At work, we recently had a guest speaker, M. Bingle from The Four Seasons, talk about brand engagement. He gave his perspectives on why the Four Seasons is such a successful hotel franchise and how they’ve continued to maintain a classy and respectable reputation.
Here are some tidbits I took away from the lunch time session on how companies can work on their brand engagement. I formulated some principles based upon the stories he was telling.
1. No surprises. Do you know the top three requests from customers when arrive to their hotel? Speedy check in, speedy check out, and no surprises (specifically no unpleasant surprises). Upon arrival, and even during the booking phase, customers are asked about their preferences. People have very specific preferences and the company has a very extensive database full of them so that when customers return, they know exactly what to prepare for.
2. Be flexible with the customer. Easiest way to be flexible? Say yes. Or at least try not to say no. There will always be customers that complain, and every employee will always try to accommodate or negotiate. Employees are paid and incentivized on customer satisfaction, and they actively find ways to delight guests.
3. Delight in every way. Everyone at the company has the exact same mission: to make the customer come back and talk about us in a great way. As much as people don’t forget negative experiences, people also don’t forget super delightful experiences.
4. Try not to give in to trends. Four Seasons doesn’t have a loyalty program and still doesn’t. The founder believes people will come back if they have a great experience. Customers expect loyalty programs from hotels, and that’s something they request all the time, but the company didn’t give in. In fact, they were able to steal market share during economic downturn because they didn’t lower service when times were tough. They believe it’ll be very hard to get your rate back up on your product or service once you’ve lowered it.
5. Use human elements. Employees need to have a good level of emotional intelligence, and so should everyone in the world!! Mr. Bingle told a story about a worried couple who stayed at a Four Seasons as it was a nearby hotel to a hospital where their son was in the ICU. An employee went to the guests’ Facebook page, found a family photo, printed it out, framed it, and put it in the guests’ room with a letter containing some words of kindness. A simple act of compassion led to many more word of mouth referrals.