Dear Ritz-Carlton: What can hospitals learn from The Ritz-Carlton? Answer from Alexandra Valentin, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services asserts that "good medical care depends upon effective communication between patients and providers. Ineffective communication can lead to improper diagnosis and delayed or improper medical treatment." Safety is at risk when communication is poor. At The Ritz-Carlton, communication is the essence of our legendary customer service. The systems behind our smiles—such as employee empowerment and daily line-ups—lay the framework for effective communication. We also practice being attuned to the expressed and unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests. Healthcare professionals must learn what is important to patients. Are you welcoming patients with a concierge mindset? Are you making them feel at home? Are you anticipating their needs — like an extra blanket, a cup of water, or maybe a "do not disturb" sign to minimize noise? Are you following up at discharge? Have you exceeded expectations? Even though guests typically come to The Ritz-Carlton for either business or pleasure, at hospitals or at the doctor’s office, patients deserve to be treated as humans. After all, one of the definitions of healthcare is "the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered." Effective communication can allow us to tap into the whole person. It allows for a give and take of thoughts and feelings. And most importantly, it allows us to make sure everyone is safe. ∞ On Tuesday, February 10, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Excellence in the Patient Experience" at The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia.  The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Hospitals and The Ritz-Carlton? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Each month, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center (RCLC) features an interview with an employee — a Lady or Gentleman of The Ritz-Carlton — in order to share an insider’s view of the organization. This month’s interview is with John McGavin, General Manager of The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes and an ambassador for The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center. RCLC: How did you become interested in the hospitality industry? Mr. McGavin: When I was 14 years old my buddies and I worked in Savannah, Georgia at a local seafood restaurant for $2.05 an hour. At the end of our shift, whatever fried fish was left over, we could take home. We thought that was the greatest! Near the restaurant was a hotel where my friends and I eventually got jobs. I washed dishes and worked as a storeroom clerk. From those two experiences, I ‘got the bug’ to work in the hotel business. RCLC: How did you become familiar with The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company? Mr. McGavin: When I was in college, I went to a career fair where I met two ladies from The Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead in Georgia. They were very sharp women who stood out from the rest of the recruiters. I had never heard of the company, but they told me the (then) president of The Ritz-Carlton, Horst Schulze, would be talking in Atlanta a few weeks later. So my friend and I went to hear him. RCLC: What did you learn at the talk that made you want to join the company? Mr. McGavin: Mr. Schulze was intense, passionate and fired up. He spoke to my personal sense of values and appealed to my philosophy in life, which is, "If you’re going to do something, do it well." RCLC: Were you hired by The Ritz-Carlton at that point? Mr. McGavin: Unfortunately, I got a letter saying, "No thank you." But that didn’t stop me. One day I hung out in The Ritz-Carlton corporate office for four hours trying to meet with the Vice President of Human Resources and never had the chance to meet him. A few months later, when The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island was doing pre-opening interviews, I was offered a job as a server attendant — busboy — I got the job! I was one of 23 people hired in my department who all had college degrees. Two weeks after graduating from college, I started working for the company. RCLC: Have you had any mentors in your career? Mr. McGavin: Many. One of the individuals I worked with was Grant Dipman. He was the Assistant Manager in one of the hotel’s restaurant and my learning coach. (Editor’s note: Each department has a trainer known as a Learning Coach who mentors new employees and leads by example.) He said, "If you want to grow, you have to put yourself out there." He suggested I become a Learning Coach, too. It challenged me to be a leader without being a boss. I had to get in front of people to speak and teach The Ritz-Carlton culture. Whenever you teach, you get better at what you’re teaching. It was a win/win situation for me. I tell my employees the same thing, "Be a Learning Coach." RCLC: What is it about The Ritz-Carlton culture that you most appreciate? Mr. McGavin: Our Gold Standards. It all boils down to how you carry yourself, what you say and how you say it. The culture allows us to sincerely care about our Ladies and Gentlemen and to not just tell them, but to demonstrate what we expect them to do. Just like the Ladies and Gentlemen. I pick up trash on the ground and when a guest needs help I don’t just point directions. I walk with them and show them where something is. RCLC: How does your culture of caring for employees translate into an excellent experience for guests? Mr. McGavin: When employees feel cared for, they naturally care for others. A couple checked in on their 50th wedding anniversary. Our