Beyond The Lobby – Edition 5

^{BIG IDEA FOR THE WEEK}
The Hidden Tax of Slow Decisions

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Every hotel has a hidden tax. It’s not on the balance sheet, but it’s everywhere—at the front desk, in housekeeping, at the restaurant. It’s called slow decision-making.

A guest asks for a late checkout. The front desk agent says, “Let me check with my manager.” Ten minutes later, the guest is still waiting.

A room service order has a small mistake. Instead of fixing it on the spot, the server runs back to ask what to do.

A minor refund request turns into a three-person discussion while the line at reception grows.

This isn’t a staffing problem. It’s not even a training problem. It’s a trust problem. Hotels love control. They want approvals, sign-offs, and double-checks. But here’s the truth: most decisions don’t need a manager. They need speed.

• Decide a pre-approved budget. If fixing a guest issue costs less than that, let staff handle it.

• Teach your front office staff what a reasonable late checkout request could be (availability of room, reasonable hours, etc) and let them approve it.

• If a guest is frustrated, don’t send them up the chain — train your staff to be creative and reasonable enough to fix it.

Slow decisions stack up. One approval delay doesn’t seem like much, but multiply it across a hundred small interactions a day, and you have a sluggish, frustrating guest experience.

Speed wins in hospitality. Give your team the freedom to act, and they’ll fix more problems than they’ll ever create.

See it through the lens of hospitality: The guest experience isn’t just about quality—it’s about reducing friction. The easier something is to use, book, or request, the more guests will engage with it. As a result, your guest experience will feel more seamless.

^{OPERATIONAL INSIGHT}
The “Name It, Solve It” Rule

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A guest calls the front desk and says, “The AC isn’t working.”
Housekeeping reports a “room condition issue.”
A server tells the kitchen, “Table 12 has a complaint.”

Vague problems lead to vague solutions. And vague solutions lead to frustrated guests.

Hotels deal with hundreds of micro-problems every day. The ones that get solved fastest are the ones that get named clearly.

Here’s the fix: The “Name It, Solve It” Rule.

1. Be Specific. Instead of “the AC isn’t working,” say, “Room 312’s AC is running but not cooling below 74°F.” Now, engineering knows what to check.

2. Clarify Urgency. Is this a minor issue or a guest-facing emergency? Housekeeping saying “the carpet is damp” differs greatly from “Room 210 is flooded.”

3. Take Ownership. Whoever names the problem should own the follow-up. No passing it off and hoping someone else checks.

The result? Less back-and-forth, faster resolutions, and fewer things slipping through the cracks. Most hotel problems aren’t hard to fix – the real issue is how they get communicated.

If you can’t name the problem clearly, you’ll struggle to solve it quickly.

^{CRISIS PLAYBOOK}
When a Guest Finds a Dirty Room

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Nothing kills trust faster than a guest walking into a room that should be spotless – but isn’t. A hair in the sink. A crumpled bedspread. A half-used soap bar left behind.

Most guests won’t even complain at the front desk. They’ll assume your hotel is careless, snap a photo, and post it online.

Here’s how to handle it – before it turns into a reputation problem.

1. Acknowledge, Don’t Excuse.

   • Wrong: “Housekeeping must have missed that.”

   • Right: “I’m really sorry. That’s not the experience we want for you. Let me fix it immediately.”
     Guests don’t care why it happened. They care that you take it seriously.

2. Offer Immediate Action.

   • If possible, upgrade or move the guest to a fresh room right away.

   • If no rooms are available, send housekeeping ASAP and offer a small courtesy (a drink voucher, a free breakfast) for the trouble.

3. Follow Up—Don’t Assume It’s Fixed.

   • A quick call or message: “Just wanted to check – did we get everything right for you?”

   • A personal touch shows the guest that fixing the problem wasn’t just a box to check.

4. Fix the Root Cause.

   • Was the room marked clean by mistake?

   • Was housekeeping rushed and skipped details?

   • If it happened once, it can happen again – investigate and tighten up your process.

A guest finding a dirty room is a moment of truth. If handled well, it becomes a story of great service, not a failure. And in hospitality, how you recover is just as important as what went wrong.

^{WHAT I FOUND INTERESTING}
The Hotel Room That’s Also a Plane

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Most hotel rooms look the same. A bed, a desk, maybe a minibar. But at the Corendon New West in Amsterdam, one room comes with something extra – a fully equipped Boeing 737 cockpit.

Yes, you read that right. Room 737 doesn’t just borrow the name from the famous aircraft – it is an aircraft. Instead of a boring headboard, you get a real cockpit with switches, dials, and passenger seats. A guest who stayed there, Ryan Guy, posted about it online, and the internet went crazy – his video racked up over 24.5 million views. (Source)

It’s genius. Why? Because hotels aren’t just selling rooms – they’re selling experiences. And this? This is an experience. Nobody books that room because it’s convenient or cheap. They book it because it’s different. They book it because it’s something to talk about.

There’s a lesson here: Surprise is a competitive advantage. Most hotels are too busy checking the usual boxes – fancy pillows, nice lighting, good Wi-Fi. That’s great, but the hotels that get talked about? They’re the ones that give guests a story to tell.

Not every hotel can put a plane in a room. But every hotel can do something unexpected. And that’s what makes people remember—and come back.

^{SHOWER THOUGHT}
💡 The brain is the only organ that named itself.

^{SPONSORED BY HAVEN}
Running a hotel is hard. Haven makes it easier.

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Catch service delays before complaints surface.
Upsell without being pushy.
Fix issues before checkout.

Haven – Make it Count.

Curious? Learn more here.