Page 52 - The New Gold Standard

PRINCIPLE 1: DEFINE AND REFINE
gathered to say good-bye to us. It was phenomenal. These people
had been with us for the last five days . . . hadn’t yet been to see
their families, but were there, waving to us as we left.”
Ritz-Carlton does not just print the Three Steps of Service
on a card and then leave staff to follow the guidelines. In fact,
senior leadership realizes the importance of modeling these steps
of service in the way they care for their direct reports, and in turn
they set an expectation for all managers to serve their Ladies and
Gentlemen using the same three steps. Vice President Vivian
Deuschl explains, “It’s as simple as this: If I’m the supervisor and
for some reason I woke up in a bad mood and I don’t speak to
my staff, they immediately feel, ‘Oh, I did something wrong, my
boss didn’t speak to me, didn’t smile at me.’ They then go out
into the hallways and perhaps they’re so concerned about what
their boss thought about them that they don’t interface with the
guests.”
One staff member relates what it was like to have his wife
and children on the receiving end of a warm welcome. “I got the
call that no husband or father wants to get . . . your wife crying
frantically, kids crying because Mom is crying, and you are on
the other side of the country feeling helpless. She was traveling
with our two little kids and missed a connection in Los Angeles.
She was getting the typical runaround with the airlines, and all I
could think to tell her was to get to a Ritz-Carlton and it would
be all right. I immediately called The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del
Rey, and I explained the situation. I told them that my family
was on their way and should arrive shortly. By the time my wife
and kids arrived, the manager was waiting outside to personally
greet them, he escorted them up to their room, had robes laid
out for all three of them, and without even asking . . . sent up
miso soup. I didn’t request any of this; all I wanted was for them
to be safe. My wife and kids are Japanese-American, so miso soup
to them is the best comfort food they could have received—it
was perfect! The next call I got from my wife suggested that all
was calm. The girls were in their robes, and all three were sip-

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