If you want to create a positive first impression on your customers, hotel owners must ensure that their front desk associates are properly trained and friendly which can be accomplished by hiring good hotel consultants or investing in hotel training programs. For guest booking via third parties or online, the front desk of the hotel is their first impression. Even if the customers have communicated to the reservations team prior to arrival, their experience with the front desk associate will set the tone for their stay in your hotel.

When guests have a positive experience at check-in, they are likely to be more understanding when things go wrong during their stay. On the other hand, if they have a negative first impression, they are likely to become hypercritical and argumentative during their stay.

Hotel owners must recognize the need to train their employees, especially those working at the front desk. They must have a formalized hotel front desk training process in place for training both new-hires and existing staff members. Some of the suggestions that you should keep in mind when training new-hires include:

Don't ask the new-hire to sit on the computer on their first day on the job. Instead, hotel owners must talk to them about some important concepts such as proactive guest service, delivering genuine service and the importance of their role in the organization. If hotel owners are busy, they can ask a senior executive such as DOSM (Director Of Sales Manager), AGM (Assistant General Manager), or even the GM (General Manager) to speak to them.

It is important to create an orientation schedule and a checklist for new-hires. When a formalized hotel training program is in place, it will ensure that new-hires will have all the resources they need to succeed. They must also be asked to sign-off when they complete the checklist. This will help with increasing accountability.

When training existing front desk staff, hotel owners must focus on improving their communication skills. Some of the areas that hotel owners can concentrate on includes:

• Body language

• Eye contact

• Telephone skills

They must have empathy for their guest and try to understand their situation. For example, not all meetings in a hotel are fun meetings. At times, companies could discuss plant closure or layoff in their meeting.