconveniences as he/she already feels himself good.

Another thing to be noted here as important is the continuing smile. For example, make sure that a guest entering your hotel during small hours is also welcomed in that same friendly way.

Last impression

When your guests leave the hotel, not only the experiences, but also the joy during their stay will remain in their mind.

Emotions and energy can easily be passed on to others. Sulky face expressions might leave a not-so-nice holiday experience in your guests’ mind, letting them down. In such cases, they leave the hotel with a sense of dissatisfaction in their mind although they are not able to notice particular reasons consciously, which will have a negative impact on their possibility of choosing your hotel again.

Moments when smiling becomes something hard

Service industry might be full of problems and challenges.  The staff members might have different types of problems and challenges in their personal life or within the hotel. However, irrespective of the reason, you should always remember that your guests stay at your property to have a good time. Having various problems in their daily life, your guests would not like to know or hear any problem of your staff members; instead, they would love to have a flawless service.

Service industry is just like performance arts. Behind-the-scene problems concern the service provider, so they should not be reflected to the audience, i.e., the guests.  It is important for your employees to control their emotions when they experience something negative.

While training your staff members, it would be good for them to develop an awareness of the fact that they will recover from their problems more easily as long as they keep smiling. Smiling might help solve problems. If the problem is serious or your staff member is not able to smile no matter how hard he tries, you can help them solve it by communicating with them. If you cannot do anything with that, it might be a better idea to give them a few days off than forcing them to represent your hotel with a sulky or unhappy face expression.

To increase the effect of smiling

Smiling can work very well, yet it is not enough alone. Another thing to be considered is that your staff should look clean and smart, communicate respectfully.  Smiling is an intimate approach; however, it should not be used in a way that makes your staff members too close with your guests.

Although that is something really simple to comply with, it is still possible to see that majority of hotels overlook this detail. We think these simple tips will help you benefit from your customer relations effectively.

Providing excellence at your property matters. However, you should be able to promote, manage and sell properly. HotelRunner supports you for all these issues. Create your HotelRunner account for free now and see what we can do for you

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