As a frequent traveler, I never fail to be disappointed by the hassle of checking-in and out at hotels, a task that could surely be made quicker and more efficient by applying a little digital common sense.
Why is it that an establishment supposedly dedicated to offering its clients the best experience possible, instead inflicts torture on them?
Let me explain: you arrive at a hotel, usually tired after a lengthy trip, and are greeted in an impressive lobby by several professionals whose job is to look after you, but where nothing works as it should. First of all, you typically have to wait in line to check in. Then, you have to show your documentation, watch as the person consults a computer for ten or fifteen interminable minutes, seemingly deciding whether you will end up in a wonderful room with the best views or in a sinister hovel giving on to a gloomy well. Finally, you are given some magnetic cards stuffed in a cardboard folder, a few instructions on how to access the WiFi, told what time breakfast is served and where the elevator is… oh, and asked for a credit card in case you run off without paying the bill, because, of course, the assumption is that the guests are a bunch of crooks (the same reason clothes hangers are on those annoying rings, otherwise they’d all get stolen — and that, of course, would ruin our bottom line).
Is this really the best way an entire service industry can come up with to welcome its customers? Must this depressing process be the first impression that will shape our experience? If so, every hotel manager and hotel chain CEO should be sacked on the spot and replaced at random by somebody from another sector. Conversely, the person who cleans your room, serves you a drink at the bar, the waiter at lunch or breakfast or whoever gives you towels at the pool are usually professionals who can’t do enough for you. It’s not the people: it’s clearly a problem with poor administrative processes.
What is the point of holding a customer for ten or fifteen minutes in a process that should be straightforward and immediate, or even non-existent? Does a person with a certain level of training and who speaks several languages really have to do endless operations on a screen to decide which room to give you, and end up giving you the impression that they are doing you a huge favor? Is this some kind of benchmark based on process optimization? Do hotel managers subject themselves to their own processes to try to get an idea of the sensations they generate in their customers? Is there no one in the hotel industry with a minimum knowledge of user experience who can advise them on something like this?
And then there’s the check-out. Most of the time, this happens in the morning, when you’re in a hurry to get to a meeting, and instead have to wait in line to do something as simple as verifying charges and signing a bill? Why hasn’t someone come up with a way to avoid this stupid procedure during which, in addition, we have to wait standing up? I have begun to wonder if there are professionals in that industry, or if they’re all a bunch of amateurs with a single talent: spoiling the experience for their customers? For goodness’ sake, there are entire universities dedicated to training hospitality professionals, and this is the result, even in high-end hotels?
The hospitality sector desperately needs a course in digital transformation. I am hard pressed to find an industry plagued by so many contradictions in its administrative processes. Over time, those of us who use hotels have come to regard those processes as normal, as part of everyday life, but is no one in the industry really professional enough to set about improving them? There is so much room for optimization that it is simply mind-boggling that an industry with so many resources is doing nothing about it.
I have seen attempts at improvement. I’ve been to hotels with (supposed) early check-in, and others where they leave an envelope under the door the night before so you can check the charges and, supposedly, check out without going to the check-out counter. They don’t work, or work very rarely. It seems that hotels are so used to wasting their customers’ time that the idea of improving processes doesn’t bother them. What’s the point of a hotel stay beginning with an absurd check-in process, and ending the way it ends, with a cumbersome check-out process? Does no one in the industry really ask themselves these questions? Don’t they think there is room for improvement? I really don’t get it.
—
This post was previously published on Enrique Dans’ blog.
***
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Log in if you wish to renew an existing subscription.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock
The post Why Is Checking In and Out of a Hotel Such a Pain in the Lobby? appeared first on The Good Men Project.