A. Just long enough to hang you.

Attention to detail is the key to being a leader in hospitality. The devil is in the detail but you are in Hell if you fail to follow up. If you cannot see the most obvious of small things, you need to win with the big stuff, or you are doomed to critical feedback. You get the picture, it needs to be right ….

Most aspects of getting it right come from common sense and experience. If something does not go right, learn how to make it right and change your ways to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Sound difficult? Yes and no. All those free form floating ideas need to be organised and laid out in the form of a checklist or as service notes or as minimum operating standards. Be explicit about this, it helps you communicate what you want and also makes your standards easier to maintain and understand.

I’ll give you a couple of examples to start you off:

1 Acknowledge customers within 10 seconds of arrival, a small and nod at minimum.
2 Aim to ask the first service questions to that customer within 5 minutes of arrival.
3 Have all guest booking information at hand and an understanding of any spare capacity for walk in.

If you are quiet, never let standards slip. If you are busy, never let standards slip.

Q. Where did my first question come from?
A. The dirty piece of string operating the light pull in a hotel ensuite. It costs pennies and seconds to change, which begs the questions:

How much did a basic service failure really cost?
How many YEARS did it take to get that dirty?