THEO Listens At The Breakers
By Staff -- Hotels, 10/1/2007
The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, has spent US$250 million over the past 15 years on continued renewal. President and Chief Operating Officer Paul Leone will spend another US$50 million on guestrooms over the next five years as well as US$20 million on staff facilities as employee fulfillment is among the top priorities and strategies for guest satisfaction and profitability. While luxury appointments might be important to the Breakers Palm Beach experience, with 2,300 associates and a staff ratio of close to 4-to-1 at this 560-room hotel, it is the culture and a 12-year-old service system that helps set this truly independent hotel apart from the growing list of luxury competitors.“We are all about continued improvement and innovative service,” says Leone, who has been at the helm of the Henry Flagler-built hotel since 1994. That level of innovation includes a very specific strategy to act quickly when guests inevitably register a complaint. To turn unhappy customers into raving fans, The Breakers developed THEO (Team Hears Every Opportunity), a system for collecting, consolidating and responding to guest feedback.
THEO is the result of a plan to transcend and consolidate traditional feedback methods, including guest comment cards, customer correspondence and the like. These traditional, paper-based feedback methods are all too often reviewed once a month, long after disgruntled guests have left and told their friends about their experience. With THEO, feedback is fed into a database which, in turn, is used to contact guests and resolve their issues with immediacy—prior to check-out.
Over the years, THEO has identified numerous trends the hotel has been able to address, among them guest demand for complimentary local telephone calls and additional shaded areas by the pool. It also spots issues such as guest keys not working properly.
THEO centers on a dedicated voicemail phone line to which associates can pass on an observation, an overheard guest comment or call in an idea to improve service. In fact, team members are encouraged to call in any level of incident. A THEO coordinator opens a case in the database and calls the appropriate department head or manager to advise of the incident. The manager is then empowered to contact the guest, apologize and make amends. As follow up, the manager calls THEO, explains how the problem was resolved, and the case is closed. Even when an issue is resolved immediately, associates are encouraged to call THEO so management can ensure the situation is recorded in guest history to help prevent a recurrence and identify trends.
THEO is monitored constantly and the amount of information generated is tenfold what was obtained prior to instituting the system (about 200 comment cards a month). One of the assistant manager’s key responsibilities is to thoroughly review THEO daily and follow up on the guest opportunities.
A great example comes from an associate in the Breakers News & Gourmet, who was told by a guest he wanted coffee at 5:30 a.m. before the store opened, but did not want roomservice to disturb his family. THEO was called and a manager arranged for complimentary coffee waiting for the guest every morning at the front desk. “The guest was thrilled,” Leone says. “When he returns in the winter, we will provide the same service without him asking.”
To meet the goal of resolution before check-out, the voicemail system is checked throughout the day, management runs daily reports of open cases and the internal e-mail system alerts managers of the same. More than 98% of all THEO cases are closed before guests depart, according to Hotel Manager Tricia Taylor, who also presents a weekly report at operations committee meetings to discuss trends and opportunities for improvement.
All THEO calls are filtered for professionalism prior to being published in the daily report. If a guest has a complaint about a team member, the associate’s name will not appear in the report and the opportunity will be forwarded to the appropriate manager for follow up.
This cultural transformation has paid dividends. The Guest Return Factor (percentage of guests who say they will come back) measured on a daily basis and tracked monthly for trends hovers at 99%. The Composite Service Rating (on a scale from 1 to 10) now stands at 9.17 with more than 60% of all checked-out guests giving feedback. By “saving” these guests and creating repeat business, THEO last year helped recover US$765,000 in room revenue alone.
It is not a perfect system; however, and Leone admits it is challenging to keep it fresh and exciting. Call volumes vary, and not all hotel associates use the system. “Since it is guest focused, it is easier for associates with guest contact to use THEO,” Leone says. “However, we encourage everyone to use the system and provide periodic incentives and surprise rewards for doing so.”
Talkback
Related Content
Related Content
Hotels Marketplace
View All Blogs
