Customer Care Superheroes in the Hospitality Industry
Interview Series with Marcio Bastos
Customer care is an area where professionals are often equipped with superpowers to calm, cheer and solve! All customer service heroes are armed with an impenetrable skin. Just like Superman, customer care heroes need a thick skin because they are often on the receiving end of anger and blame and need to have the ability to not let these things get under their skin. In addition, they must have the right tools! Customer service representatives have a variety of tools at their disposal to deliver an amazing customer experience. Hyperawareness is a MUST! These heroes sense problems on an early stage and take proactive actions to address them before substantial damage is done. How about the ability to thrive in difficult environments? Tough one, not everyone is cut out for customer-facing roles, in fact, some roles are just plain tough! One cannot forget about a special skill: super speed! Identical to Flash, they are lightning quick. Now and then the solution is not that simple and rapid, but the response should always be.
Customer care representatives are unseen heroes behind hotel services and HiJiffy wants to help them satisfy customers better! And that is why we decided to do a series of interviews with customer care heroes.
On this week’s post, we talked to Marcio Bastos, a Night Manager at one of the most prestigious hotels in London.
Marcio is Portuguese and studied Tourism. His first job in the hospitality industry was in Porto Santo, where he spent five years. Afterwards, he went to the Algarve and since 2013 he moved to London, where he is living and working. He likes to spend his free time enjoying the huge cultural offer of London like going to museums, musical shows and theatre plays.
We asked Marcio topics ranging from automation to personalisation in customer care in the hospitality industry. Here are his answers:
1. Can you explain some of the daily tasks of a Night Manager?
I am the senior manager during the night and as such, I am responsible for the operation during the nocturnal time. Besides the operational part in which I must ensure that everything conforms to our standards, the job also involves a more administrative part such as preparing financial and operational reports. As a night senior manager, I am often called upon to make decisions in relation to complaints or other operational matters.
2. Can you describe some of your daily struggles and frustrations?
When working on customer care, we are constantly dealing with expectations that customers have about the product and with the expectations of our employees. Managing all these can be exhausting and frustrating, especially when the team fails to realize the importance of meeting those expectations.
3. What is the department of your hotel that you think could be improved? Why?
The hotel where I am currently working operates at a great level due to the quality of the product we offer, the location and guests’ profile! Obviously, there is always room for improvement and growth, especially when it comes to collecting and analysing data which can allow us to be, more frequently, one step ahead.
Obviously, there is always room for improvement and growth, especially when it comes to collecting and analysing data which can allow us to be, more frequently, one step ahead.
4. Can you give me your opinion regarding automation and AI? Do you think it could streamline certain processes at hotels?
AI can obviously facilitate some hotel processes, notably in the processing of requests by the guests and the distribution of tasks to the various departments, especially regarding speed and efficiency.
5. Do you think AI and Chatbots are changing customer care?
More and more customer care companies are using chatbots with great success! The use of chatbots is not yet very frequent in the hospitality industry, but it will be a matter of time until the widespread use of hotel chatbots, particularly concerning order processing at an early stage. Chatbots can accumulate all the necessary information to solve all the requests or questions. Most of us have gone through the experience of being 30 minutes waiting for someone to answer the phone, only to be transferred to another agent because who answered the phone does not know or can not help us with our request.
The use of chatbots is not yet very frequent in the hospitality industry, but it will be a matter of time until the widespread use of hotel chatbots, particularly concerning order processing at an early stage.
6. Do you think personalisation and bots are a potential solution to improve customers’ satisfaction?
Undoubtedly! A personalized service is the only way forward to increase the retention rate and loyalty to the hotel and the brand. In addition, the use of chatbots decreases the response time making communication instantaneous. It takes less time until an order is recorded, processed and finalized, contributing to greater customer satisfaction.
7. What are the most effective channels for customer support?
Many of the guests still favour telephone contact or direct contact mainly because they feel the need to talk to the human being and in the case of complaints try to manipulate to achieve a result that favours them. Online channels have the advantage of recording all interaction which from the customers’ point of view is beneficial since everything discussed is recorded and can be used as evidence.
8. Why is it so important for hotels to provide customer care through multiple communication channels?
Communication through multiple channels increases the visibility of the hotel. There are several niches and segments that favour a certain type of communication and hotels should keep on all fronts. Hotel guests belong to various generations and cultures, thus, everyone has their preferred medium of communication. A hotel that does not work all communication channels can lose guests and potential customers.
A hotel that does not work all communication channels can lose guests and potential customers.
9. What are your predictions for customer service for the next 5 years?
No doubt that Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots will become increasingly important! Many hotels that target millennials will unquestionably be more automated, while others will continue to take a more traditional approach. But everyone will adopt chatbots even if it is for data collection and analysis in order to increase efficiency and obviously reduce costs.
But everyone will adopt chatbots even if it is for data collection and analysis in order to increase efficiency and obviously reduce costs.
NB: HiJiffy brings chat to the hospitality and travel industry, enabling customers to effectively connect with you through instant messaging apps.
