As a housekeeper, it would be most beneficial for you. Imagine, you just need to wave the wand and everything turns sparkling clean. Be it the lobby, rooms, laundry, or restaurant. 

 In fact, you don’t need any staff to do it. And because of that, the level of guest satisfaction would top the charts. 

However, the sad part is that such kind of magic is impossible. But, I can tell you tips to improve hotel housekeeping operations for better guest experience. 

By now, you might have figured out what this blog is about. But, before getting to the tips, let me give you an overview of the housekeeping department. 

What are Housekeeping Operations in Hotels?

Housekeeping department is called the backbone of the hotel. The reason behind it is that housekeeping handles one of the most important tasks of a hotel – maintaining cleanliness and hygiene.

However, the tasks involved under housekeeping operations are not limited to it. There are other responsibilities too, like:

1. Raising inventory requisitions
2. Maintaining stocks
3. Managing laundry services
4. Handling the lost and found artifacts
5. Keeping a track of hotel room thefts and losses

Although the housekeeping department is not counted amongst revenue-generating ones, you cannot deny the fact that it does play a vital role in cost-control.

How to Optimise Hotel Housekeeping Operations?

Now that we are done with a refresher course on hotel housekeeping operations, let me tell you the steps you can use to make it more efficient. Let’s take a look at them.

1. Streamline your process

When I say streamline your process, it doesn’t mean working on your SOPs. Of course, it is also important and we’ll be discussing it in the next point.

Streamlining your process means aligning hotel housekeeping operations with tasks of other departments. Let me explain in detail. 

The housekeeping department is responsible for upkeep of the room and the amenities associated with it in a perfect manner. Now, this also includes checking for any maintenance issues. 

Suppose, one of the rooms requires major maintenance work. In that case, the housekeeping supervisor needs to inform the front office and maintenance department, respectively.

Such tasks do take a lot of time, which means one room is out of order for a brief period. Hence, the revenue management team would ensure that sales from other rooms are on the higher side to cover the loss of one room night for that period. 

This is just one example. There are many other tasks that require help from other departments. That’s why you need to streamline your hotel’s housekeeping operations to avoid any complex situations.

2. Bring timely changes in SOPs

As I said above, you need to optimise your SOPs from time to time. The reason is, it will help you improve your housekeeping operations and increase staff’s efficiency. 

In college, we were taught that getting a room ready should take an average of 20 minutes. The bifurcation is as follows:

• 7 minutes – Bed making
• 5 minutes – Bathroom cleaning
• 3 minutes – Dusting
• 2 minutes – Amenities replenishing
• 3 minutes – Sweeping and mopping

But when I started working in hotels, things were actually different. Every task associated with room cleaning had a different time depending on the size of the room, the number of staff involved in it. 

For example, some hotels use vacuum cleaners or mop sticks, instead of traditional brooms and mopping cloth. This aided in reducing the time required to clean one room. 

Similarly, you need to figure out ways to optimise SOPs related to every process involved in the housekeeping operations. 

3. Standardise the quality of cleanliness and hygiene

No one likes to stay in a shabby and dingy hotel. Moreover, after covid-19, guests are more concerned about the cleanliness and hygienic environment provided by the hotel. 

That’s where the housekeeping department comes into the picture. Ensure that you’ve set the highest standards pertaining to cleanliness and hygiene. Here are some steps you can take:

1. Room sanitization after check out
2. Change room linen for new guests
3. Use a disinfectant for mopping the floor (opt for one with mid fragrance)
4. Keep a sanitizer in each room
5. Wear masks and protective gear while cleaning the room
6. Opt for color-coded cleaning

4. Focus on inventory management

Inventory management is an important part of hotel housekeeping operations. That’s because the housekeeping department is responsible for raising the requisition and distributing all sorts of amenities among guests and staff members. 

This includes room amenities, stationeries for the front office department (pen, files, papers, key cards etc.), staff uniforms, and other such things. Whilst the list is long, you need to ensure you don’t miss even a single item. 

Here’s a blog on inventory management that can help you do it in a better way. 

Hear It From The Experts: Do’s and Don’ts of Hotel Inventory Management

5. Invest in technology

Technology plays an important role in every hotel and still many of them hesitate to embrace it. Some find it expensive, while there are others who believe it’s futile to invest in technological aspects. But that’s where they go wrong. 

