by Juan Pablo D'Onofrio*
However, aligning the vision of your company's shareholders with the staff who work in it requires more than this set of instructions. The client at some point in their experiences perceives whether there has been real alignment work or not.
Very often, shareholders fail to determine what specific level of customer experiences they want in their stores. It is then the task of management to work hard to extract, capture the vision of shareholders and be able to work to lower that vision to its employees in a joint mission assimilated and shared.
Organizational value
Traditionally, the idea of a positive result is concentrated on obtaining specific economic benefits, which are more than valid. But they are not the only desirable positive outcomes and may even be negative if their achievement is based on the sacrifice of value creation. This would be the worst and least talented of the economic-financial economies.
At Alquimia Hospitality Group, we consider the sustainability of the company in reasonable periods of time as the greatest positive result. Beyond the economic benefit of a given accounting year.
We visualize the guarantee of sustainability of an organization when the culture implemented by management is aimed at creating value. Value for shareholders, value for customers and value for staff.
The research carried out by the team led by Frederick Reichheld, on companies from different sectors, yields a very clear conclusion: companies whose fundamental orientation is to create value (business management based on loyalty) are those that obtain better economic results and present sustained growth over time.
But another constant appears in these companies of growing solidity and future perspective: they maintain a great loyalty of their customers and a clear loyalty of their employees and shareholders.
Customer loyalty in the face of customer churn; especially in the hotel industry it is critical not to control this aspect. Whether these are direct consumers or professional or non-professional intermediaries. Attrition is a reliable measure of the progress of the business.
There is an ancient paradigm that our grandparents knew very well: more and better business is always done with known and loyal customers. And they had not frequented Harvard, or any other university in alcurnia.
Traditional hotel accounting is responsible for inventorying and assigning value to many assets: furniture, towels, crockery, equipment, etc. Sadly, I wouldn't invent people. The value of customers and employees – indisputably the key to any service venture – appears as an intangible that only speaks through results. Many of these results are not read in current, ongoing cycles. They read in the sustainability of hotels in the long term.
In relation to customers, it is common not to "waste time on customers who have deserted, in fait accompli", better to focus the imagination on "bringing new".
Will we have made honest numbers calculating how much it costs to "bring in new customers"?
I can guarantee you that retaining old customers costs much less. And please: the loss of customers is not a simple marketing task, it is an inescapable responsibility of management.
It has also been noted in the investigations that the desertion of clients is directly related to the turnover of staff. This is so, although it bothers us not to be able to foresee and avoid casualties in the collaborators. In the case of the latter, rotation statistics are sometimes kept extra-accountingly but very exceptionally the high turnover is considered a decrease in the intellectual assets of the company.
Some hotels maintain "exit interviews" to know something about turnover, but generally use it as a self-mortifying and blame-sharing tool, as they do not modify policies and cultures to retain employees, listen to them and consult them while they are at home.
The work of retaining people – customers and employees – is a task that requires sincerity in the task of aligning the objectives of the company with the provision of services expected by customers and provided by experienced employees, identified with the policy, culture and the aforementioned objectives of the company.
That mission must have as its north to create value. For shareholders making the company sustainable over time; possessing an establishment prepared to cope with hostile periods, which there always will be. For employees making their task pleasant and compensatory, feeling that they have the appropriate empowerment to their responsibilities and that their talent and experience are used by the company.
For the client covering and exceeding their expectations. Not only will it be loyal in its consumption – alas! of the hotel if the defection is a corporation - but it is a magnificent source of business referral.
In my youth our obsession, for years, was in the motto: "0 Defect"
Now we advise for the survival of your business: "0 Defection "
Until next time!
*Juan Pablo D'Onofrio is President of Alquimia Hospitality Group
