Hotel/Motel/Resort Laundry: Samantha Propson, The Osthoff Resort, Elkhart Lake, Wis.
Laundry in a resort setting isn’t typically guest facing, but there are ways to ensure the quality of linens and any guest interaction creates a great experience.
To enhance customer service skills, here are some skills that can be implemented for back of house staff:
- Training Programs: Develop comprehensive training sessions focused on customer service best practices, including communication skills, active listening and empathy. Role-playing scenarios can help staff practice handling various guest interactions.
- Empower Employees: Encourage staff to take ownership of guest experiences. Provide them with the authority to make decisions that can enhance service, such as offering complimentary services for feedback or resolving minor issues.
- Feedback Loop: Implement a system for gathering guest feedback specifically about laundry services. Use surveys or comment cards to understand guest expectations and experiences. Regularly review this feedback and share it with the team.
- Recognition and Rewards: Create a recognition program that rewards employees for exceptional customer service. This could include employee of the month awards or incentives for teams that receive positive guest feedback.
- Guest Interaction Training: Focus on training staff on how to engage with guests during drop-off and pick-up. This can include greeting guests warmly, providing clear information about services and thanking them for their business.
- Service Standards: Establish clear customer service standards for the laundry department. Share these standards with all employees and regularly assess performance against them.
- Team Meetings: Hold regular meetings to discuss customer service challenges and successes. Encourage staff to share experiences and learn from one another.
- Create a Service Culture: Foster a culture where excellent service is a core value. Share success stories and encourage staff to go above and beyond in their service.
- Continuous Improvement: Regularly revisit and refine your customer service initiatives based on feedback and evolving guest expectations.
By integrating these strategies, you can enhance the customer service skills of your team and create a more positive experience for your guests and customers.
Equipment/Supply Distribution: Ross Sanders, Streamline Solutions, Orlando, Fla.
Well, a lot of what was done in increasing efficiency and quality on your end is no doubt transferable to the customer service side of things as well. For my company at least, I am not sure if there is anything more important than customer service.
Your customer service team certainly needs to be efficient and do the highest quality of work, and, of course, you need to treat your customers the way that you want to be treated yourself.
Situations will always occur whether they are good or bad, and it’s how you treat the bad ones that makes your customer service people and department what they are. Bad issues never go away and avoiding them only makes them worse.
We have always prided ourselves in making sure that we get back to our customers when issues arise and even if we do not have an answer for them yet, it’s important to at least touch base to let them know that you are working on trying to solve their problem.
I bring this all up because I personally feel that the best way to “raise up those skills” is by constantly pushing examples of situations that have burdened you, your company or even the employees themselves at your facility that you are trying to train to show them how they should react based on their personal or business experiences.
We have all been through good and bad customer service situations and no doubt the best and worst ones stand out. I don’t mean to oversimplify it, but I can’t tell you how many times that I have been through really bad customer service experiences and then said to myself, “I would never treat my customers that way.” I’m sure you have thought the same thing.
The question is though what have you done about it? If you are truly looking to raise up those skills, go over the examples with them. Ask them how they would handle them.
You can never guarantee that every situation will work out for the best for all parties involved but you need to make sure that your customer service people handle the situation the best that they can so that your customers feel confident in your services and/or products and how you handle their concerns when they arise.
Customer service is so important to a company’s success. We all know how hard it is to bring business your way and you cannot afford to allow one bad customer service situation cost you that hard-earned business.
It is imperative to make sure that your employees are well trained in how to handle all situations efficiently and with quality customer service skills.
Healthcare Laundry: Jay Juffre, ImageFIRST, King of Prussia, Pa.
There are many factors that go into improving overall quality of your product.
To start with, you need to understand what the customer’s expectations are. For example, the standards in a standalone pizza joint are different from a five-star resort, and on the medical side, there is a certain expectation in an emergency room as compared to a mother/baby department.
Understanding the needs and desires of your clientele is where you need to start.
Once you have this, there needs to be a thoughtful plan on not only how to achieve higher quality but how to consistently maintain it over time.
Here are some ideas you may want to incorporate into your plan. First, train the team. Leadership, production and service all need to be on the same page as far as what good quality is. Clear standards need to be established and taught to everyone.
Employees need to be empowered to make decisions on things like what should be scrapped, rewashed or repaired. Delivery and service folks need to constantly seek feedback from customers and bring that intel back to the leadership team so there can be a continuous communication and learning loop that evolves over time.
Secondly, determine how quickly you want to get there. An extreme example would be to throw everything out, start with all new linen and maintain the new high standards the team has been trained to.
A more long-term solution is to work very slowly, over time, by scrapping, repairing and replacing the linen. You can get there over many months. The key is to find the sweet spot.
The final leg of the stool is to inspect what you inspect. Have regular check ins with employees and customers to ensure that the new quality standards are being maintained. Develop a simple audit system that checks on the production process to ensure success. Continuously share both success stories and learning opportunities when they present themselves.
It is important that any quality improvement effort is well thought out to be sustainable. With a thoughtful approach, you can get there and be consistent in no time.
Read the conclusion tomorrow when experts in commercial laundry, textile/uniform rental and uniforms/workwear manufacturing offer thoughts.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].
