The document discusses key responsibilities for hotel managers to focus on customer experience, reputation management, staff development, revenue strategies, technologies, and properly managing people, processes, and products. To build strong brands and customer relations, hotel managers should pay close attention to guest needs, review feedback, address issues personally, use innovative methods to enhance experience, and stay aware of hospitality technology trends. They must also prioritize online reputation, respond to reviews, create online buzz, and ensure timely responses. Developing staff skills and maintaining high motivation is also important to provide excellent service. Managers need strategies to optimize revenue, oversee distribution, create pricing plans, and analyze performance. Adopting new technologies can improve operations and enhance the guest experience.

1. BRAND BUILDING WITH
CUSTOMER FOCUS

2. Guest Experience and Customer Relations
 By the year 2025, customer experience will overshadow price as the key
brand differentiator. Research predicts that in the year 2018, more than
50% of organizations will carry out substantial business model changes in their
efforts to improve customer experience. The hotel industry will be no
exception. To keep guests happy, hotel managers should:
 Pay close attention to a guest’s requirements.
 Review feedback – positive and negative reviews.
 Spend time addressing issues, lending a personal touch.
 Use innovative methods to enhance the guest experience.
 Be aware of the latest hospitality technology trends and use them to build
customer relations.

3. Reputation Management and Branding
 The impact of online reviews and the social media buzz that follows a very
positive or very negative review can no longer be ignored. In fact, one study
showed that websites displaying genuine reviews get crawled up to 200% more
frequently. A whopping 92% of travelers place faith in the reviews of close
families and friends. Therefore, a hotel manager should prioritize online
reputation management and branding. Here’s a look at the basic
responsibilities:
 Track reviews and manage a hotel’s online presence.
 Respond to every negative review in an amicable manner.
 Create a buzz online with offers, promos and more.
 Ensure guest queries receive a timely response.
 Reinvent branding strategies to create a brand recall.

4. Be an Excellent Role Model
 Hotel managers know that there is a direct relationship between content
employees and happy guests. Disrespectful or disinterested staff behaviors
could cause guests to leave a hotel property and never return. Therefore,
managers must make the effort to train and develop hotel staff. The following
training will help to prevent that from happening:
 Help employees develop skill sets, identify talent and hone their skills
 Build up a positive work environment to keep motivational levels high
 Communicate. Talk with the team, ask about career goals, and set targets
 Work with HR on areas of employee retention, employee engagement
 Be the kind of role model they would want to emulate

5. Strategize for Revenue and Budget
Management
 The hotel industry is often vulnerable to changing economic conditions. Hotel
managers must keep watch on economic trends and should be able to strategize to
drive high levels of occupancy. But it’s not about adjusting room rates and
inventory. A hotel manager needs to be able to strategize long-term solutions.
Here’s a basic list of hotel operations manager’s responsibilities for this category:
 Optimize the revenue based on demand
 Oversee the distribution strategy and manage daily operations
 Create pricing strategies, competition analysis
 Track hotel revenue, manage budgets
 Analyze channels, market segment reviews, reports and more
 Analyze sales figures

6. Focus on Latest Hotel Technologies
 Customer demands drive business and right now technology plays a key role in
attracting hotel guests and enhancing their stay at the hotel. Knowing which
innovative technology to implement will translate into an experience that will
drive real value for the guest. Free Wi-Fi is no longer enough, now offering guests
a virtual reality experience is expected. But hotels will also benefit when they
update their day-to-day technologies so as to provide guests the best experience,
such as their property management system.. Hotel managers should consider:
 Acquiring a complete knowledge of the latest in hotel technologies
 Keeping a watchful eye on competitors
 Implementing cloud-based technologies to improve hotel management
 Updating employees, ensuring training for software updates
 Exploring new technology to support goals

7. The 3 Ps: Properly Managing People, Process,
And Product-
People
 People are an integral part of your business.
 Of course, “people” refers to your workforce — be they on-site employees or remote
freelancers. But it also refers to all of the other relationships you need to keep your business
running smoothly, including:
• Customers
• Vendors
• Suppliers
• Advisors
• Partners
• Investors
 There’s a reason people come first in the people, process, product trilogy — without these
stakeholders, your business would flounder. It benefits you to put significant time, effort, and,
yes, money, into cultivating these relationships.
 Your business depends on it.

8. Process
 Process, as a large-scale concept, is the actions your business takes to
perform a specific function. Businesses of all sizes have myriad processes,
including:
• Delivering a service
• Creating a product
• Making a sales presentation
• Responding to emergencies
• Answering the phone
• Providing information to customers
• Keeping track of supplies on hand
 Even brainstorming and problem-solving benefit when you take the time to
implement a process — an action plan, if you will — that everyone can follow.
 Having a process in place essentially answers the question, “How do we do X,
and when do we do Y, and why do we do Z?” so that your business can run
effectively without you.

9. Product
 Our product is what your business has to offer. It could be a tangible “thing”
that you can hold in your hand. Or it could be a service that is only visible by
its results.
 Our product — including your brand and your image — is the most visible part
of your business and, as such, deserves the lion’s share of your focus. But not
to the detriment of people and process.
 In fact, it’s imperative to view people, process, and product as a system in
which each separate part depends on the part before it.
 People reinforce the process. Process reinforces the product. Product
reinforces the people. On and on this goes in a spiral that — if managed
correctly — moves in an upward direction and leads to sales and success.

10. Building the Brand