Page 191 - The New Gold Standard

Wow: The Ultimate Guest Experience
walked in, two employees welcomed me by name and said they
were excited to have me here. How did they know me?” The
guest was particularly affected by the genuine concern demon-
strated by employees, including one who met him at the door
and handed him his room key and took him directly to his room
without a stop at the front desk. The guest went on to note that
advanced consideration of his needs gave him the assurance he
would be well cared for. “When I entered my room, I found they
had stocked everything I would ever need. Since I was staying a
month, they did research and found out my favorite snacks,
magazines, movies, and music. Everything was there for me. I
had a bowl of fruit (a favorite snack of mine) and a box of choco-
lates with my name spelled out on the pieces. They even created
business cards for me using the Ritz-Carlton address, which I
needed to pass out during my extended stay.”
To create that level of true personalization, systems have to
be in place to ensure seamless communication and continuity of
care for customers. These systems at Ritz-Carlton include inter-
departmental training, mock drills for preparedness, situational
cross-training, quality improvement teams, and the use of
various communication technology aids like earpiece radios. In-
creasingly businesses are appreciating the importance of cross-
functional team communication in delivering Wow service.
Whether it is through training, communication, or the develop-
ment of collaboration metrics that hold departmental leaders ac-
countable for effecting results on collaborative objectives, leaders
seek to dissolve departmental distinctions by providing a com-
mon frame of reference that best serves the needs of the con-
sumer. Operational Dynamics, an engineering consultancy
group headquartered in Sydney, Australia, emphasizes the im-
portance of the need for interdepartmental communication by
stating, “Human nature being what it is, organizations often run
into trouble at the boundary between business units or between
departments. The trouble is that most tasks which need to get

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