Sure, I expect some people are starting to plan their trip to Disney’s latest extravagant interactive hotel experience, Star Wars: Galactic Star Cruiser. At $6,000 for two nights for a family of four, you get to experience Disney to the extreme, where even the hotel windows look out onto “space!”
…My advice, rather than chasing the next voice-activated-drone-delivered-AI-promise of a customer experience…instead focus on delighting your customers without the need for excessive technology.
We just returned from ten days at a delightful hotel in San Diego which was a wonderful escape as we are still unpacking from our house move, not quite finished with our renovations, and preparing our three daughters for back to school in real life.
I tried a new approach to this holiday, where for a change, I did absolutely zero research ahead of time. I wanted to channel my twenty year old self, who would book a vacation on the basis of two one inch square photos in a printed brochure, and ten sentences describing the hotel. Instead this time, I let my husband choose the hotel, and once chosen I resisted temptation of checking endless online reviews, didn’t look at pictures ahead of time, didn’t check the menus, room configurations, or even who owned the hotel. (This coming from me…the hyper-focused research obsessed was a big deal, but I wanted to try the element of surprise.)
Thankfully. The surprise was all pleasant.
The first barman we met, John, had worked at the hotel for 18 years, he explained how many of the team had 20,30, even 35 years service. It certainly showed.
I always like to let the hotel manager know when I have great service so I tracked him down on LinkedIn and sent him a message. Within hours he had replied with his cell phone number, called my hotel room and asked if we could meet.
The next day he met with me and my whole family as he wanted to hear directly what we thought of the hotel. He also introduced us to their star attraction: their brilliant concierge, Gordy. In the age of online restaurant booking services like opentable it would be easy to think concierges are no longer needed, but Gordy proved that to be a myth with his inside knowledge of local places to visit and ability to get us a table booking where the online systems said no.
Live local music every day, great watersports so we were all able to paddle board for the first time, incredible food, amazing poolside service, great games that even our picky tweens & teens joined in, and employees who really seemed to care about who you were and how they could help you.
I know many hotels and restaurants are challenged with hiring and keeping great staff right now, but Doug and the team at Mission Bay Resort San Diego proved the trend can be beaten. We can’t wait to go back.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val
P.S. I hope you enjoyed this week's VAL-uable Insights, sign up here to get them in your inbox each Monday morning: http://valwrightconsulting.com/newsletter-sign-up/
