Really?
You’ve got to be kidding me.
That’s the first thought that hit me after I had my email exchange with a General Manager of a major hotel property in Fayetteville.
As those of you who are in business know, many hotels and other businesses are conducting surveys to determine the level of customer satisfaction. Hotels routinely do this and the practice is commendable because feedback is necessary to keep standards up.
However, this particular survey revealed a flaw in the application, at least from this old veteran.
Like many surveys, it had a scale of 1-10 on most of the questions with 1 being unacceptable and a 10 being perfect and 2-9 being open for improvement.
I’ve never stayed at a hotel that would get my 10 rating because none have been perfect, at least according to my standards.
So, for the property I gave an 8 or 9 rating, which I consider to be excellent.
After receiving the survey, the GM of the property contacted me via email and apologized and promised to do better.
Because I’m interested in surveys and results, I replied and asked why he was apologizing for getting an excellent rating.
He said that his corporation considered an 8 rating as a failure.
That irritated me because it is unfair to the property and the GM as well as unfair to me as a customer.
An 8 is NOT a failure in this old man’s book. It’s very good.
If a corporation is going to give an 8 a failing grade, then they are misleading the customer by giving 1-8 any weight at all.
I’d hate to be in their employ and bust my butt to give very good customer service but not be able to have any satisfaction for doing so because a customer thought a score of 8 was good, only to learn that it’s a failing grade.
The executive who came up with that scale should be fired or at the very least put to the test in the field and see how they do.
The point is that what may sound good in the boardroom, sucks when put into real world practice.
That’s why I’m a believer, in the “bosses” doing the work of the common workers and not just write “pie in the sky” policies.
So, Mr./Miss/Mrs. Business owner, have you gotten your hands dirty lately by doing the work in the field to test your own policies and procedures to make sure you and your Team are working together to achieve a common and achievable goal?
Get back into business and see how it really works so you can properly evaluate your Team.
And that’s all I have to say about that…
