The Business Exchange Bath & Somerset Issue 10: Winter 2018/19 | Page 18

IN PROFILE
LISA CHAMBERS
HGEM
How did HGEM begin?
There were originally three founders, myself, Sally Whelan
who still works in the business and my sister Emma. The
firm was born from a conversation with a very successful
restaurant owner who was losing track of what was going on
in his estate. He had a mystery shopping company working
for him that was unreliable and failing to get results back to
him quickly. We knew we could do better than that. He gave
us six restaurants as a trial and we were able to complete
visits and report back to him by the next day and in great
detail. As a result, his staff were able to act rapidly to improve
things. Being able to give feedback in ‘real time’ and validate
our reports were the main drivers behind setting up the
business. After this initial success, we won the contract for
the whole estate and the rest is history...
Why did you change the name from
Mystery Dining to HGEM?
Lisa Chambers is HR and Ops director
of Bath’s HGEM, previously known as
the Mystery Dining Company. Since the
firm was established in 2003, it’s been
on a mission to empower the hospitality
industry being known as ‘the authority’ in
guest experience management.
Today, HGEM (Hospitality Guest
Experience Management) works
internationally with over 6,000
restaurants, pubs, hotels and caterers
including many well-known brands such
as Carluccios, Wagamama, Brownsword
Hotels, Butcombe Brewing Co, Hotel du
Vin and local high street institutions Cosy
Club, Pret a Manger and Friska.
We met with Lisa to find out more about
her and the business.
I think we simply out grew the name. By 2016 Mystery Dining
did not accurately reflect the variety of services we were
offering our clients and our mystery guests were doing more
than dining visits so it became clear we needed to evolve our
brand.
Today we work with a variety of operators across many
different hospitality sectors including catering, events,
restaurants, hotels, quick service restaurants, and
entertainment venues.
We work with our clients to determine the actual guest
experience they provide using a variety of measures,
including mystery visit assessments, client feedback surveys,
online reviews and most recently employee surveys. We
provide all the results in our guest experience management
platform - The Hub.
How do you work with clients to improve their
guest experience?
We help our clients to define their intended guest experience
and then through mystery guest assessments, guest
feedback surveys and online reviews we measure the actual
guest experience they provide. Having identified the gap
between intended and actual experience, our Client Support
Managers work with our clients to identify what actions are
needed to eliminate the gap between actual and intended
guest experience.
In addition, our employee surveys ensure that teams are
engaged at different stages of their employment journey
because a great guest experience will never be delivered by
an unmotivated team.
How has the rise of the internet and review
sites such as TripAdvisor affected your work?
This has had a dramatic effect on the industry. The internet
and sites such as TripAdvisor have given guests a worldwide
platform on which to share their feedback about an
experience they have had - good or bad. A recent HGEM
survey highlighted that 42% of guests would not go to a
restaurant or hotel if it had bad reviews.
In the hospitality world today, the main source of
consumer influence is, undoubtedly, online reviews. So,
being able to manage your reputation online is crucial to the
success of any hospitality business but with so many online
review sites this can be time consuming. This is where we
can add value to our clients, our platform, The Hub enables
us to bring comments from multiple review sites and store
them in one place so that managers and area managers can
monitor all feedback quickly and easily. This has been one of
our biggest growth areas this year.
@HGEM_
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THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2018
What areas of hospitality do clients regularly
fall down on? And how do you support them to
make changes?
This can vary a lot according to the specific sector. What is
needed to provide a good guest experience for a catering
operator will be different to what a luxury hotel needs to
ensure happens.
Today’s guests want an experience that is memorable
and the only way to ensure this happens is for operators to
be proactive in asking their guests what they want and then
be flexible enough to make it happen. Only those operators
willing to listen and respond to guest feedback will continue
to grow and thrive in a highly challenging and competitive
market.
How many people does HGEM c
urrently employ?
Based in Bath we currently have 46 employees who do a
variety of roles from helping our clients interpret feedback
results, to our team who recruit and work with our mystery
guests to ensure we maintain the quality feedback that we are
renowned for.
We also have our team of developers who ensure we
continue to evolve our technology to stay ahead of the
competition and we can continue to meet our client’s needs.
This year you launched The Hub,
tell us more about it.
The Hub is our guest experience management platform,
that blends results from mystery guest assessments, guest
feedback surveys, online reviews and employee surveys in one
place so that busy managers can quickly benchmark their
performance to easily identify actions for team development
and business improvement.
What are your plans for business growth
in 2019 and beyond?
Continuing to work with and develop the service we are
already providing to our current client base is a huge part
of our business plan. We see them as partners rather than
simply clients and nurturing their businesses is key to our
own success.
What’s been your biggest achievement to date?
Someone once said to me when I was starting out in the
hospitality industry and working as a waitress, “you’ll get
a better job one day.” I was furious. So one of my biggest
achievements is improving perceptions like this, raising the
bar of hospitality and showing that it is an incredible industry
to work in. We work with hospitality operators who invest in
their employees, improve their training and empower them to
do a brilliant job every single day as well as really caring about
guest experience. We have had a positive influence on so
many businesses and this makes me very proud.
How do you relax outside of work?
I love walking and cycling in and around our beautiful city and
I also love cooking, a good cup of coffee and the occasional
glass of red!
What do you love most about being
based in Bath?
Bath is a diverse city and has so much to offer. Also, our
proximity to London is a real plus for us because we do a lot
of business there. But at the same time, we have the luxury of
being able to leave London and come back to our lovely city.
Bath is such a central and beautiful location and so many of
our clients are here. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else!
For more info:
www.hgem.com