The hospitality industry is filled with people working to make customers happy. One of the most crucial roles in this field is the guest services specialist.
This position involves interacting with customers daily. Guest service representatives need to be empathetic, have patience, and know the area in which they work well.
Empathy
The ability to understand and share another person’s feelings is a valuable trait for customer service representatives like Zoe Reardon. It lets them listen carefully to customers’ concerns and provide emotional support in difficult situations.
Empathy can also help customer service agents identify any underlying problems and deliver personalized solutions that address their customers’ needs.
This can reduce customer churn and lead to positive word-of-mouth recommendations for the brand. Empathy is not an easy skill to master for all customer service agents, so it’s important to provide training and feedback to ensure your employees can use empathy effectively.
Additionally, it’s important to remember that all employee roles play a role in the overall customer experience—even backstage workers who don’t interact with customers directly, like preparing orders for shipment or servicing the call center technology CSRs use.
Patience
You may interact with guests experiencing a challenging situation as a guest services specialist. Patience and compassion can help diffuse a customer’s anger or frustration.
Empathy can also be useful when a customer asks you for assistance, such as guiding them through an unfamiliar computer system.
Often, a guest services representative is the front-line face of her employer’s establishment, such as hotels, spas, recreational facilities, private clubs, and public organizations such as universities. These specialists greet patrons upon arrival and ensure that their experience is positive.
Many former guest service specialists become concierges, marketing representatives, hotel managers and event coordinators, among other professions.
Local Knowledge
Local knowledge refers to the understanding that people who live in a certain place have developed over time. It is also often referred to as traditional or indigenous knowledge.
Development projects need to identify and take into account local knowledge. It can make the task much more successful and help you build a better relationship with the community.
The knowledge may be based on various sources, such as personal experience, observation and learning from elders. It is a cumulative body of social and ecological knowledge that has evolved through adaptive processes over generations.
Indigenous communities usually use it to adapt and cope with environmental challenges. However, it is only sometimes widely applied in other contexts because it is tailored to specific cultural and climatic conditions.
This is because of the importance of relationships between individuals and the natural environment. These relationships can provide crucial insights that are not available through scientific means.
Also read: The Benefits of Cloud-Based Digital Customer Experience Platforms
Communication
In this career, the ability to communicate clearly and concisely is essential. Especially when dealing with customers who often have questions about the property they are staying at or the best restaurants near their hotel.
A friendly, welcoming tone can distinguish between someone satisfied with their stay and someone who is not. Guest specialists are often required to work with other employees, such as wait staff or concierges, and so must be able to collaborate with others effectively.
They should also be able to work well under pressure and deal with stressful situations calmly and respectfully.