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Introduction A senior executive from Sun Microsystems, after staying at the Pan Pacific Hotel, Vancouver, congratulated the hotel's vice-president and general manager, Steve Halliday, on how well his staff read her mind. This had nothing to do with resident palm readers, astrologers, or fortune-tellers; it was a reflection of the fact that the executive felt she had experienced service excellence. It's not surprising, because this hotel is very different. A division of the conglomerate Tokyu Corporation of Japan, the Pan Pacific Hotel Group currently has 17 hotels. The president of the hotel chain, Ichigo Umehara, is what we could a brand champion: he works hard to differentiate his company from the many competitors in the hospitality market. The company certainly sets out to do things differently, and that can be seen from its mission statement, which states that the company wants "to take people successfully to places they have never been before." Staff are called associates, and are empowered to a great degree to take decisions affecting the consumer experience at the point of contact with guest. The associates are carefully selected at all levels, and can go through up to 14 interviews with colleagues and management with whom they will be working before being offered a job. As Steve Halliday says, "We always try to hire the best-the 9s and 10s-because if we hire them, they will recruit good people. If we hire 4s and 5s, we'll end up with a staff full of similiar-caliber people". The philosophy at the Pan Pacifc is to "hire on attitude and train on skills," the opposite of what many companies do. The staff are so happy, they are non-unionized. A recent independent survey identified the things staff liked most about the company:
These attributes have become embedded values - the culture of the hotel - and they are transmitted to the customers. The hotel chain doesn't have "human resources" departments. Instead, it has "people innovation" departments, emphasizing the desire and confidence in employees to excel at innovation. They talk about education, not training, and they call their major functional parts of the business "independent business units" to encourage associates to think beyond being part of a hotel. The whole idea is to create "emotional links with guest through personalized care." They want the guests to share the "home away from home" feeling they have. Which brings us back to our opening paragraph in this case study. If you think about it, your family and close friends know you well can anticipate what you are thinking and what you need. They can read your thoughts and feelings, and they try their best to help in every possible way. This is what the Pan Pacific associates do in Vancouver, and the end-result is that customers don't just have a great experience, but enjoy a relationship. So, when customer service excels, CRM lives. The hotel chain isn't a great brand yet, but it's getting there. Of course, it has invested in technology and software to enable the employees to deliver on the brand promise. The challenge, as with every brand-building initiative, is for the company to achieve consistency in the brand experience across all its hotels. In Vancouver, it really is outstanding, and a prime example of a CRM initiative led by customer service. Technology plus attitude equals CRM Traditional one-to-one service hasn't worked for many companies because the service attitude hasn't been in evidence, or because the systems that front-line staff need in order to gain real knowledge of each customer haven't been available. Attitude is a management problem that can be overcome, as we have seen above, but the technology to assist this is now freely available. A front-line employee with CRM technology at his or her fingertips can talk to each customer as an individual, and with confidence, knowledge, and respect. You will find many examples Romancing the Customer of how CRM allows you to help your staff do things right. The technology allows for easier, more natural, and less intimidating relationships. For example, CRM programs can give ready access to information on the customer's previous contacts and purchases, enabling staff to quickly get to the heart of a customer's needs and solve their problems. CRM makes everything easier for the consumer. It is redefining the standards for customer service and brand management. While customer service is an exciting and vital part of CRM, in this book we describe how you can achieve a great brand experiences with the use of techniques that complement customer service initiatives.
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