جوی د ویوره هتلز - به بزرگ و کوچک اهمیت دادن

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Joie de Vivre Hotels: Caring About the Big and the Little Stuff

The name of Joie de Vivre, California’s largest boutique hotel company, says it all. Executive chairman and founder Chip Conley could have named it after himself (Conley Hotels does sound stately), or he could have named it after Eddy Street, the address of his first hotel, near San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin district. He could have given it a name that nodded to the company’s California roots. Instead, the name he gave his company is foreign, and kind of hard to pronounce. Yet it’s perfect. Bringing “the joy of life” to customers is exactly what Conley’s company tries to do every day. You’d think that was par for the course for anyone in the hospitality business. But it’s easy to imagine that when customers experience a Joie de Vivre hotel, they realize something has been missing every time they’ve stayed anyplace else. It is a company that is doing its damndest to perfect the art of customization, something people can experience from the moment they start looking for a place to lay their head for the night.

One-on-One Shock and Awe

When travelers arrive, they’re met at the front desk by a host whose profile is posted on a card. It describes a little bit about whoever is working that day, and offers his or her take on what visitors should avoid during their visit so they don’t waste any time. It’s a great way to start a conversation and set the tone for the visitor’s stay, implying, “We love where we live and want you to love it, too.”

From then on, it’s anyone’s guess what pleasant surprises a guest might enjoy. The hotel collects as much information as possible about each visitor when he or she makes a reservation, and the company encourages, even challenges, employees to use that information to take every opportunity to give a guest a memorable experience through an initiative called the DreamMaker program. Many do it through small kindnesses, such as arranging for a cake when they learn someone is celebrating a birthday, or greeting honeymooners with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of Champagne. Employees vote for best DreamMaker of the month, however, and the employees who earn that coveted title are the ones who find ways to deliver an over-the-top experience. For example, Jennifer Kemper, a reservations manager at the Hotel Durant in Berkeley, shared this story about how a mother’s love inspired her to create an extra-special welcome basket:

I met Mrs. Z for the first time in mid-September. She had asked to speak to a manager because she was trying to arrange an extended stay and we had some sold-out dates. She told me that lately she had been staying at different area hotels but the Durant was the only place she felt at home. I noticed her eyes welling up and asked her if she was ok. She then told me why she had needed to stay here so long and so often. Her 20-year-old son was dying of cancer and was still trying to continue as a UC Berkeley student. She had been coming up to help take care of him during his chemotherapy sessions. Being a mother of a son I completely empathized and felt my eyes, too, welling up. I touched her hand and said that I would make sure she was comfortable here.

A few days passed and I had been thinking of her and decided she was the perfect DreamMaker candidate. So I went down to Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley and found this quaint herbal and tea store. I found a ceramic dragonfly mug with a built-in strainer and steeper, and then I bought her a tin of fresh chamomile tea that had beautiful dried flowers in it. As a final touch, I bought her three sunflowers to brighten up her room. I wrote a card that said, “For a loving mother who deserves to relax. Your family is in our thoughts and prayers.” She came down the next day and thanked me, and again we both had tears in our eyes. She said she told her whole family about this special gesture, one that touched both her and me. Mrs. Z continued to stay with us until her son graduated from UC Berkeley.

Dream making can be pure fun, too. At the Shorebreak in Huntington Beach, TJ Ransom, a guest services clerk, spoke to a bride whose bachelorette party was going to take place at the hotel. A local, he knew all the restaurants and bar owners in the area. When the party checked in, they were surprised to be sent out on a scavenger hunt that took them to five of the most popular bars in town, where they were received with VIP seating, a round of drinks, and a bachelorette-party game. Upon returning to the hotel, they found their room decorated in the bride’s wedding colors, platters of chocolate-covered strawberries, and a cheese plate.

Word of Mouth Works

Can you imagine how many times Mrs. Z and her family talked about Jennifer’s thoughtfulness? How many tweets and photographs and videos via Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr do you think that bachelorette and her friends sent throughout their incredible night, courtesy of TJ? What if one of the bridesmaids had a friend who worked for ABC News, and one of her friends was a journalist looking for a fun segment for 20/20? How many blog posts about random acts of kindness, or pre-wedding rituals mentioning the hotels likely got written? How many times were the posts shared and circulated throughout these people’s online communities? I’d bet my left big toe these stories got a lot of attention, and will be remembered the next time anyone who heard them has to travel to California. What these hotel employees did to bring some joy to their clientele would have been appreciated and meaningful at any time, but the impact of their actions had far, far greater reach and consequence because of the Thank You Economy.

The face-to-face customer care and the personal touch that Joie de Vivre exhibits so brilliantly at their hotels extends to their online presence. Joie de Vivre developed Yvette, the industry’s first online matchmaking service, to help travelers choose which of its diverse hotels will provide them with the most satisfying “identity refreshment,” as Conley calls it. Each of its thirty-four hotels has a distinct personality, and based on your answers to five easy questions, Yvette can recommend the one that most reflects your own. An urbane traveler might be guided toward the glamorous Galleria Park, while someone with a yen for tea-pots might love to stay at the B&B-style White Swan Inn. There’s something for everyone. Along with a suggested list of hotels, Yvette makes an introduction, photo included, to a few locals who have provided tips on things to do and places to go for travelers seeking a truly off-the-tourist-track experience. Chip Conley happens to be one of them. That’s right—the company’s founder wants to show you around town. Pretty cool.