front desk agent upgraded them to a suite and asked room service to deliver champagne, flowers and a treat from the pastry chef. But our employee didn’t stop there. The couple was from Boston so the front desk agent printed the front page of the Boston Globe from their wedding day. He framed it and sent it to their room along with a card signed by several of our Ladies and Gentlemen. The next morning the couple was in the lobby and the wife was in tears. She said it was the kindest thing anyone had done for her in a long time. RCLC: As a speaker for The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, what do you convey to others who want to deliver world-class customer service? Mr. McGavin: I ask them something I ask myself, "Are you a passenger, a victim or a player?" In other words, "Are you actively in the game?" I tell them it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you have the, "Put me in coach, I want to play" attitude. That’s how you’ll be successful. RCLC: You’ve worked for Ritz-Carlton for over 20 years. How do you stay inspired each day? Mr. McGavin: Two things. First, every day there’s something new going on. Next, it’s the 1,000 employees that work with me. I’ve always looked to others to help me grow my career and to better myself. Now, the employees look to me to help them grow. Our Ladies and Gentlemen want to work more hours to support their families and grow in their careers, but we don’t create that opportunity for them unless everyone demonstrates the Gold Standards, which are foundational to our success. ∞ The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center offers advisory services, courses and presentations to organizations that wish to benchmark the award-winning business practices of The Ritz-Carlton. Your organization can learn about The Ritz-Carlton methodology for customer service, employee engagement and leadership development. We also guide organizations through a multi-step process in order to achieve sustainable culture transformation. The Blog Post Our Ladies and Gentlemen: John McGavin appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

"Champions are not the ones who always win races — champions are the ones who get out there and try. And try harder the next time. And even harder the next time. ‘Champion’ is a state of mind. They are devoted. They compete to best themselves as much if not more than they compete to best others. Champions are not just athletes." — Simon Sinek, author The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: When you hire the best people—the employees who are passionate and strive for excellence—then you are hiring potential champions. Champions are the ones who continue to offer their very best—not for a reward or a bonus—but because they want to contribute toward a winning organization. Cultivating champions takes skill and trust. The Ritz-Carlton understands champions need support and a clear path to be the best they can be. The Ritz-Carlton provides empowerment and training and has created a culture of service excellence. When excellence is the expectation, employees push themselves harder to become better every day. At The Ritz-Carlton, we celebrate every win—no matter how small it may seem. Here are three examples of Ritz-Carlton champions who turned their jobs into art. The Art of The Craft - Florist The Art of The Craft - Concierge The Art of The Craft - Ski Valet ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, and early-bird pricing is available through December 31, 2014. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Champions appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Dear Ritz-Carlton: How do you get your employees engaged in the strategic plan? Answer from Joseph Quitoni, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: At The Ritz-Carlton, we have learned that sharing the Strategic Plan helps our employees—the Ladies and Gentlemen of The Ritz-Carlton—understand their purpose. However, it is their participation in the creation of the strategic plan that makes them feel valued. Service Value 9 recognizes that "I am involved in the planning of the work that affects me." The Ladies and Gentlemen deal with the realities of doing their work every day, and their insight and feedback is a requisite part of the strategic planning process. Each year, we engage every Lady and Gentleman organization-wide in the annual SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) process. The SWOT from each hotel property is combined to look for overarching themes. The SWOT process is synthesized into our Key Success Factors, the five goals that we focus on to support our brand. There is no greater value than having our employees engage in this process. In turn, it inspires strategic plan engagement and ignites their passion, and passion creates profitability and organizational success. ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, and early-bird pricing is available through December 31, 2014. