Setting Goals For Effective Hotel Staff Communication

The guest experience is key in the hospitality industry and delivering outstanding service doesn’t happen on it’s own. Customer service teams need to be aligned, work cohesively, and be able to quickly access information and resources that allow them to help guests at a moment’s notice. At the core of this process is communication. If hotel staff communication isn’t optimized, it’s hard to optimize the guest experience.

Not only do teams need to communicate well with customers, they need to communicate and collaborate with each other. Only when staff can coordinate activities in real time, no matter what part of the property they are on, can they provide the stellar experience guests are looking for.

Whether it’s maintenance, housekeeping, management, or the front desk, these teams need to effectively communicate internally and cross functionally. Equipping teams with effective enterprise communication software is a given, but there should also be goals in place for what you want to achieve through improved hotel staff communications. Use the following three goals to inform your communication strategy.

1. Unite employees and empower them with information

Effective Hotel Staff Communication

The first step is to break down barriers between teams so the entire property can work together cohesively. If teams can’t coordinate behind the scenes, you will struggle to improve guest experiences when it’s “showtime.”

For starters, management needs a way to disseminate need-to-know information to all employees or a subset of employees. There may be new policies that are being implemented, and it’s crucial that all of the teams are on board so the experience is consistent for customers throughout their stay.

Additionally, there may be information that a specific group of employees needs to know about, such as a security issue that needs to be resolved discreetly. In these cases having multiple modes of communication in place can help meet employees where they are, and helps them feel like they are on the same page even if they aren’t physically in the same place.

Once you’ve improved behind-the-scenes operations, you can better optimize interactions with guests.

2. Help employees be better at their jobs

If employees can always easily reach other, then they can work together to serve guests better and faster. Take for example when a guest complains about a maintenance issue in their room. Multiple teams most coordinate with each other to share the right information and mobilize to fix the issue. Teams can respond faster if they can create conversations around service issues that bring in the relevant team members and that uses the mode of communication that’s best for the issue at hand.

In cases like this, context is key. Perhaps the teams need to share photos or videos to know exactly what tools are needed to resolve the issue as fast as possible. Similarly, when a VIP guest is arriving, teams can broadcast an alert complete with photos and need-to-know information to the appropriate staff so they can deliver the best experience. Other times, push to talk on a walkie talkie app may be the preferred mode of communication.

3. Use the data that’s created by communication technology to drive decisions

When you are using an enterprise communication platform, all the communication records are stored and management can start to look at the data to find areas of improvement. Analyzing the types of service tickets, issues and messages being sent can help bring visibility into previously grey areas of operation and reveal trends and patterns. Communication analytics uncover how teams communicate across the property so management can hone-in on problem areas and proactively address information gaps.

Improved Hotel Staff Communication Benefits Everyone

With these three principles in place, all staff – from back-of-house to customer-facing teams – are able to go above and beyond to create a memorable experience for every guest. Check out the video below to see how a real-time communication platform can make a big impact on operations.