Missing the details means you're sabotaging your luxury business.
Ruthanne Terrero Source: Ruthanne Terrero
1. You’ve created an opulent physical setting in which to accept guests but skimped on the customer delivery experience. You might be trying to save money or perhaps you can’t find someone to work for your wages in your area. But here’s the deal. By crafting a beautiful space, you’ve set up an expectation that wonderful things will occur there. If in the end the vibe is just a yawn, or worse, if something bad occurs because there’s no human to prevent it or fix it, you’ve broken that promise and intensified the level of disappointment that will ensue.
2. You’ve not planned for the what ifs. High-net-worth clients pay a lot to those around them to create a barrier from the elements. As their advisor, you need to anticipate what will go wrong so you’ve got a solution the second a situation goes into free-fall. Sit back and have a think about what you’d be the most nervous about if you were in your client’s shoes so you'll have a fix in place as soon as a mess manifests.
3. You’re nickel and diming your guests and they're hating it. This is the stuff that makes people seethe and it’s usually a quiet anger, as in, “We’re never coming back to this place again and we’re going to tell all our friends not to, either.” The offense could be charging them a substantial resort fee when they’re already paying $3,500 a night to stay at your resort. Or perhaps you’re billing them $40 for an airline change when they’ve already paid you a hefty membership fee for your agency services. We call this double dipping into your customers’ pockets. Affluent people have worked hard for their money, and they don’t want to feel stupid when they’re spending their savings.
4. Misspelling someone’s name sends off a signal you’re not a detail person. It’s easy enough not to do that because you’ve got your client’s legal names for their bookings. But in texts or emails it can be so simple to leave an “e” off “Anne” or to call someone Larry or Ricky when they prefer Lawrence or Richard exclusively. Some will argue little things like this don’t matter but they are big things that do matter.
Here's a twist on that: Getting it wrong all together. A relative who just planned a huge conference in the medical industry checked into her hotel room when she arrived for the event and the television said, “Welcome, Amanda Griswald.” That was not her name in the slightest and she immediately went into panic mode, wondering what else the hotel would be getting wrong over the course of the next few days.
5. You’ve delivered exactly what you said you would to your clients and left it at that. If you haven’t over-delivered, haven’t snuck in any “wow” experiences into an itinerary for your customers that made their hearts sing, you haven’t done your job well. In travel, there are so many ways to touch someone’s soul and sometimes that's done with very simple gestures. Skipping this step means you’ve missed out on a way to be remembered with a joyful grin and you've cut back on the odds of their remembering you when they want to travel the world again.