Hoteliers and restaurant managers discuss how to keep customers coming back. They argue service quality matters more than price, and share practical strategies for personalized guest experiences that build lasting loyalty.
You manage such a large portfolio and there is multiple restaurants and every restaurant has a different brand. And then your hotels, you have so many rooms. How do you make sure that all your customers are staying loyal to different, you know, all your brands. Do you have a specific strategy for that?
I hurt myself today to see if I still feel.
When you're traveling you can't take care of your diet and you can't work out. People say they're going to be working at hotels or diet postmatos. In fact hotels must have 20,000 varieties. You can tell them whatever you want.
To cook, they cook it to you.
And every hotel has its bag elevator, bag elevator, the back staircase or whatever, stairway. And you can do a couple of days of exercise. We are in between meetings currently so we have one hour. So before we climb the stairs it's 11 floors and we'll climb up. I'm doing three times. Karan has said five times. But after I've done the three times.
Let'S see if that, what have I become? Everyone I know goes away and I will let you down and I will make you hurt.
A brand for ourselves in regards to every aspect now we have something called guest satisfaction in regards to an ics. So we wear this badge. So as Shiv, you know, very clearly put it across, you know, anything for us is a yes. But there's an element of, you know, straightforwardness in that, you know, I mean what is possible for us.
Sure.
In a yes factor we do that and we have it completed. So it could be any request from any, any, any guest, you know, it could be even from, even from the agency also. Why not? Yeah, that's what. So whenever we even been talking to even your counterparts in your office also, I mean I've never said no to Sanghini Singh. Oh, this is not possible. I mean I've only said okay fine, work out. So that we are also able to.
You're saying that brand is not just a logo on a wall. Yes. Brand is a mindset.
Absolutely. Brand is something which you need to create. I mean you need to have that frills around that brand there only people come to you. So how do. I mean you can create, you know, a beautiful structure of a brand and.
Keep it, that doesn't matter.
But if you, if you don't create that frills around it or that halo around it 100%.
How do you inject this DNA in your stuff?
I think it goes from the top to the bottom. That's what I would say. So they will see you doing it? Yeah. I never feel shy in doing anything. So if I see a paper on the floor, I pick it up.
Right?
Like, I think she would have just told you that. I never use the lift while going up nine floors. I don't use the lift at all. You know, it's not for a particular purpose that I think. Like, I in fact even put it across to every individual also. I am not stopping you from using a lift.
But this is healthier.
This is healthier one. It is healthier. You're not inconveniencing a guest because you are standing in front of the lift. The guest might be also waiting for the same lift. So why, if it's emergency, please use it. Absolutely.
There's no, no hard and fast rule.
That you should not use it.
Like, Right.
But preference to a guest, like, you know, that's the most important thing.
Right?
So everything, everything is important for us. You know, I mean, anything where a guest comes and says, you know, can this be done? Like, sure, sir, we'll give you a solution for it. Like, you know, how much, how fast it is.
We'll figure it out. We'll make it happen.
We'll ensure that we figure it out. So it could be even a smallest request where somebody says, I want to send this courier. So we don't have any courier services, but you give us your thing and we'll have it done for you. So that's something like, you know, it's not necessary that only a concierge has.
To do their job. Okay?
Everybody has got that.
So the buck stopped with the person who gets the request.
Absolutely. If it's not his job, he hands over to the right person and says, this is a request from Mr. Abhijit. Can you please handle it out and finish it out. He's staying in room number. So and so handle it out. He's not staying with us, but he's come from outside. So every small element, we look at every small element on that resume. And for me, it's never, never been that, okay, this is not my job. You know, I'm only supposed to wear.
A suit and walk around.
You know, that's not what I look at. I look at it, everything. And when somebody is not doing something correct, I mean, I think you're doing it the wrong way. So I'll tell you how to do it. Because we've learned that, you know, because we've learned that. So whenever even a management trainee comes or a new, you know, entrant comes to the hotel, I sit with them for at least about, you know, 30 to 30 minutes and make them understand.
That that is most important.
If you don't involve yourself in doing that particular job tomorrow, you are not able to even guide the next person as to how this job is done.
What we wanted to share with everybody who's watching this, is that how hoteliers like yours, who've been in the field for such a long time create brands. And you said that brand is not a logo, it is a mindset. You have to sit with people, when they join in, inform them what the brand is and then do it yourself so that people see it. And that's how a brand is built.
And you keep following up on that.
Keep following up, keep following up on that. Because otherwise the brand will go down. So I wanted to ask you. So you know what, how do you, you know when we all talking about loyalty? We all love the OTAs, but we also want the loyal guests. So what do you do for to maintain loyalty at the the loyal guest is always.
It depends upon the customer service, the guest satisfaction, right? Even he might book through OTA or corporate guests or through reference the moment he checks in until he checks out the fabulous experience which he has. It might be grt the brand. What Shadow said, anything right from the door point until we give him a fond farewell, that's experience, right? Like hello and wanna come and receive the guest till this throughout process.
So it's not all about the rate.
Only not at all about the rate.
So you're saying that today's customer is willing to pay you 500 rupees extra?
Yes, definitely.
To come directly. If there's a personalized.
To be honest with you, out of 100 guests, there are almost 80% guests who don't mind spending rupees if you're really worth having that guest service. The satisfaction, the loyal factor. For example, the hotel which I work for, Grandby GRT almost there are guests who are coming from almost 12 to 14 years. Yesterday one guest I kept met from one of the corporate company, so he's coming from almost 2008. So almost nine years is coming.
So it's good to know because most of the people who watch this, our YouTube show, all hoteliers, especially the new people, this is basically for a lot of new people and for people who are already there who a lot of people have lost the guts to give service and forget about price. Everybody's so scared about the price. So that's a very big thing to say because today I see a lot of people who are saying price, price, price and because service takes and brand takes so many years to build. But new hoteliers are getting into that, so it's good to know. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with and we're going to put this on YouTube very soon and send you a link. I hope you like it. Subscribe here and I promise you you won't miss.