There are various PMS that can do all your calculations, inventory management, and room status update within seconds. Moreover, if they can be integrated with other housekeeping software, it can get you live room status and help with direct bill posting in guests’ folios. 

Apart from that, it can help you keep a track of guest requisitions and whether they are addressed or not. This would aid in improving guest experience. 

The technological aspect is not limited to software, it includes investing in gadgets as well. You can opt for equipment like handy vacuum cleaners, carpet cleaner machines, floor scrubber and dryer, automatic room freshener, and so on. 

6. Hire, train, and reward your staff

Understaffing is one of the common problems faced by the hospitality industry these days. This leads to a tremendous pressure on the existing ones, as they need to handle tasks of other employees simultaneously. And trust me, I’ve seen this happening. 

The hotel where I used to work a couple of years ago was having a shortage of housekeeping staff. This created a lot of problems for the rest of us. 

We had to run from floor to floor in the morning to check rooms which are due for check out. Simultaneously, we had to prepare rooms for upcoming arrivals. And to top that, we were supposed to deliver guests with requested amenities. 

Because of this, none of the staff members in the housekeeping department worked for more than 2-3 months. In fact, we ourselves used to be quite exhausted by the end of the day. 

In fact, a research published by Harver shows that,

That’s why first of all, you should focus on hiring staff. Post that, train and make them familiar with the SOPs of your hotel. 

Once they are through with that, evaluate their performance from time to time. Keep a reward policy to boost their morale.

In case they are not performing well, instead of firing, invest in training them again. This way, they will become more efficient and will stay motivated at work.

7. Keep a check on your discards

Most hotels avoid the discarding process, and that’s where they suffer a loss. Basically, discarding involves removing expired items from the inventory and replenishing them with new ones. 

Let’s say, you have kept a stock of old towels to discard. Now, you would either distribute them among your staff, use those for cleaning, or recycle them.

Sometimes, a staff member or a vendor can do foul play here. S/he would be replacing the old ones with new or maybe add some fresh ones in that batch for gaining extra benefits. 

That’s why I recommend doing the discarding process in the presence of CCTV cameras, security personnel, and housekeeping supervisor. 

8. Maintain pantry on each floor

To ensure a seamless guest experience and fast service, it’s essential that you have a housekeeping pantry on each floor. In case you already have one, check that it has ample stock maintained of each and every amenity. 

First of all, it’ll help your housekeeping staff in avoiding running to and fro. And secondly, it’ll help in raising on-time requisitions. 

9. Work with the right vendors

One of the practices that many hotels overlook is outsourcing housekeeping. If you’re not aware, it is exactly what it sounds like — getting your housekeeping staff from a third party or external agency.

However, you have to be supremely mindful while selecting the right vendors to outsource housekeeping. After all, you want the best service for the amount you’re going to pay, and not any vendor can offer that.

So do your part of the detailed research before signing a deal with any vendor. Be it about the authenticity of the vendors, the quality of products they provide, or any other factor. 

Moreover, if you are working with just one vendor, I would suggest you find and build relationships with a couple of them as a backup. The reason is that depending on a single one might create problems such as delay in delivery, unavailability of certain items, impromptu price fluctuations, and so on. Therefore, it’s good to have a Plan B.

Picking the Right Hotel Supplier is an Art. Want to Master it?

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In fact, during my industrial training, I spent most of the time learning about the front desk operations in the hotel, SOPs, reports, and every aspect that was associated with it. Not to brag, but I did receive the award of the best trainee in the front office department.

But that was way back in 2013. It’s been a decade now and things have changed A LOT. With the help of advanced technology and understanding guest demands, hoteliers try to make their hotel’s front office operations seamless. 

However, it’s not only technology that should be considered for doing so. There are other aspects as well. And, that’s what I’ll be telling you about in this blog. 

What is Front Desk Operation In Hotels?

The front office or front desk is one of the core departments in hotels that is the initial point of contact for guests and is responsible for establishing the first impression on them. 

Moreover, they act as a communication centre to receive and forward messages from guests to other departments of hotels or vice versa. Hence, it is rightly said that, ‘Front office is the nerve centre of a hotel.

The front desk comprises 4 major sub-departments, viz. Reception, concierge, bell desk, and reservations, and back office.

