ANETA KOROBKINA
Service strategy designer, International business trainer and speaker on customer service and leadership
www. k-a.world
Everybody in the hospi-
tality industry knows about cus-
tomer service and how impor-
tant it is for the company. What
is your definition of customer
service? What are the main
“ingredients” of service excel-
lence for hotels?
t is very interesting how every-
body knows it is very impor-
tant and yet not much is done
to truly say we are guest-orient-
ed or as the trends are saying
human-oriented. For me cus-
tomer service = profits. But if you
ask me how I define it, I would
say, “Outstanding customer ser-
vice is a mix of great processes
and amazing people, which gives
the desired result (profit).” What
does this mean? Many times, I
get requests for employee train-
ing and when we do a full-service
analysis we find out, the problem
is not the people but the process-
es and procedures which prevent
employees from being guest-
oriented and providing excellent
service. Many times, hotels con-
centrate on making money today
rather than looking into the far
future and make decisions based
on where they want to be in 5-10-
20 years from now. Let me give
you one very simple example to
get a better idea. If you argue now
with your guest about 15$ park-
ing, which comes from misunder-
standing each other, you will lose
that guest and probably many
more. So today you are happy you
earned 15$ but think how much
you will lose in the future.
If you design your service strategy
to work in the long term, you will
truly see the results. As they say:
“Rome was not built in a day.”
So, I always say, to be unique and
have outstanding service, which
will bring revenue in the long
term, you need to work on service
strategy aligning processes and
people with your vision.
What is your opinion on
the development of the industry
in recent years? How would you
describe the market in Russia
and CIS countries? What are
the main trends and topics that
need more attention nowadays,
and what are the positive chang-
es that you see already happen-
ing?
believe Russia and CIS countries
are still undiscovered pearls of
I
I
6 • HOTELIER • wwww.hoteliermagazine.net •
the world. There is great potential
for any kind of tourism here and
with the development of tour-
ism comes the need for accom-
modation. However, there is no
clear strategy or plan. I person-
ally see little bit chaotic move-
ments, hotels build without anal-
ysis and further understanding
what we will do with them, I see
single hotels and regions working
separately on attracting guests
instead of all of them working
together. In my opinion, in this
part of the world, only Georgia
has actually started slowly to use
its potential.
Talking about the trends, I would
say that one of the first ones is the
true local experience. This also is a
threat to hotels because many
tourists use Airbnb. One reason
for this might be because it is
more affordable but also because
it gives you an opportunity to
experience an authentic way of
life in the location you are visiting.
Hotels need to be really creative
to catch up with this trend. The
other day I had a friend traveling
from Moscow to St. Petersburg
for a weekend and she booked an
apartment with her family for an
actually much higher price than
a hotel. When I asked: “Why?”
She responded: “We wanted to
feel living in an apartment in the
city center and experience the
life of the locals.” I am not a huge
fan of Airbnb, but I tried it when
traveling to Vienna once and, to
be honest, that was a great local
experience.
Then I must mention personaliza-
tion as a major trend for hotels.
The rise of big data gives a huge
opportunity to work with the
preferences of guests. I believe,
nowadays guests more than ever
want to be treated as individuals,
rather than just another check-in
number. This will definitely have
an effect on the guest’s loyalty;
thinking: “I can get over the local
experience since at this hotel they
know me, they treat me great
and they appreciate me.”
Technology as a trend, in gen-
eral, is something I believe we can
write a whole book about. Here I
would mention Smart Hotels (use
of internet-enabled devices). You
can pretty much do everything
on your mobile phone. Then the
use of artificial intelligence (use of
chatbots in communication with
guests). Then I will continue with
the use of virtual reality, especially
when it comes to the process
of booking. Instead of looking at
photos on your computer, you
can actually experience the hotel
and understand if this is the place
where you want to spend your
vacation. Just imagine the dif-
ference where we are now and
where we were about 10 years ago
when most of us were still going
to a travel agency to choose a
hotel for vacation.
And I guess the last trend I would
like to mention is Bleisure. I
believe hotels’ job will be to pro-
vide great service if they want to
keep their guest 1-2 days extra
with fast communication, excel-
BLEISURE - COMBINING
BUSINESS TRAVEL WITH
LEISURE ACTIVITIES...
lent access to information. What
is “Bleisure”? Combining business
travel with leisure activities. This is
very popular among the millen-
nial generation. Something I am
trying out as well. Mobile apps
are of huge help when it comes
to this. In general, I am a very
optimistic person and look posi-
tively on the changes in the world.
However, the hospitality industry
is a very traditional industry and
I have seen only a few positive
changes so far in our region. Most
of the changes and trends I have
seen are in the chain hotels.
One of the questions we
ask hospitality executives is what
the skills are they are looking for
in the person when deciding to
include them in their teams. The
question we want to ask you
is “the other side of the coin”:
What are the main skills that
managers should have to keep
their team motivated, happy and
disciplined?
his can be a really long answer.
Growing professionally, I have
come to the conclusion that the
qualities of the executives are
much more important than the
T