Josiah:
What is the “Innkeeper mindset” and how might you use it today? Stick around to find out. Tom Luersen is the President of CoralTree Hospitality and in this episode, you’ll learn how he defines remarkable hospitality, as well as a concept he calls the innkeeper mindset. What is remarkable hospitality to you? How do you define that?
Tom:
When I think of remarkable as a the word the first thing that I think about is service. It’s kind of like food right, you may like seafood, I may like red meat, You may like vegetables, I may like starches. Service has to resonate with the individual. So for me, the word remarkable translates itself into personal. Remarkable Service to me is personal service and thoughtful. Thoughtful is kind of a generic term, but when it’s applied to service it implies that someone really thought about who they’re serving, and what they could do to make it a great experience. And that’s what I hope for in our business. I, whether I’m a consumer going to a restaurant or a spa or a golf course or a hotel, I’m looking for that connection point that makes me feel like you care about me and that it’s not transactional. And oddly enough, in our business we don’t do that very well. We strive for it. But the business of hospitality has worked diligently for, you know, hundreds of years to get it and we’re still working on it. So to me, what’s remarkable is when it’s thoughtful, when it’s personalized, when somebody really knows what triggers you and what satisfies you as a guest.
Josiah:
Interesting. You mentioned sometimes we don’t do that well And I guess, as an industry, what holds us back? What are things that you have seen that have held us back from providing remarkable hospitality?
Tom:
Candidly I think it’s invisible barriers. I think we create barriers of why we can’t get it done. We’re too large to have personalized service, we don’t have the right technology platform to do it, our staffing is too limited, the owners don’t allow us to have enough staff. Those are all what I would say, that the answers and many more that I’ve heard over the decades. And the innovator says let’s remove those obstacles and let’s not ask why we’re not doing it. Let’s ask what we can do to get it done. And our company I love to sit here and tell you that we do it every day. We don’t We’re striving for it, we’re focused on it. We’re trying to create those services. I’ll give you an example. Much like you and our audience here today, i travel a lot. I do it for business and I do it for personal. I have grandchildren and I have three kids and we travel as a family. My wife and I have traveled the country and gone to the best places in the world. When I walk into a room, a hotel room, i get a very nice welcome amenity And it can be very thoughtful or it can be very expected. Very expected is that I get a bottle of white wine and a cheese tray. The unthoughtfulness of that is I don’t drink white wine and I don’t like a lot of cheese. The thoughtful person this happens to me often, you know puts a pair of running socks with the logo of the hotel, a little footies in my room with a note that says here’s a trail you’ll enjoy walking in the morning. All they had to do is to go on social media, do a little bit of research on me. The guest that says Tom likes to go outside, he likes to walk, he likes to run, he likes to bike ride. That’s thoughtful. And when I get that note that it says welcome to our XYZ hotel, glad to have you as our guest. Signed the staff, it doesn’t feel very thoughtful or personal. When I get a handwritten note that says it’s Mary the chief concierge, here’s my personal phone number if you need something. I don’t know if I’ve ever called the number, but the thought of it makes me feel special. That’s what I mean about thoughtful service. And it can be applied anywhere. It can be applied at the front desk, it can be applied by the Uber driver, it can be applied by the housekeeper who’s coming into your room, whatever it may be. But when we can do that and we train that. I like to talk about perceptive acuity. That’s a way that you start to understand, anticipate what somebody wants. You’re perceptive about that and you get down to a deep acuity of the word and you really realize that Tom doesn’t want white wine, doesn’t really care for cheese. A bottle of water would be more powerful to him with a thought, with a handwritten note, than it would be otherwise. Now, all of a sudden, we’ve got a relationship me the guest to the hotel experience. That’s what we’re striving for and there’s all kinds of things we’re doing. We do have new tools, technology right. We have systems that can talk to you before you arrive. It says hey, tom, it’s XYZ hotel and I see you’re arriving tonight. What time will you be here? If you’re going to be here at four, you’re going to meet Bob. Bob’s going to be our bellman tonight. He’ll be out front, he’ll be looking for you. Just wave him down and he’ll be ready for you. You’re like wow, you gave me a name, you asked me what time I’m arriving. I didn’t have to talk to you, i just said a text and here we are. Man, those are tools that we can do. Our industry is smart. We’re providing tools. It’s a matter of applying them consistently, training it and being focused in on that. Does that?
Josiah:
make sense. It makes a lot of sense and I love it. You’ve talked before about the Innkeeper mindset. I’m wondering if you could describe what that is. If I had to guess it’s something along this line a very personalized attention.
Tom:
I love that If you’ve been to a B&B, or what I call the inn, and they’re resurging because they’re very personal, they’re intimate, they’re not large and you’re not heard it through the lobbies or along with a bunch of conference attendees or what have you. It’s a very personal experience. But it’s a proprietor. The Innkeeper usually, by definition, is the owner of the business. They’re the one that makes the reservation. You call, you make a room at the XYZ Inn or B&B. They answer the phone, they take the reservation, they ask who’s coming. When you arrive, you come in, they check you in, they walk you to your room. They’re downstairs at four o’clock for storytelling and sips of wines and beers, telling you about the place that you are and the places you should visit. In a very personal way They do their turn down While you’re out and about. That evening they go up to your room and they give you a hand, little note or a special gift. I call it a sursey, which is a hospitality southern term for a on the bed prize. That’s personal. Then in the morning they’re there before you get up preparing the coffee aroma in the inn, fresh pastries and danishes and they’re sitting with you breaking bread at breakfast. Then you check out and then they send you the bill. They all did it themselves. The Innkeeper mindset is how do I personalize that? We have been so busy as an industry telling people to stay in their lane. You do this. Stay in your lane. My view is get out of your lane, swim in the other lanes, be a utility person who understands the full experience. I love these properties that you can go to where there’s a hostess. When you arrive into a restaurant, the hostess is there and there’s a lot of tables that are empty. And you arrive and they’ll say well, we’ll be right with you, we’re waiting for someone to come here that can lead you to your table. You’re like, wow, the table is seven steps away. Couldn’t you just take me to the table? Well, no, i don’t do that. I’m in my lane. My lane says I stand here and I greet you. My view is couldn’t it be great that a valet parker and a bellman and a front desk clerk was all one and the same? They greet you at the door, park you in your hotel, they check you in, they take you to your room, they give them a handwritten card and say if you need something, just call me anytime. That’s what the innkeeper mindset is.
