The hotel industry is massively competitive, and within every hotel there is a need to be alert and ready for anything 24-hours per day. Owning, managing, and running a hotel requires commitment and an eye for detail in a way that very few other operations do. It truly is an industry that works round the clock, and that is why it benefits from a 24-hour audit process in a way that other areas of hospitality and retail might not. An audit of a retail store that is open from 9am until 8pm for instance would have a very different set of processes and times of tasks in place that a hotel that might be busiest at certain times in the day, but has to be ready to take urgent calls or welcome guests at 2am as much as 2pm.
A hotel audit can cover the entire 24-hours in a day. What this does is provide the ownership and management of a hotel the chance to see how every single aspect of a hotel is being run, right from the early hours of the day, throughout the day and night. This is a fantastic way to put together a plan of action that focuses on improving any weaknesses that have been discovered during the audit process, and ensuring that the strong points are bolstered.
Customer service has to deliver on different types of promises, and work in different ways between different hours in the day. The night manager of a hotel and the night team, will have a very different remit to that of the daytime staff, or that of the kitchen and bar staff during the day. Understanding how each element works individually, and how your entire team works together and communicates with each other is vital to ensuring consistent process throughout the entire hotel.
Let’s look at how an audit can be vital in ensuring all pieces of the management of a hotel come together. The graveyard shift is one where there is a need for great patience, concentration and a high amount of consideration. The vast majority of guests are asleep throughout the night, so the team must be ready to take any emergency calls from guests, deal with the potential for fire alarms and managing large quantities of guests as they are awoken from their slumber in a dramatic fashion. Another aspect is how the night team interacts, or leaves important customer notes for the day shift. This could include guests that have requested a late checkout the night before, or an early wake-up call. If important notes such as these are missed it can cause chaos and diminish customer satisfaction just as they are about to leave your hotel.
A hotel audit will look at the entire customer experience, from check-in, to the turnaround and cleanliness of hotel bedrooms, the use and hygiene in communal areas, the kitchen and bar areas, how a hotel deals with emergency situations, as well as the communication between all teams and the check-out process. Work with a specialist audit team with a history of success in auditing hotels.
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