Page 117 - The New Gold Standard

It’s a Matter of Trust
properties, but more important, staff discussions are initiated
about the Key Success Factors.
Consistent with the Service Value “I understand my role in
achieving the Key Success Factors and creating the Ritz-Carlton
Mystique,” the Ladies and Gentlemen are empowered to partic-
ipate in department-level discussions of how they can individu-
ally impact all of the Key Success Factors—thus building greater
staff involvement in the business by drawing a line-of-sight con-
nection between each employee and the overall success of Ritz-
Carlton. The 2008 Key Success Factors are indicative of the
straightforward and uncluttered nature of these business targets.
While these business factors are fairly stable, staff is made
aware of shifts in emphasis from year to year, depending on
changing priorities of leadership. For example, the three items
that were identified under “guest engagement” in 2007 were re-
duced to two items in the 2008 Key Success Factors by eliminat-
ing “increase guest satisfaction” and modifying “enhance sense
of well-being” to read “improve the key drivers of engagement.”
The shift of focus from “enhance sense of well-being” to “im-
prove the key drivers of engagement” is the result of research that
was done on guest behavior. For example, prior to 2007 it was
known that if a customer gave Ritz-Carlton the highest rating
(5 on a 1-to-5 scale) on a survey question about his or her sense
of well-being, that customer was 12 times more likely to be fully
engaged with the brand. As a result, “enhance sense of well-
being” was determined to be a Key Success Factor in 2008.
More recently, Ritz-Carlton conducted additional analyses
on customer engagement and found that four factors account
for 85 percent of overall guest engagement results. These four
indicators are (1) sense of well-being, (2) anticipation of guests’
needs, (3) room condition, and (4) room assignment. Collec-
tively these four predictors are referred to in the 2008 Key Suc-
cess Factors as “drivers of engagement.”
Because leadership forms a mutually respectful partner-
ship with employees, staff members receive training on the new

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