As far as their duties and responsibilities are concerned, they have a plethora of them. Some of the major ones include:

• Managing check-ins and check-outs
• Maintaining reports
• Handling reservations
• Guests’ data management
• Processing guests’ requisitions 
• Night audits
• Collect feedback and manage them

However, this is just like an overview of the entire thing. There are other ancillary tasks as well, which needs to be taken care of. And like every department, front desk operations are supposed to be optimised in a way that every task can be done in a jiffy, maintaining the efficiency and without hampering guest satisfaction. 

So, let me tell you how to do that. 

How to Improve Front Office Operations in Hotels?

Every task in the hotels has a predefined SOP. However, with time, it needs to be upgraded. Talking about current practices in hotel front office operations, they need to be updated in the terms of technology as well as processes. 

Let’s take a look at the steps to do it.

1. Align Tasks Based On Their Priority

One thing that I learnt during training is prioritising my tasks. I had clear instructions to prepare a list of ‘to do things’, sort them as per priority, and follow them accordingly daily. 

Trust me, it helped me in avoiding missing any task. For instance, my main responsibilities were:

• Checking the arrival and departures
• Aligning pickup and drop (if requested)
• Cross checking guests folios for bill posts
• Forwarding guests’ requests to concerned departments
• Assisting bell desk with luggage handling

Now, as per the priority, the first thing I would do is checking on guest requisitions and taking a follow-up about the same. Because if those were left unattended, it can result in a guest dissatisfaction.

Gradually, I would finish the other tasks and had a lot of spare time left, which was utilised to learn a thing or two. This is what you should ask your every front desk staff to follow. 

2. Invest in Training Front Desk Staff

Once you start following the first step, you will find that there’s ample time to train your staff. I’ve seen many hotels providing the training during initial days of joining, and it hardly lasts for a couple of days. 

Post that, the staff has to learn as they work. But that’s where they go wrong. Training should be an ongoing process. Let me share an example of one of the finest hotels in India.

Lemon Tree is one of the fastest growing hotel chains in India. They have a unique training model for their staff. 

Whenever a person joins the organisation across any property in the country, s/he is sent to the head office for training and making him/her familiar with the process. Once the training is completed, s/he is deployed at the designated property.

However, it doesn’t end here. They have a quarterly performance evaluation. Based on the performance and scores, candidates are given rewards. If they are not up to the mark, a refresher course is scheduled for them. 

This kind of training makes staff more efficient, aids in providing a better guest satisfaction, and is one of the proven ways to improve your hotel’s front desk operations.

You should take a cue from them and start providing training to each and every staff member who is a part of your hotel’s front office department.

3.Keep Sufficient Staff

One problem that hotels commonly face is labor/staff shortage. And this does impact guest experience in a negative way. I’ve faced such a situation once, and it was really a horrendous experience. 

A couple of years ago, I used to work in one of the well-known hotels in the city. Being a graduate in hospitality management, I had certain notions about how the work would be. 

But I received waves of surprises on the first day itself. The property had inadequate staff starting from the hotel’s front desk itself. There were just 2 people at the reception (including me), and we had to manage the tasks of bellboys as well. 

In fact, the front office manager was handling the role of concierge, reservations manager, and AGM. This created a lot of problems when there were multiple check-ins and check-outs. 

Trust me, I worked for hardly 2 days and realised it was not my cup of tea. That’s when I understood the importance of manpower in the hotels. 

If you are also doing this at your property (assigning various roles to every staff member), STOP IT RIGHT NOW. 

Ensure that you have sufficient staff in your hotel’s front office department and assign them specific roles and responsibilities as per their designation and qualifications. 

4. Know Your Guests

I’m flattered when hotels have all the arrangements made at the property, even before me asking for it. What I mean is that your regular guests would be asking for particular amenities or services every time they’d book their stay with you. 

So, instead of guests asking you, why not surprise them by pre-arranging their common requisitions. For this, you need to focus on collecting, analysing, and studying your guests’ data. 

Apart from this, consider feedback from guests and try to inculcate them during their next visit. You can try to do this manually, but that would be quite an arduous task. Instead, leverage technology and AI to accomplish it.

5. Bring Technology in The Picture

Technology has changed the hospitality industry drastically. From entering guests’ data manually into various registers to getting all the data recorded on cloud-based servers, we have come a long way. 

Technology has indeed helped hotels in minimising human efforts and increasing the efficiency of each and every task. And the front office operations in hotels have benefited the most from technology. How?

Well, if you think about it, there are various activities in a hotel front office operations which would become quite time consuming if done manually. For example, night audit process, guest profiling and data management, daily revenue calculation, and forecasting; the list is unending. 

