We always seem to focus our customer service training initiatives and incentives on the front of the house customer service employees - front desk, bell staff and concierge. Who are leaving out of this equation? How about the staff at the back of the house such as housekeepers, maintenance engineers, and kitchen staff.

If you think they aren't important from a guest service standpoint, think again. I had a client check into a resort hotel do a site inspection. They were considering booking their Board of Directors meeting at the property. So we checked them into a mini suite for the weekend. The room was warm and the air conditioning units didn't seem to help so they called maintenance. The engineer arrived and indicated that the room would cool off when the sun went down. This was not the response they were looking for. When they questioned why one air conditioning unit seemed to work but the other one didn't, the maintenance engineer replied, "We only use that unit for spare parts." My clients checked out never to be heard from again. True story.

Are you certain that your maintenance engineers wouldn't reply the same way? When we hire our 'back of the house' service employees, it is usually because of their skill set and not their customer service attitudes. We fail to give them the customer service skills necessary to respond to a customer request in a tactful and diplomatic way. Failing to include housekeeping, maintenance and the other 'back of the house' service employees in our routine customer service updates is a mistake that can cost us business.

It is not enough to develop a customer service orientation program for them but it is critically important to benchmark their department's performance using the franchise Guest Service Scores. Are yours posted in every department and do you set goals for customer service improvement in the department's areas that are measured and rewarded?

For example, here is an achievable goal to increase Guest Service Scores to the system average.

Discuss the customer service areas that require improvement

Develop a customer service action plan with the team to do it.

Set a timeframe for customer service achievement

Reward the department when the customer service goal is achieved with an incentive, such as money. It doesn't have to be a lot of money but ten dollars to each member of the team could mean a lot to them, and a lot more to the hotel in terms of guest retention.

Set a new customer service goals

The side benefit is that including them in product delivery engenders a team spirit and helps them understand that what they do and how they do it impacts the hotel. When all the members of the 'back of the house' teams understand how their job affects the hotel's overall performance, they begin to care a bit more about the guest experience.