Empowering Luxury Hospitality Workforce to Delight Customers
How might we redesign the hotel team member experience to enable them to deliver more personalized, luxury service?
In the era of extreme personalization, hotel team members are becoming ever more important to the guest experience. Guests have stronger expectations and crave unique, memorable experiences.
Team: Alexandria Blue, Ben Gitles, Rei Kigoshi, Elwin Ng, Alex Steinwald
RESEARCH
PRIMARY
10 Interviews with luxury hotel employees and guests.
Through our conversations with employees, we sought to understand their motivations for entering the hospitality industry, the facets of their work experience that create a sense of empowerment and those that cause frustrations or barriers. From the guest perspective, we explored the expectations they bring to their luxury hotel stays as well as their personal definitions for customized, personalized service.
Additional research methods:
Social listening of luxury service customers and guests
Ethnographic observation in hotels and luxury services
SECONDARY
Competitive and Brand Analysis
To contextualize our primary research findings, we conducted a competitive landscape analysis scanning across luxury hospitality and goods companies as well as companies known for delivering high-quality customer service. We also distilled the client’s differentiators through conducting a brand analysis through advertisement reviews.
Evidence documented from ethnographic observation in the field and interviews
Client brand analysis in progress
CORE RESEARCH INSIGHT
Team members crave opportunities to provide personalized service, but demanding guests can create friction, eroding team members’ desire to empathize and serve guests in a meaningful way.
Team members find joy in delighting their guests.
“I'm there to do my job, which is to make sure that the guest leaves happy and ends up wanting to come back. If they're smiling at the end, I'm smiling.”
— Hotel Receptionist
But some guests can be impossible, to serve…
“Most [customers] are pretty humble...but some are just not nice people. No matter what you do, nothing is good enough.”
— Hotel Concierge
…which can leave team members demotivated.
“If I have a really good interaction with somebody then I am willing to give the shirt off my back. If I feel judged or criticized, then I'm not going to be willing to do that.”
— Hotel Receptionist
FINAL CONCEPT
Our solution, You at the Center, is designed to support team members in managing tension and friction through providing community, empowerment, empathy and contentment by shifting the dynamics of their key relationships.
All illustrations by Rei Kigoshi
SELECT CONCEPT FEATURES
TEAM RELATIONSHIPS: GROUP RESOLUTION
Promote a community that supports one another and collaborates on solutions that address the needs of demanding guests
GUEST RELATIONSHIPS: CONCIERGE CONNECTION
Encourage empathy between guest and team member by supporting individuality and personal connections
“SELF” RELATIONSHIPS: EMPATHY ON-THE-GO
Nurture team members’ well-being and self-contentment, which facilitates empathy for guests
SUPERVISOR RELATIONSHIPS: OFFICE HOURS
Foster a sense of mutual respect and trust between team members and management, creating avenues for support and resource sharing