Customer service is at the heart of every business, trying to create an unforgettable experience for anybody who enters their premises or interacts with their business, aiming for them to have such a pleasant experience that they will return time and time again.
Hotels are no exception and may be one of the harder places to create a positive experience. This is because a stay in a hotel lasts longer than a typical business interaction. Grabbing a drink at a coffee shop will only take ten minutes of your time to impress you, but a hotel must keep impressing a customer for potentially weeks on end.
Here at London Linen, we pride ourselves in helping to create luxurious hotel experiences, so have put together this guide on how to create one for your customers.
Arrival
The arrival is one of the most important parts of customer service, as this is the very first impression a guest will get of your hotel. If your hotel has its own car park, have a valet service park the cars, so guests can simply walk into the hotel instead of having to walk with baggage from a car park.
Have a greeter installed near the door, ready to welcome new guests to the hotel. They should be friendly, knowledgeable and approachable. We find a great way to make a guest feel welcome is to make an occasion of their arrival. It makes them feel important and looked after to have staff members ready to receive them, instead of just waiting to walk up to reception to get keys.
Shower guests with luxury from arrival by offering a glass of champagne and some canapes on arrival. People love complementary gifts, so this little touch will add a touch of class and make a guest appreciate the hotel even more.
Try to make the check-in process as smooth as possible. A lot of the time guests will have been travelling for hours to reach you, so the last thing they want is a long check-in process. Get all the relevant checks you can do beforehand, leaving only the essential tasks to be done at the check in desk. Try to stagger guest arrival if possible, so nobody is left waiting while trying to check-in.
Aesthetics
Even if you provide the best experience ever, some people might still be put off your hotel by the way it looks. If your hotel is styled in an older aesthetic, people might not think it's a luxury experience. The most important thing is to create a cohesive style. If your lobby is grand and opulence, having rooms that look like they were furnished in the 1980s is jarring for a guest.
If you’re aiming for up-market, consider furnishings that give an extravagant feel, making sure you pay attention to details and surround your guests in luxury. Make sure everything is cohesive, even down to the light fixtures, railings and bathrooms. But remember luxury does not have to mean extravagant, you could go with a modern style, keeping everything very minimalist and chic.
Customer Service
The key to creating a luxury experience is through customer service. Every member of your staff is there to assist the customer and make their experience the best it can possibly be. This is everyone from the hotel manager and cleaning staff, to waiters and bellboys. While mostly active in the day, assistance should be available to guests all night long.
A great way to do this is to employ a concierge service for your hotel. This allows the guests to call on this service at any time of the day whenever they need anything, and not have to bother any other members of staff to distract them from their duties. This will please the guests and also allow other employees to go about their duties so the quality of work is not reduced while assisting customers.
Make sure cleaning is done regularly and at convenient times. Guests don’t want to be awoken by a cleaner wanting to get in, so ensure a guest is out of the room first. You could keep track of guests entering and exiting on reception, so you can then communicate to staff to begin cleaning that room. Ensure communal areas are also maintained regularly, especially just before busy periods in the day like check in/check out and dinner time.
Offer Amenities
Amenities are a great way to enhance a customer's experience. A swimming pool is a very attractive feature that will attract guests but you could also have a spa or gym available for use. Swimming and the gym encourages guests to be active, while a spa experience can help them relax. Offering treatments like massages, manicures and facials are great for making your guest feel like they are part of a luxury experience.
While you can charge extra for the use of them, consider free passes or vouchers to encourage use and keep guests happy. Complimentary facilities will make a guest feel like they’re getting the most out of a stay, while having to pay extra could make them have a negative reaction and cause annoyance that it is not included in the price of their stay.
More amenities you can offer in the room include toiletries, snacks and treats. Everybody loves to steal the tiny bottles of shampoo from hotels, so provide small, luxury experiences. You could consider partnering with a shampoo company to produce a unique scent, which will then encourage customers to come again so they can get another bottle of the smell. Do the same with a signature smell to fill your hotel with. People love to smell nice things rather than just the empty air, so fill your smell with olfactory experiences that guests will be glad to return to.
Luxury Linen
Another way to create a luxurious hotel experience is through the linen that you use. It leaves a big impression on people but can also be overlooked when considering other ways to enhance a hotel experience. But if you think about linen, your opinion for a destination will automatically be negative if you are sat at a table with a soiled tablecloth, or notice a stain on your bed when you arrive.
So invest in luxury linen. Bedsheets and pillowcases are very key to a guests experience. A lot of the time, when a guest first enters a room, their gaze is automatically drawn towards the bed. This is because they know they’ll be spending a lot of time sleeping and relaxing on this piece of furniture, so it needs to be great.
Another place to make your linen count is the restaurant. Even if they are just impeccable laundered, a guest should have the impression they are the first person to ever use that table linen. Any stains, marks or discolouration will automatically ruin the experience for them.
A great way to ensure your linen is kept impeccable is by using hotel laundry services. These businesses, such as us at London Linen, specialise in the supply and laundering of quality linen. You’ll feel like you’re being supplied with brand new linen every time, so your guests will never have their experience ruined by old and worn linen.
Hotel Laundry Services From London Linen
As previously mentioned, an important part of creating a luxurious hotel experience is through the linen provided. London Linen understands this, and have been providing luxury linen to hotels, restaurants and businesses that need it since 1935.
Our range of products bring with them an elegance that will enhance and complement your customer’s experience. We work with restaurants and hotels of all walks of life, from delis and fine dining to casual food services. Table linen leaves a great impression on customers, who can instantly tell that this is a space that cares about the service they provide and is aiming to create a luxurious hotel experience.
With London Linen you can expect luxury linens delivered straight to your hotel/restaurant for you to use. After they are done with, our hotel laundry services will pick them up, supply you with new linen, and then take the used linen to be cleaned thoroughly. We have years of experience in laundering, so every piece we offer you will have gone through extensive quality control to ensure you only get the best.
So call now on 020 8574 5569 to talk through your restaurant and catering linen with one of our staff. We also supply chefs wear, for the complete dining linen experience.
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