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Strategic Plan Engagement? appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Think back over your customer service interactions this past year—every time you ate at a restaurant, shopped in a store, had a doctor’s appointment, mailed a package, visited the gym, bought groceries. If you had to rate every customer service interaction on a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (legendary), how often did you receive legendary customer service in 2014? Legendary customer service is memorable. It comes from the heart of the giver, and it stays in the heart of the receiver. The Credo of The Ritz-Carlton states "the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission." When customers feel truly cared for, they experience legendary customer service. This kind of exceptional service evokes feelings of appreciation, security and gratitude. In the following thank you letter, it is clear that the guests received good service, but they took the time to write a letter because of the genuine care expressed during their stay. Thank You Letter from Guests "I wanted to write you and share a bit of our experience staying at The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch this past December. As a brief background on us, I work as a travel planner and am the owner of an independent agency. My partner is in IT, working as a project manager for IBM. Living in Florida, we don’t often get that ‘Christmas feeling’ with lights strung up on palm trees. So each year, we try and plan a vacation somewhere with a chance of snow to get a little more in the ‘spirit.’ "This year after looking at several options, we decided on The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch. Never having vacationed in Colorado, it was a new adventure, and we weren’t sure what to expect. Knowing we were going to a Ritz-Carlton kind of takes any worries away because you know at a minimum that you’re going to have a good stay. "On arrival to the resort, simply pulling into the property we could tell it was going to be a great vacation. The hotel is a true stunner and a perfect mix of exactly what I was wanting. It’s a rare thing that you can have such a fine, rustic structure with that ‘Grand Dame’ grandeur but with a contemporary twist making it relevant to the modern traveler. We truly loved every physical thing about the property from the spa, to the pool, restaurants, great room … I could go on and on. "Our room was spectacular, and I must thank The Reservation Agent for assisting us with finding the absolute perfect spot within the resort. The Reservation Agent took the time to listen to what we were looking for and gave us the perfect room. On meeting her in person, she was a real delight and led us to the perfect sushi restaurant for lunch one day!" The Power of Surprise and Delight  "Additionally, I’d had several questions and was a typical ‘needy traveler.’ The Manager of Guest Relations was the ‘unfortunate’ recipient of my first requests … so she was stuck with us for the long haul! With every little detail I needed or question I had, she was on the spot, promptly getting back with me and advising me during the planning of our trip. She was gracious enough to set up specific dining experiences for us that took a little more attention to detail than just a reservation. She also guided us to a fantastic tour with Nova Guides in their Snow Cat where we got to go up to almost 13,000 feet—in heated comfort no less. While we were on property, although an extremely busy person, whenever we ran into her or wanted to ask her a question, she always made us feel like we were the only people there. She also had a knack for surprising us with a little treat here and a little treat there that she didn’t have to take the time to do. Very genuine, very heartfelt. We would return to the resort just for the great care she gives her guests. "Also, we met a wonderful new employee, The Spa Manager. She greeted us when we visited the spa the first time to check things out. She was a great help in showing us around and showing us the product lines which I was very interested in as I needed some great spa gifts as a Christmas present for my mother. Striking up conversation with The Spa Manager, we learned she’d just relocated from Florida, just a few minutes drive from where we live. We’re very involved in a charity called Southeastern Guide Dogs and The Spa Manager was very familiar, often having been to the dog school to help play with and socialize the puppies herself as part of their process. It was a real treat visiting with her. "Later that evening, a knock came on our door with ‘Room Service.’ We hadn’t ordered any and were confused. Well, The Spa Manager had taken the time to contact the culinary team and have something special made up for us. There on a platter was a photo of one of the puppies from our charity. It had been printed out and encased in hard sugar to protect it. Along with it was a beautiful stack of three jumbo dog biscuit shaped cookies covered in chocolate and tied with a powder blue, Ritz-Carlton ribbon. They only looked like dog biscuits, they were PEOPLE cookies and wonderful. We sat back in awe for the longest time, grateful for such a beautiful sincere gift." Service vs. True Care  "Most importantly, what I want to say about our stay goes well beyond the physical property. There are many beautiful places to stay in the world and we’ve been lucky enough to visit some of them. What sets The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch apart is the service that is given is a bit different. In my opinion, sometimes at a resort you feel you are ‘being served.’ I don’t like to feel ‘served.’ Much more rare is when you feel you are ‘being cared for.’ All of the staff at The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch made us feel well cared for, like a friend who is staying with them. We had this kind of service from every single staff member and that’s exceptional. "We are now breaking the mold, and looking at visiting your resort not just for its ‘Winter Wonderland’ attraction but a Summertime visit, too! We’re so looking forward to seeing these great staff members on our return." Delivering Legendary Customer Service Service is about emotion, and legendary customer service means delivering unique, memorable and personal experiences that become lifelong memories. Let’s make 2015 a year to remember by elevating our service standards and striving to deliver legendary customer service. ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, and early-bird pricing is available through December 31, 2014. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Legendary Customer Service Makes Memories appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

