My husband and I checked-in to the Hotel Monaco last month for a stay-cation. Well, not exactly. We were in the middle of a kitchen renovation and had to exit our home for the week while spray foam insulation was being administered. Soon after check-in we realized our mini-bar key didn’t work and promptly asked for a new key at the front desk. The guest service agent apologized and gave us a new key, saying to please let her know if a maintenance ticket needed to be issued. Our new key worked, our perishable items were placed inside the refrigerator, and we never spoke with the guest service agent again.
Had I not been someone that makes a living coaching others on “Five Diamond” service I would have thought no more about the encounter with the guest service agent. However, I felt inclined to share this story at a service recovery workshop I was leading the next day. Mostly everyone in attendance was a customer facing hotel employee, and coincidentally a few staff members from Hotel Monaco were even in attendance. I wanted to use this simple example to showcase how to elevate service recovery from reactionary and forgettable to proactive and memorable! After suggesting that the guest service agent should have called us in the guest room 10 minutes later to confirm that the replacement key had worked, I polled the audience for other proactive solutions.
See below for one extraordinary solution that presented itself later that evening back at the Hotel Monaco!
What other proactive solutions can you think of?