Page 219 - The New Gold Standard

Wow: The Ultimate Guest Experience
the game. By the end of the first quarter, a light rain began to
fall. Shortly thereafter, the rain became a steady shower with no
clear end in sight. According to the Wow story about the event
that was shared worldwide at lineup,“Back at The Ritz-Carlton,
South Beach, the Ladies and Gentlemen were concerned for
the comfort of their guests at Dolphin Stadium. An emergency
lineup was held to brainstorm what they could do to take care
of their wet guests. The laundry team got set to prepare 300 tow-
els; the meetings and special events team contacted the meeting
planners at the stadium and advised them of their rescue plans;
the front office team contacted the drivers of the buses to deter-
mine their exact location among the 400 buses that were parked
at the stadium; the guest services team loaded up the hotel cars
with freshly folded warm towels; and Miguel Saldivia and
Rubén Paredes from the food and beverage team drove to the
stadium with the surprise.”
After the game ended, guests found warm folded towels
with the familiar Ritz-Carlton logo waiting for them on their
bus seats. Back at the hotel, members of the guest relations, guest
services, and banquet teams were there to greet the buses with a
blue canopy of Ritz-Carlton umbrellas that led guests into the
hotel where smiling faces welcomed them back to the warm, re-
laxed, and dry ambiance with hot chocolate and coffee. Imagine
hearing this story as a staff member at a property on the other
side of the globe! Would it not inspire you to raise your game to
have a comparable story shared about you and your hotel team?
The example of the entire team effort at the South Beach prop-
erty serves as a catalyst to constructive competition between
properties in the area of extraordinary customer experiences.
At the same time, leadership looks for ways to show staff
how lateral service and collaboration can extend beyond the
walls of any specific hotel property. To reinforce this message,
examples of how customer service occurs through the seamless
efforts of Ladies and Gentlemen of multiple hotel locations are

199