WE ARE PLAYWRIGHTS

Most of us enjoy the theatre; sitting in the audience, in hushed darkness,waiting for the curtain to go up. As the play unfolds, actors and actressesfollow their scripts and deliver remarkable performances. We come awaya few hours later, happy or sad, depending upon the story, with fondmemories. Several days later we may recall the performance of one ortwo of the cast members or a particular element of the staging, relishingand reliving such elements with friends.

I was giving this some thought and discovered that the maindifference between a theatrical play and a hotel was the location of theaudience along with the interactivity between the audience and the cast.

To force a comparison, think of your hotel as the theatre, your staffas the cast and the guest as the audience. The play opens as guests checkin. They are quickly led through the first act—the 'getting acquainted'part of things—check in, reception, room presentation and unpacking.The hotel acts as the stage, amenities as the props and your line staff asthe actors in this highly interactive play.

Other support staff act as stagehands (housekeepers, maintenance,kitchen staff, gardeners, engineering) and, of course, accountants managethe box office while your public relations and advertising agencies handlethe outside buzz to draw the crowds in. As senior managers, your role isto write the play and produce a show of the highest quality your budgetwill afford.

In doing so, remind your cast that this is not an improv, and thatthere's an elaborate and time-honored script that must be followed.While a certain amount of improvisation is necessary, your team has toknow their lines by heart to start with, then make necessary adjustmentsto reflect individual guest needs only once the sought-after experiencehas been properly attained.

A few other parallels are also quite obvious:

• The show must go on! So even if you have a low occupancy or ateam member is a no-show, your cast still must deliver a perfectperformance.

• There is no business like show business. Your team must becomposed of enthusiastic performers and love the relationshipwith the guest. If not, they should not be in the biz!

• Reviews are important. Mind your TripAdvisor critiques andremember that future attendance is based on getting greatreviews.

• The audience knows what they are getting. Be it a tragedy or acomedy, we know what a play will bring and we will be preparedto experience such emotions. Your hotel should be predictablein delivering these broad strokes, and then surprise or delightwithin the confines of the genre.

• Great actors take time to develop. You're not getting older, you'reonly getting better. Your staff will benefit from training and,given the right stage and directions, they'll surely improve withtime.

MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OFHOTEL EXPECTATIONS

If you're looking for a good standard by which to evaluate your guestservice priorities, or if you're simply looking for inspiration, youneed only scroll through any basic management, human resourcesor motivation psychology textbook. For this particular article, allowyourself a cursory glance at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a highlyreferenced and diagram-friendly developmental psychology theory.

Interestingly, we can use Maslow's principles to detail hotel guestbehavior in terms of what their basic expectations will be and howthey will act when certain expectations aren't met. From there we candistinguish what services or hotel features will be seen as fundamentalrights versus which will be seen as value-added, loyalty-building drivers.This all makes for a fun, little exercise of transforming AbrahamMaslow's 1943 groundbreaking research paper into Maslow's Hierarchyof Hotel Expectations applicable to the new millennium.

The hierarchy diagram has five generalized levels outlined in apyramid—physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization—withthe base being the most important and hence the largest in termsof area. Next, evaluate your hotel's reviews from past customers (bothfrom internal surveys and from third-party sites) to see how theirpoints of criticism and praise line up with the five tiers of the Maslowpyramid. Take special care to note the emotional subtext of each review,particularly those that identify elementary faults in your operations.

My hypothesis is that any severe denigration you receive will be adirect result of errors made on the bottom end of the pyramid. As thesemistakes pertain to more basic needs—those assumed to be immediatenecessities—the criticism against such errors will be especially loudand harsh. This is in contrast to the upper layers of the pyramid wherederision gradually morphs into praise. However, judging purely from thearea given to each portion within the diagram, it's clear that such upperechelon exaltations will not be perceived with the same magnitude ofimportance as a lower level condemnation.

Therefore, this motivation theory model can be used as an excellentframing tool to understand consumer mindsets, to determine whataspects of your operations are most critical to improve and to developa concrete order of priorities. Satisfy guest needs in accordance with thepyramid by building from the ground up. And so, we begin our analysisat the bottom and most critical layer for you to master.

Physiological Needs

At the base of the pyramid is the need for such rudimentary aspects ofsustaining life such as food, breathing (air quality), water and sleep. Evenat this primal and thoroughly understood level, there are still numerousquestions by which to scrutinize your current operations.

Are your guests getting a good night's sleep? Do your lobby andguest rooms smell weird? How's the tap water that comes out of thebathroom faucet? Is it clean, clear and flowing properly? Do youovercharge for bottled water? And most importantly, is your food edible?Never underestimate just how crucial it is to master all aspects of thisbasal tier. You only stand to lose if you're not flawless here.

The quintessential function of a hotel is to give patrons a bed sothey're chipper for the next day. If this can't be done, then it's a failedmission. Recall how you felt the last time you had a sleepless night.Irritable, bellicose, maybe even slightly delirious? In such a mood, aguest has a much greater propensity towards a negative evaluation. I'mnot insinuating that every bed needs to have a triple-down comforterand thousand thread-count linens. Instead, stick to the basics. Is theroom loud at night? How can you dampen the noise? Are the bed sheetsand duvet perfectly clean? As you can see, any hint of bedbugs, or therisk of an infestation is a non-starter. This level is about being flawless,not necessarily perfect.

Next, very few people will comment on how fresh the air in thelobby was, but if the room smells—for example, of tobacco...