Having been a journalist for 25 years and specialised in hotel business, Maria Pütz-Willems travelled the world for 16 years as a freelance journalist for leading hotel and tourism publications. Always with a certain feeling for trends and ideas and staying in permanent contact with international dialogue partners. In 2005, she launched the online magazine www.hospitaliyInside.com, a bilingual network for international hotel business.
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Good morning?
"Wishing you a wonderful day. Welcome to the Hotel Zum Schwanen München-Süd. My name is Jacqueline Schmid. What can I do for you this morning?" 26 words that can make me lose my nerves at any given time of the day. Some hotels seem to think that speaking in a posh way makes them a more elegant place altogether. Hotel managers have been taken in by rhetorically gifted service trainers and have probably paid a lot of money in order to have their staff trained in verbal acrobatics like these. And yet answering the phone can be so beautifully simple: "Good morning, Hotel Zum Schwanen, Jacqueline Schmid. Can I help you?" 11 words that state exactly the same thing and bring across the desired politeness.
The telephone show is ridiculous and annoying. The caller most probably knows the hotel he is currently phoning, and it is clear that he has a question. If he didn’t have a question, he wouldn’t be phoning. Hotel staff should rather save their charming welcome and flattering way of speaking for the moment when a guest actually enters the hotel in person and moves towards the reception desk. What happens, though, when a visitor who was treated like a king on the phone finally sets foot into the hotel? The reception staff stare at their computer screens and only lift their head when guests place themselves right in front of them. But even then, they do not let out more than a small "Good day" before staring back into their computers to find out who the guest in front of them could possibly be.
The new trend for verbal acrobatics came into existence through the four and three-star hotels that like to take on the luxury hotels’ glamour elements. Even the luxury hotels’ telephone show, though, is ridiculous. For First Class Hotels or medium-level enterprises, the results are even worse, as callers do not expect such an “over-demonstrative” way of speaking and the style of speaking does not go with the style of the hotel itself. Normally, it just doesn’t work out.
"Back to the roots" is the only advice one can give hotel owners and staff: be yourself and speak as if the caller was standing right in front of you. Isn’t it very unlikely that you would greet your vis-à-vis with 26 stiff words? Wouldn’t you much rather put a big smile on your face and say in the most natural way: "Good morning, did you have a good trip? We are happy to have you here.."
Maria Pütz-Willems
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