A Story of Real Customer-Focused Service

Like many of you I am very familiar with the usual baton-passing ritual of arriving at a hotel. The doorman opens your car door and passes you off to a bellman who loads and tags your bags and delivers you to the front desk.

From there you wait for someone to check you in. Then you are asked to wait in your room for your luggage to be delivered. It's a process that involves meeting – and tipping – a lot of people, each of whom handles a specific task.

That has always been my experience – until I stayed at the Savoy in London recently. A doorman in a classic English tophat greeted me warmly and took my luggage. He said "Follow me, sir" and led me inside where he introduced me to a concierge who was waiting in the lobby. The doorman thanked me and left before I could take out my wallet. "Mr. Manji, we have been expecting you," the concierge told me as he led me over to a side desk where he smoothly registered me and handed me my keys.

Then he took my luggage and personally led me to the elevators and up to my room, all the while describing and pointing out where to find the hotel's amenities. He showed me to the room, dropped off my luggage and explained about the butler who was assigned to me. The butler would attend to all my wishes during my stay – from ensuring I received the newspaper of my choice to arranging shoe shine service, or having a taxi ready for me when I needed one. From the time I stepped out of the car until I got to the room it was one seamless, easy, relationship-building experience.

I was beyond impressed. Everyone in the hospitality industry tries to serve their clients well, but someone in the leadership of this hotel really started with the idea of "what should a hotel mean to a guest?" and worked from there. They set out to create the ideal guest experience and it worked. As a result, I am telling you about the experience now, and when I go back to London, guess where I will be staying? In other words, they did the three things anyone in their business – or in your profession – wants to do: They created value for that visit, they earned my loyalty for return visits and they earned my recommendation.

My experience at the Savoy forever changed for me the definition of what a hotel visit means. Your mission should be to find a way to forever change what dentistry means to your patients. To do this it requires the ability to really look at everything in your practice from the eyes of a patient and the courage to reinvent accordingly.