Company Culture: three techniques Ritz-Carlton use to cater extraordinarily for their guests

At gunnercooke, our model is based around a culture of innovation.

When your standards of service are set way above the average, the task of ‘WOW’ing’ your customers becomes much harder. Let’s take Ritz-Carlton for example – a global, luxury hotel chain with a reputation for treating its patrons like royalty. With authority, experience and reputation comes great expectation…

So how is it this hotel is so highly regarded when it comes to service excellence?

They live and breathe their values daily

Each member of staff working at the Ritz-Carlton carries a laminated card with 12 key service values which are reinforced on a daily basis. Each morning at Ritz-Carlton around the world starts the exact same way with a 15-minute departmental meeting known as ‘the line-up’. The hotel takes this time to review guest experiences, resolve issues, discuss improvements and highlight values through storytelling. Their desire to provide excellence customer service becomes like second nature, it’s the Ritz-Carlton way.

They go the extra mile (literally)

One story sticks in the mind as truly inspirational. A family staying at the Ritz-Carlton, Bali, has carried specialist eggs and milk in their luggage for their son who suffered from an acute food allergy. On arrival, the family realised that the eggs had broken, and the milk had soured. The hotel manager and staff searched the whole town but could not find the required items on sale anywhere. However, in a stroke of genius, the hotel’s head chef recalled a specialist store in his native Singapore that usually stocked the items. The chef contacted his mother-in-law and asked her to purchase the eggs and milk… and then get on the next available two-hour flight to Bali!

The hotel covered the cost, of course, as it was a small price to pay to ensure that the family has an unforgettable experience and would never consider staying anywhere else again.

They always ensure consistency of service

This story, and many others like it, are being used as a training tools. The values it contains are ingrained into the cultural psyche of every employee at any Ritz-Carlton hotel. Each story is circulated and shared across hotels in 21 countries. This means a porter in New York will share the same brand values as a housekeeper in Hong Kong.

The aim is simple: to inspire staff across all levels of he organisation to take every available opportunity to improve and innovate their quality of service.