Page 199 - The New Gold Standard

Wow: The Ultimate Guest Experience
and an apology by the manager, who came out to greet us. He
invited us to leave our bags at the bell desk, and he took my cell
phone number to call me when the room was ready. We went to
the spa/fitness center to change into our bathing suits; the front
desk had called ahead to tell them we were coming. When we
got there, we were greeted by name. I was called promptly at
11:30 a.m., exactly when they told us the room would be ready.
A staff member met us at the pool with our room keys and es-
corted us to the room where our bags had already been taken.
They couldn’t have made our early arrival at the hotel any eas-
ier, and they couldn’t have cared more about the value of our
time. That is what service looks like.”
In most cases, smoothing over customer issues occurs only
when a business is convinced they have made a mistake during a
transaction. At Ritz-Carlton, that spirit of “I am here for you”
occurs even when situations are outside of the staff’s control. A
guest at The Ritz-Carlton, Palm-Beach, describes her unusual
experience. “We didn’t expect that the hotel would be so kid
friendly. They showed a movie outside by the pool nightly. Un-
fortunately, the night we chose to relax poolside and watch, it
started to rain toward the end of the movie so they had to take
down the screen. The staff insisted on setting up a VCR and the
tape in our room so our daughter could watch the ending.”

C When It Matters Most D

On a much larger scale, staff members make extra efforts to wow
guests in the most difficult of times. As guests in Cancún went to
bed on a Tuesday night hearing that Tropical Storm Wilma was
going to pass by them only producing choppy waves, they awoke
the next day to hear that the largest hurricane ever recorded was
approaching Cancún. News reports encouraged visitors to leave
the island immediately.
One guest of The Ritz-Carlton, Cancún, reports, “After a
mass exodus to the airport, there were no available flights left,

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