Leonardo Royal London Tower Bridge

Guest satisfaction scores increase to 85% at popular London hotel

Background

The Leonardo Royal London Tower Bridge is a busy hotel in a prime location close to many central tourist attractions. The 370 bedroom hotel with banqueting capacity for up to 1000 had a full upgrade and refurbishment whilst closed to the public during the pandemic. It regularly attracts a mix of midweek corporate clients and weekend leisure travellers.

In 2022, Zest for Life was selected to provide customer service development training to a select group of hotel staff.

Brief

The Deputy General Manager, Umesh Dalal, asked us to deliver team development that would support an uplift in guest satisfaction metrics. The hotel was achieving a guest score of 80% and the leadership team were looking to increase this to 85%.

Hotel management were also looking to the training as a means to re-stabilise their team and cement the culture following staff changes.

Solution

Our Zest for Life Exceptional Service Makes Sense programme was the ideal ready-made solution. Following an initial conversation with Umesh, we made some small changes to tailor the training programme to meet his very clear and specific outcomes. Umesh requested that the training focus on three elements:

Guest journey
Personal presentation and personality
Teamwork

Sally ran a one-day workshop session for 15-20 people, involving a mix of learning styles and activities. Following the training, hotel management asked people to step forward as Service Champions for their business area, responsible for leading the drive for service improvement.

Outcomes

Guests now rank the hotel amongst the top 10% of hotels worldwide on Tripadvisor. Customer reviews consistently call out individual team members by name, remarking on their courtesy, hospitality and how individual actions made their stay memorable.
Within 6-7 months of training, guest scores had risen to the desired level of 85%.
The hotel team now consistently achieves scores of 84-85% on the Trust You system, with an uplift in baseline score from 80% to 83%.
Four Service Champions have been appointed in each operational area, responsible for taking the lead on driving customer service and embedding the hotel’s service standards into team culture.
Internal service standards have been combined with selected standards from the Exceptional Service programme to create an agreed Service Framework.
Service Champions feed into a bi-weekly department meeting with the Heads of department to discuss guest sentiment, review talking points and agree what actions need to be taken.
Team culture and attitudes have changed. Colleagues are challenging themselves and each other to deliver beyond expectations and improve service standards.
The team acknowledges there is still more work to do, but everyone feels more confident in their own ability to maintain higher guest scores.

Client testimonial

From our first conversation, Sally just got it. She understood my vision and the outcomes I wanted to achieve. All the programme resources and framework were readily available, needing only very small tweaks to suit our brand personality. It was incredibly easy to organise.

Sally supports the whole process, including follow up and putting measurement into place. The training is not just a beginning. It has directly contributed to the desired improvement in our guest satisfaction scores.

Sally is forthcoming, engaging and easily connects with people and the business. She shares relevant knowledge and real-life experiences from her career. The training included some simple tasks with very powerful outcomes. She knows how to bring everyone along with her.

Apart from our increased guest scores, which we’re very proud of, perhaps the biggest outcome of the training is that colleagues now understand the ‘Why’. They can link what they’ve learnt to their day-to-day actions and interactions with customers. There’s a marked difference in team culture - attitudes have improved, people are more prepared for busy periods, and everyone takes pride in creating the best first impression for our guests.

The investment in time and money was absolutely worth it. I can confidently say Sally is an excellent resource.

Umesh Dalal, Deputy General Manager
Leonardo Royal London Tower Bridge