Now imagine doing this on a daily basis without the help of any software or system. Sounds hectic, isn’t it? So, why not implement software for these tasks. 

You might be wondering, who doesn’t? However, the truth is that there are still hotels that believe in a pen and paper system. Also, there are many others who just invest in PMS and channel manager just for the sake of it 

But that should not be the case. In order to optimise hotel front office operations it is quite important that you should invest in technological aspects like PMS (integrated with channel manager), reputation management software, and revenue management system.

Although there are a lot of other software available in the market, these three are sufficient for your hotel’s front office operations.

6. Introduce AI in Your Property

While you are investing in technological aspects, there’s one thing I’d like to drive your attention to ‒‒ Artificial Intelligence (AI). One of the best examples of it is chatbots. 

You can deploy chatbots on your hotel’s website or kiosks. With the help of machine learning and sentiment analysis, it understands guests’ behavior. Further, it guides them at various stages of their stay at your property.

In fact, advanced chatbots like Rose are found effective in increasing hotels revenue exponentially by upselling and guiding guests into spending more at the property. Such tools act as a helping hand to the front office department. 

7. Go Contactless

Post covid-19, the world adopted the concept of contactless living, and so did the hospitality industry. Be it greeting guests with folded hands (Namaste!!!), using QR code-based payment modes, various things have changed. 

Talking about the front office operations in hotels, they had to find various techniques to avoid any physical contact with guests. That’s where contactless services come into the picture.

Just imagine, guests booking rooms, checking-in at the hotel, availing services, and checking out of the property seamlessly with less or negligible human interaction. Sounds interesting, isn’t it?

These contactless services could be self check-in kiosks, ordering food from the hotel’s app, using chatbots to guide apps throughout their stay, QR code or payment links for billing, and such likes. 

Try to find more such solutions and instigate them at your hotel’s front desk for better benefits.

8. Optimise SOPs to Increase Efficiency

As I said in the beginning, every process works for a certain period and, with time, needs to be updated. It applies to SOPs also.

For instance, before covid-19 guests were welcomed with a handshake. But now they are greeted with “Namaste”. Or let’s take the feedback collection process. Initially, guests were presented with paper forms for rating a hotel’s services, and now we have reviewing websites like TripAdvisor.

With every update you adopt for your hotel, it is vital to make changes in SOPs also.

9. Maintain Important Reports

Last but not least, one of the important tasks in hotel front office operations is maintaining reports. At the end of the day, every department submits its sales report at the front desk for processing. 

This is a crucial activity as once all the data is collaborated, it helps in generating various revenue  based figures like ADR, ARR, RevPAR, total sales, total revenue generated, and so on.

In fact, the majority of these reports are generated during night audits, which is part of hotel’s front desk operations. Hence, missing on any of this report can cause a lot of miscalculation. 

If you need an idea on which reports are supposed to be maintained by the front office department, refer to this blog. 

Important Hotel Reports You Should Be Aware Of

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Many hoteliering enthusiasts gather the courage and start their own venture, but then they find it hard to answer one question – how to manage the hotel business?

A hotel manager must also be a people person, balancing customer service, operations, and employees seamlessly. That’s why all hotel managers need some guidance along the way. 

Here Some Effective Tips for Successful Hotel Management

To help you manage your hotel better, there are certain things you must know and keep in mind. And in this section, I am going to state just that; some points that are going to change the way to handle things at your hotel.

1. Team Mentality

A guest’s experience is not determined by just one person, but by various people. It starts the moment a guest visits your hotel’s website to make a reservation and continues with the valet and bellhop the moment they arrive at the hotel. Then, the front desk takes it from there, and housekeeping finishes the job.

Of course, during their stay, they may also interact with food and drink staff, exercise instructors, and other hotel employees.

Your success as a hotel manager will largely depend on your ability to bring your entire staff together as one unit — a true team. And that team has one goal in mind: providing excellent service to your guests while increasing bottom-line revenue.

You can’t be over every team member’s shoulder throughout the day, but you can instil important values in your hotel that promote a thriving team including:

• Polite Conflict Resolution
• Clear Communication
• Adherence to Policies
• Helping Fellow Employees
• Going Above and Beyond for Guests

When hotel staff work together, it’s much easier to solve urgent problems. And it makes your work as a manager that much easier.

2. Follow Up With Event Leads

This is one of the most essential hotel management tips that you need to keep in mind.