Ann Nadeau, Joie de Vivre’s corporate director of marketing, has a funny reply to the question of what percentage of their marketing budget is allocated to creating word of mouth: “How can I put HUGE in a percentage? Our marketing budget is so tiny we depend on word of ‘mouse.’” Staging incredible customer experiences at the hotels and on their website is one way to get people talking, but the effort to engage with customers is equally impressive behind the scenes.

There is a four-person social media team based in the company’s home office that is dedicated to branding efforts. Along with each hotel’s general manager, they engage and respond to customers on Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Yahoo Travel, and other social networking channels. In addition, they are responsible for coordinating with every hotel’s dedicated Social Media Champions, of which there are one or two responsible for daily postings on Twitter and Facebook. These Champions also participate in company-wide “social media summits,” where they can share best practices and ideas with each other so that each hotel maximizes its one-on-one reach.

To keep tabs on how well its social media efforts are working, the company relies upon daily updates and a scorecard system from Revinate, which monitors and manages online reviews and social media sites exclusively for hotels. It also pays close attention to TripAdvisor consumer reviews and ratings. It should come as no surprise that as of the first quarter of 2010, two-thirds of the Joie de Vivre hotels were listed in TripAdvisor’s top ten for their geographical area.

The company offers social media classes to all interested employees through their in-house professional development program called JdV University. Presentations on social media are regularly made at general manager meetings.

Like other companies we examined that are heavily invested in and benefit hugely from social media, Joie de Vivre used it to help weather the recent severe economic downturn, which devastated much of the hospitality industry. In summer 2009, Joie de Vivre started offering exclusive deals on hotel rooms to Twitter followers on Tuesdays, and Facebook fans on Fridays. The first season the Twitter Tuesdays and Facebook Fridays were launched, the company booked over a thousand rooms that otherwise would have remained empty. With very little investment, the program continues to provide a steady stream of revenue that goes straight to the bottom line.

What Joie de Vivre Does Right

THE MESSAGE COMES FROM THE TOP. Setting the tone and establishing a cultural foundation of empathy and excellence is essential to success in the Thank You Economy. The message that one-on-one engagement and customer service is a top priority has to originate from the very top of the company. Chip Conley gives his employees ample training opportunities, the freedom to think creatively and from the heart, and continually demonstrates and reinforces his commitment to providing a personalized, one-on-one experience with as many guests as possible.

ITS INTENT COMES FROM THE RIGHT PLACE. The company seems to work extremely hard to balance its business intent—to grow a profitable business—with intent from the heart—to provide travelers with a unique, customized, memorable hotel experience. For example, while any staff member can select any visitor to be a candidate for the DreamMaker program, employees are encouraged to target loyal customers or individuals who might have a lot of word-of-mouth potential.

IT HIRES CULTURALLY COMPATIBLE DNA. Providing these word-of-mouth–worthy experiences on a regular basis is possible only when a company can tap extremely rich reserves of creativity, care, and empathy. That’s why any leaders or managers determined to excel at customer service have to make sure their employees share the same DNA that they do, and believe in the company’s mission down to their bones. If they don’t, they should be replaced when the opportunity arises. The difference between the performance of a company populated by people who really care and one populated by people who care because they’re paid to is the difference between Bruce Springsteen and Milli Vanilli.

IT USES “PULL TACTICS.” A strategy of caring usually out-shines tactics, but when they’re used with the right intent, tactics can help a brand achieve greatness. Joie de Vivre uses tactics in a specific and brilliant way. The intent of most tactics, and advertising campaigns as well, is to entertain, inform, or scare the consumer enough that he or she pays attention. Overall, Joie de Vivre’s tactics are designed to remind consumers why they should care about the brand and amplify their positive feelings toward it. The individual tactics that are truly deal-oriented benefit people who have already publicly expressed an affinity for the brand. Many are also designed to get people who work for the company at every level to think with their hearts as well as their heads. To work for this company is to be challenged on a daily basis to be the best human being one can be.

Now, I’m a huge fan of Joie de Vivre hotels, but in mid-September 2010, I noticed they were “pushing” a little more than I’d like to see. In fact, for three days straight in early September, they tweeted only four times, and each tweet was about pushing room deals instead of creating dialogue with customers. They’re usually so good at connecting emotionally with customers; I hope that in the future we see fewer push tactics and more tweets that pull their guests in so they can experience the Thank You Economy the Joie de Vivre way.

Joie de Vivre has figured out that it’s the big and the little stuff that matter most to building a brand’s identity. The stuff in the middle is important for a company’s survival, of course, but it’s the one-on-one initiatives that lie at either extreme—the nit-picky details and the big, grand gestures—that make an impact, and make people talk.