Page 193 - The New Gold Standard

Wow: The Ultimate Guest Experience
about who changes them.” By sharing this kind of simple exam-
ple, Horst and others have created a culture in which the Ladies
and Gentlemen of Ritz-Carlton understand that service is not
only about fulfilling requests but also about noticing and antic-
ipating underlying needs of their guests.
While some may feel that Horst’s characterization essentially
relegates luxury consumers to the level of spoiled children who
wish to be pampered, a closer scrutiny leads to quite a different
conclusion. Luxury consumers frequently are very successful
people who manage significant stressors in their day-to-day lives.
While they could purchase nonluxury alternatives, they seek
hassle-free, high-quality products and services, and they are will-
ing to pay a premium for them. Joel Widzer, travel industry an-
alyst and author of The Penny Pincher’s Passport to Luxury Travel:
The Art of Cultivating Preferred Customer Status, puts it best:
“Our everyday lives are typically involved with serving others. If
you are an employee, you are most likely serving your supervi-
sor and customers. If you are a homemaker, you are probably
serving the needs of your family. If you are a business traveler,
your journeys are strenuous enough with long daily meetings in
a new city each day, as well as being away from the comforts of
family and home. We all work hard in whatever field of endeavor
we have chosen, and so it is vital to reward ourselves whenever
we have the opportunity. I have found luxury travel to be a well-
deserved reward for hard work.”
By allowing staff to tailor luxury experiences to the specific
needs of a guests (for example, the Service Values as opposed to
the 20 Basics), guests are served in a manner that is unobstru-
sive and consistent with their comfort level. In the words of Joel
Widzer,“Service employees who are sensitive to a customer’s needs
know not only when to offer services but when not to. Excep-
tional service also involves a perceptive attention to detail and
the knowledge that often it is the small things that matter most.”
Just as a parent is attentive to subtle signs given by a child, the
staff of Ritz-Carlton is vigilant in tracking the unique patterns

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