What are the steps you will take to figure out the root of the problem?

You are the Front Desk Manager at your hotel – and a good one! You have an excellent relationship with your staff and a clear focus on internal and external guest service. You have received the following feedback from a customer survey:

We arrived for our late check in at 9:00 PM. We found the driveway empty and no one to help with our luggage. We left our car on the driveway and made our way to the front desk for check in. 

Olivia at the front desk told us that the suite we had reserved was no longer available and she would place us in a regular room until the next day. How does this even happen? We CALLED to tell you we were checking in late. Olivia took my cell phone number and said she would call me when the room was ready to move into and that a bellman would help us with our luggage. 

We still had to drag our luggage to the regular room before we could call it a night. No apology, no offer for assistance, and Olivia didn’t seem to care.

We received no call from the front desk the next day and had to contact the hotel at 4:00 PM and demand to speak to a manager before anything was done. It took a long time for the bellman to arrive and take us to our suite.  The suite was lovely, and the manager who met us there was apologetic and brought us a nice amenity, but this shouldn’t have happened to begin with!

1. What are the steps you will take to figure out the root of the problem? As a team, consider – who will you talk to, what will you need to observe? What other data sources might you consider? This is a 2-page narrative.
2. After the above investigative research, you learned this is a process problem. Redesign the experience using a Service Blueprint that includes each of the customer touchpoints. (and process portions the guest doesn’t see)
3. Write a narrative of the processes that will need to change to make sure this isn’t repeated.