Every hotel guest should be treated with equal amounts of respect and gratitude for patronizing your business. However, if there is one customer segment hotel managers should focus more time and effort on, it’s event leads.

Today’s hotel revenue depends even more on converting leads into paying guests. This is especially true with declining business due to the covid pandemic. Encouraging event organizers to gather in your hotel represents an excellent opportunity for revenue growth.

One guest at $150 per night is perfectly fine. But someone creating a conference or other event could bring 50, 100 or even 1,000 additional guests to your hotel. And there’s a big difference between $150 and $150,000 for your bottom line.

To follow up with event leads, you can use a range of methods such as:

• SMS Campaigns
• Personal Phone Calls
• Remarketing Ads

Regardless of the approach you take, make sure to follow up within less than a week of the lead first contacting you. That way, you have a much better chance at earning their business before another hotel does.

3. Leverage Social Media

We live in the age of social media. Traditional advertising — billboards, physical mail, radio, television, and telemarketing — still have its place. But nothing provides the ability to reach your market at scale as effectively and affordably as social media.

One excellent way to leverage social media is to repost photos that guests post while staying at your hotel. Encourage guests to take these photos by providing a catchy hashtag or geofilter for them to use.

You might even consider running a sweepstake with giveaways such as free stays in the future for anyone who participates in photo opportunities. Just be sure to ask permission before reposting any guest-generated content first.

4. Communicate

Communication is crucial for effective hotel management. A lack of communication leads to mistakes, which lead to crises. Mastering the art of communication will keep your team on the same page — ensuring important elements of the guest experience don’t slip through the cracks.

As the person in charge of hospitality, lead by example. Communicate early and often to address potential issues and maintain team alertness. Take responsibility for clearing explaining hotel procedures and communication protocols.

5. Stay On Top of Trends

Hotel trends are constantly changing — it’s par for the course in the hospitality world. What was sophisticated or trendy yesterday may be considered cliche or tacky in a few years time.

Hotel managers should bring in interior designers every few years to update the look and feel of the hotel based on data-driven guest preferences. And your hotel should reflect the current state of your market.

For instance, providing QR codes, extra cleaning, and social distancing protocols will demonstrate that you take guest safety seriously in a post-pandemic landscape. 

Simply put, have a COVID-19 survival kit in place to better serve your guests and ensure they are safe at your property.

6. Hire Smart

It goes without saying that the staff you bring on board will largely determine the success of your hotel. The best location, architecture, and food won’t mean much if your staff is rude, inexperienced, or unfit for the job.

When hiring, aim to select candidates with the right attitude first. Almost everything else can be taught with time. Once you have the right staff, you have a decisive edge over other competing hotels.

7. Optimize Employee Scheduling

Employee scheduling for hotels can quickly become overwhelming from a management perspective. As we just mentioned, there are various employees and departments in a hotel at any given time.

These employees often have varying schedules — full time, part-time, night shift, day shift, and more. Keeping track of this is nearly impossible to do manually.

That’s why using hotel and hospitality scheduling software like ZoomShift is paramount. With ZoomShift, you can enjoy a single HQ for all employee scheduling needs such as:

• Clock In and Clock Out
• Schedule Changes
• Team Schedule Sharing
• Break Logging

And much more. With a full schedule of your own on your hands, managers can’t afford to waste hours every week on menial tasks.

8. Follow a Standard Operating Procedure

Next up, is one of the top-rated hotel management tips. Many hotels don’t weigh much on this aspect. However, that shouldn’t be the case. 

Every hotel should have a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). This is a list of rules and guidelines about how to perform each role in the company. 

The SOP should be easily shared, such as a downloadable PDF or Google Doc. When an employee has a question, they can quickly turn to the SOP document to learn how to perform a task, or what the protocol is for a given situation — saving hours of time.

9. Incorporate Feedback

Nothing is more important to a hotel manager than feedback. It makes the difference between guessing on your next move or having objective data.

Firstly, there is feedback from employees. You can conduct employee feedback sessions during monthly or quarterly meetings. Make sure to provide your team with the feeling that they will not be punished for speaking their true feelings on matters. That way, you can gain key insights into areas of improvement for your hotel.

Secondly, aim to get feedback from every guest possible. You can leave feedback cards in your hotel, or follow up with an email survey. While someone might not feel comfortable voicing their concerns in person, a degree of privacy will help you discover what customers truly love or don’t love about your hotel experience.

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