YOUR IDEAL guests do NOT care about 5 stars, AAA or five diamond ratings! When are standards STUPID?

When do benefits of standards STOP? And by standards what is meant are any recognitions, certificates and associations like 5 stars, AAA or five diamond rating or small luxury hotels groups and anything similar.

Strictly following standards without introducing context and always taking into account specific real guest situation simple doesn't make sense for high-end service and relevant quality which provides significant value for a guest.

Detect your BLINDSPOTS. Don't use standards against you. Use them as a reference, a tool. But never as an aim per se. Besides, they are not going to differentiate you but place you among others who qualify for the same recognition.

You want to be IN CONTROL.

NOT in drama for sudden surprise auditor.

Your guests are ONLY IMPORTANT AUDITORS.

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Video Transcript:

Hello everyone. Welcome to Remarkable Boutique Hotels where we talk about outstanding experiences and everything that leads to them.

Today we’ll discuss stars, triple As, five diamonds and other recognitions in hospitality that are used to place a hotel within certain hotel category and by doing so promise specific level of service and quality. Well, at least it worked like that for some time, at the beginning. So, why did guests lose trust in those? And why focusing on it is waste of time and money for any boutique hotel? Let’s dive in.

If you’ve been here for some time, you noticed I love engineering. And as I see it there are always at least two currents in a well executed project or in a well run system, so two building elements. We can refer to them as hard and soft, structure and story, physical and intangible, programming and troubleshooting, proven approach and on the spot creativity. So when you start from scratch, you are using both your knowledge and creativity and then wisdom or trial and error to make something that works well. That’s something you then call a system or a protocol or a standard operating procedure.

And that’s what stars, triple As and diamonds are about. These are lists of requirements, about facilities and about service. And what hotels do, is try to meet those by setting up some plans, following it, practicing it in order to execute up to a standard. And this wouldn’t be so wrong if hoteliers didn’t forget what was this all about. About service and quality in a real time so for a real guest in a particular situation. And who do you serve, who utilizes that quality? Guests, right? Did they make the standards? No! So, standards are guidelines, not the aim. And what is the aim? Tadaaaa, guest experience, a good one, outstanding in fact in today’s market and definitely in the real time.

And now some of you, might be like “well, this is obvious, of course, what is she talking about”. But listen, lots of things got mixed up and this is crucial for clear, easy, scalable strategy.

So, standard are useful and necessary. But standards, not recognitions by certifying companies. That means you should develop your own standards which include context, we’ll come to that in a second. So, standards help you deliver what you promise every single time without exception because that is the baseline of your service. You’ve decided what your values are and translated those into standards. In fact, this is already the most important part and that is knowing what standards you want to commit to. You want to choose or create the ones that fit into your concept and bring value for your real guests.

And how does this differs from just taking over someone else’s standard list and putting all your efforts to meet those, because already that is not easy, it’s usually lots of them and since they are imposed unless you have stable inner organisation and culture it will feel like pushing and struggling. And no, it’s not supposed to be hard in that way.

What this approach is missing is huge huge component and that is specific context. That includes real situation meaning what is really going on at the moment, plus common sense correction meaning don’t ignore your observations, plus specific on the spot creativity meaning going above and beyond for a guest according to hotel’s philosophy and guest’s needs and wants in general or in that moment.

All that, you can’t find in any standard practices or when joining some hotel association, group. They can give you their practices but they can’t bring it to life the way you can and should for your hotel. So, the structure or protocols or algorithm without practical and emotional context are nothing more than a program, robots can do it one day in future. Even smiling doesn’t help when asking all the same questions and not connecting and learning about other human being, a guest, during the process. Unfortunately, it works both ways, just being creative and providing extraordinary service without any standards, won’t work and will bring chaos and confusion inside hotel unless you are 5 room villa and you are doing everything and controlling everyone.

So, standardisation makes things easier, clearer, everyone knows what to do, your hotel delivers the experience you promise. While, specific context which also includes personalisation helps everyone to be devoted, motivated, it differentiates your hotel and makes guest experience amazing in a real time for a real person.

Recognitions like five stars or diamonds or being part of some leading hotel group is supposed to be just a shorter way of communicating level of service that you provide when a guest is looking for a hotel to stay in. And that’s why it was a good idea for industry in general. But focusing on this is wrong because this will not differentiate you, this will not help you to be picked by a guest searching for a perfect hotel for their holiday and lifestyle. But, you know what it will do? Drain your energy and money while chasing to maintain your star or diamond status. Unless, you’re bellow average quality and it’s not even that difficult, in which case you should finally reinvent your hotel.

A really important thing I want to emphasise is that your current action like whether it’s more towards standardisation or focusing on specific situation and practicing that, is different for each hotel. For example, there are definitely some hotels who would greatly benefit just from implementing standards and hitting them for each and every guest and then troubleshooting and enhancing the initial version of the standard.

On the other side, there are hotels who do it so well that that’s not even a focus anymore. Their focus should be how to deliver more, how to be more relevant, how to make a connection and listen better, how to spot specific needs and wants before guests express them. That’s all specific context.

You need both side in order to provide high quality service and outstanding guest experience. And those will guarantee you recommendations, reviews, collaborations, market differentiations, everything that enables you to play more by your rules so more direct sales, no competition pressure and so on.

For the end, I would like to mention this inspiring story about a sushi restaurant in Tokyo who used to have three Michelin stars for many years. They keep their concept simple but they do every step of their story on a very high level. They search for and buy the best ingredients, find the best ways to cook them even if it’s just rice. They would be doing trail and error to find perfect cooking procedure. They don’t add new meals to their menu, they don’t expend their offer. It’s always the same, 12 sushi pieces of a day for ten people at the chefs counter served all at the same time, one by one. They had so much demand that they had to close to public and that’s why they’ve chosen to ditch stars.

So, the moral of the story is, how can you make your hotel experience crazy simple and incomparable? Made to measure only for your ideal guests, so simple but top notch quality, things your guests’ will find astonishingly valuable. For those of you out there, who will apply this in your philosophy, there are no enough stars to describe that feeling of a guest who found what they needed and wanted and not just what everyone else are used to doing. And by the way, this applies to any hotel, from capsule hotels and motels, to luxury and extravagant boutique hotels.

Make it simple but meaningful, clean structure paired with memorable story, standardize and customize, have high standards which are adapted to the situation and individual guest, follow procedures but always introduce context. It’s the focus and quality which will bring you market recognition beyond any number of stars. Until next occasion, have a beautiful experiences my friends.

Thank you for listening. Here at Remarkable Boutique Hotels, we want your hotel to be worth every penny and every second of your guests. Schedule a discovery call to find more about our remarkable methodology which is unique in the whole hospitality industry. I would love to hear your hotel story. See you there.