Customer Service Star #2: Waldorf Astoria Chicago

Title: Waldorf Astoria: Keep workers happy

Source: Crain's Chicago Business. 35.40 (Oct. 1, 2012): p0020.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2012 Crain Communications, Inc.

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Byline: Lisa Bertagnoli

Travel & Leisure magazine ranks the Waldorf Astoria Chicago the best large-city hotel in the continental U.S. and the 22nd-best hotel in the world. Meanwhile, Conde Nast Traveler readers give the Waldorf Astoria a 98 percent service score; the next-highest in Chicago is the Peninsula Hotel, at 95 percent.

Waldorf Astoria managers know they have plenty of competition in Chicago.  "We're in the luxury market," says Richard Evanich, 54, general manager at the Gold Coast hotel, which until earlier this year was the Elysian. "Everyone has great rooms, great bedding and beautiful suites. What will separate us from the competition?"

The answer is personal, focused service. The trick to carrying out that service: hiring people who delight in making others happy, and hiring a lot of them. The hotel employs 308 people, making the ratio of staff to customers about 2-to-1, which is the standard in the luxury hotel market.

The hotel hires painstakingly. Only 30 percent of applicants make it through the first interview, during which Kathryn Day, head of guest services, tries to discover whether the applicant has "a servant heart."

She asks them the nicest thing they've done for anyone and how they react when someone's angry. Then she listens for detail and observes how candidates "process" the question.

Experts say it's the right way to hire in the hotel business. "That impulse to care about someone isn't something you can teach," says Reneta McCarthy, senior lecturer in operations management at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, N.Y.  Promising applicants sit for as many as six interviews, and the last is with Mr. Evanich. "I want to see everyone's face," he says.

Once they're on board and trained, employees are coddled almost as much as they coddle guests. Their opinion matters. Twice a day, 15 managers, from housekeeping to front desk, meet to discuss service, and bring comments and suggestions from staff. One example: A hostess at Balsan, the hotel's restaurant, said she was too busy to personally greet all breakfast customers each morning.

The solution: The hostess would send a single text message, "Crunch at Balsan," to the entire staff, including Mr. Evanich and Ms. Day, as a signal that she needed help greeting and seating guests. Today, the "crunch" text is used throughout the hotel, whenever a department needs a hand.

GENEROUS PRAISE

Employees who deliver stellar service are praised, and often. Mr. Evanich reads complimentary comment letters aloud at weekly management meetings and pins the letters on a staff bulletin board.

Employees also are treated to summer picnics and boat cruises, and get a birthday card signed by management.

"The recognition piece is really big," Mr. Evanich says. He learned his management style from J.W. Marriott Sr., when Mr. Evanich worked at the Camelback Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz."  He said, 'Take care of your employees, and your employees will take care of your guests,' " Mr. Evanich recalls. "He was right."

Employees take criticism to heart. A guest asked for a description of the artwork hanging in the hotel's public areas. Edward Tobin, 50, chief concierge, gave the guest a black-and-white photocopy listing the art. Later, the guest told Mr. Tobin that the black-and-white copy was "disappointing." Mr. Tobin had a four-color brochure printed, mailed one to the guest at his home and enclosed a handwritten letter thanking the guest for his feedback.

Waldorf Astoria employees' reward for delivering this service is praise from their bosses and their paychecks; the hotel does not permit tipping. The idea is to make people feel like guests in the true sense of the word. "You wouldn't tip at a friend's house, would you?" Ms. Day says.

Customers say they feel the love the Waldorf Astoria bestows on employees.  Chad Hardy, a health care consultant who lives in Spring, Texas, spends 160 nights a year in Chicago on business. Mr. Hardy, 38, usually stays near O'Hare International Airport, but last spring, he brought his family and splurged on the Waldorf Astoria. It was Mr. Hardy's first stay at the hotel. Three days before they arrived, Mr. Hardy got a call from Raoul, his personal concierge at the Waldorf. When asked if there was anything he needed, Mr. Hardy requested cereal bowls for the Quaker Oatmeal Squares he has for breakfast every day. Raoul delivered the bowls and spoons, and the entire staff responded to service requests from Mr. Hardy in "three minutes, not 30," he says. "It seems folks always knew what they were doing."

-- WALDORF ASTORIA CHICAGO

General manager: Richard Evanich, 54

Number of rooms: 188

Number of employees: 308

Rack rate: $595 in high season, $555 during off season

Service secret: "You have to take care of your internal customer," Mr. Evanich says.

Why it works: "Ultimately it is the employees who take care of the guests, right?" says Reneta McCarthy, senior lecturer in operations management at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, N.Y. "If the managers take care of their employees, then the employees can do what they were actually hired for and take care of the guests."

Copyright 2012 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Lisa Bertagnoli

Source Citation   (MLA 7^th Edition)

"Waldorf Astoria: Keep workers happy." Crain's Chicago Business 1 Oct. 2012: 0020. General OneFile. Web. 30 July 2013.

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