"You’ve got to eat while you dream. You’ve got to deliver on short-range commitments, while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both. Walking and chewing gum if you will. Getting it done in the short-range, and delivering a long-range plan, and executing on that." — Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: How many times have you created a goal and 52 weeks later asked, "Where did the time go?" Being able to focus on the long game but make incremental wins along the way takes planning and effort from everyone in the organization. The Ritz-Carlton uses Franklin Covey’s "Wildly Important Goals" (WIG) formula for keeping our focus on the big prize, while making small accomplishments along the way. We measure actions and align them in the direction we want to go. When we reach our goal, it’s not a surprise—because we paved a clear path together. Do your teams all use the same map? ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, and early-bird pricing is available through December 31, 2014. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Long-Range Planning appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Dear Ritz-Carlton: How does the superior customer service message in the private sector carry over to the public sector? Answer from Diana Oreck, Vice President at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: We are asked this question frequently. Each time The Leadership Center starts work with a company, we are told, "but you do not understand us, we are different." Really? We are all consumers and service is service. When we are out and about running our lives, we notice when we get great service. It is like poetry in motion, a choreographed ballet. When we do not, it feels like something right out of a Stephen King novel. At The Ritz-Carlton, we have a written service strategy that we use with our fellow employees and our guests: 1. A warm and sincere greeting. Use the guest’s name. 2. Anticipation and fulfillment of each guest’s needs. 3. Fond farewell. Give a warm good-bye and use the guest’s name. Most of these elements can be transferred to any industry and sector. We also find that many organizations, over-analyze service. At the end of the day, it boils down to the 4 Cs.: Common sense, common Courtesy, show Care and Concern. Let’s be like NIKE and "just do it!" ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence," The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. This special Symposium takes place at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, and early-bird pricing is available through December 31, 2014. Learn more about the keynote speaker, the presentation speakers, and the members of The Ritz-Carlton Executive Panel. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Customer Service in Public Sector appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

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"Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve." — Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: As leaders, we must believe we can constantly improve the customer experience and provide those in our workforce a career path that allows them to fulfill their personal and professional goals. At The Ritz-Carlton, many of our leaders started as bellmen, front desk agents or other entry-level positions. Their belief in themselves—along with The Ritz-Carlton standards of service—fueled their career path. Don’t ask yourself if something can be done, focus on why it should be done and then go make it happen. You’ll surprise yourself by what is possible. ∞ The Blog Post Inspired Thinking: Believe appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.

Dear Ritz-Carlton: How does The Ritz-Carlton support leadership growth and development? Answer from Jennifer Blackmon, Corporate Director, Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Continuing education and leadership growth is central to The Ritz-Carlton culture. On an annual basis, we personally commit to a development plan based upon interests, desires or gaps—and that plan becomes part of the annual review process. Additionally, we have access to a monthly publication focused on topics that tie directly to our key success factors and culture. This publication, known as The Commitment to Leadership, serves as a training tool for new leaders or a reminder for veteran leaders. The key to the program’s success is found in how it is brought to life. A best practice is to rotate communication responsibilities to each leader within the organization to be shared at a monthly leaders’ meeting in the form of a presentation. The process ensures that all leaders understand the information and that each leader is responsible for sharpening their communication and presentation skills—which are paramount to any successful leader. ∞ On Monday, April 13, 2015, The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center presents "Your Journey to Service Excellence" at The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. Learn more about The Ritz-Carlton approach to legendary service, employee engagement and a customer-centric culture. The Blog Post Dear Ritz-Carlton: Leadership Growth appeared first on The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center.