Editor’s Note: Brett Archer is Gen­eral Man­ager at the Ahwah­nee Hotel in the Yosemite National Park. He has worked in the hos­pi­tal­ity indus­try in Yosemite for over 20 years and reached out to Impact Learn­ing Sys­tems after our recent post From Denny’s to the Ahwah­nee. We were so impressed with his effort to con­stantly improve the Ahwahnee’s level of ser­vice and wanted to gain a new per­spec­tive on offer­ing an excel­lent cus­tomer experience.

When it came time for me to choose a career, there was one fun­da­men­tal desire that guided my deci­sion: I wanted to take care of peo­ple. Unfor­tu­nately, the med­ical field wasn’t an option as I can’t stand blood, and I wasn’t keen on spend­ing years in col­lege to be a teacher or a psy­chi­a­trist. When I first arrived in Yosemite National Park, how­ever, it became clear that here was an oppor­tu­nity to take care of people—lots of people—not only from all over the coun­try, but from all over the world. It was then—while in my first posi­tion flip­ping burg­ers at the Yosemite ham­burger stand—that I decided to pur­sue a career in the hos­pi­tal­ity industry.

From my hum­ble, burger-flipping begin­nings to my cur­rent posi­tion as Gen­eral Man­ager at the AAA Four-Diamond rated Ahwah­nee Hotel, Yosemite has pro­vided me with the oppor­tu­nity to expe­ri­ence all facets of the hos­pi­tal­ity indus­try. We have every­thing here from sand­wich bars to fine din­ing, camp­grounds to lux­ury hotels, and gro­cery stores to fine retail out­lets. Such vari­ety has given me the oppor­tu­nity to learn much of what there is to know in the world of guest ser­vice. Accord­ingly, my time here has led me to develop some prin­ci­pal guide­lines that allow myself and oth­ers to be suc­cess­ful hos­pi­tal­i­tar­i­ans.

1. Put the Right Peo­ple in the Right Position

Although hos­pi­tal­ity is nei­ther rocket sci­ence nor brain surgery, not every­one can do it.  I real­ized early on that it is cru­cial to have what I call “Aces in their Places,” or the right peo­ple in the right posi­tion all the time.  It starts with the hir­ing process and search­ing for those indi­vid­u­als who share the pas­sion for tak­ing care of peo­ple.  This can be chal­leng­ing when you oper­ate in a loca­tion where there is lit­tle turnover and much tenured staff, so you have to keep your eyes open for tal­ent where you might not expect to find it.

2. Be Pre­pared to Answer the Ques­tion “How may I assist you?”

I also prac­tice and preach “Assertive Hos­pi­tal­ity.”  This doesn’t mean that I go out and hit my guests over the head, but it does involve me mak­ing the first move.  Basi­cally, you can’t wait for your guests to come to you; you have to go out and talk to your guests.  I chal­lenge my team to seek out inter­ac­tions with our guests to learn how we are treat­ing them.  To be suc­cess­ful at this, one has to fully engage their obser­va­tion and lis­ten­ing skills, hone in on poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties, and be pre­pared for an answer to the ques­tion “How may I assist you?”  Hos­pi­tal­ity pro­fes­sion­als also have to know what resources they have to be able to make a difference.

3. Empower the Front Line

This is where empowerment—another very impor­tant tool—comes in.  As we are not per­fect and there are going to be oppor­tu­ni­ties for improve­ment, each front line asso­ciate and man­ager needs to know that they can do what it takes to make the sit­u­a­tion right. It is how we recover from these sit­u­a­tions by which I hope our guests judge us.  This goal is par­tic­u­larly chal­leng­ing in a hotel such as The Ahwah­nee where, because the build­ing is a fed­er­ally pro­tected National His­toric Land­mark, we can­not sig­nif­i­cantly alter its struc­ture or décor in keep­ing with mod­ern lux­ury hotel stan­dards. We there­fore have to get very cre­ative at cre­at­ing and main­tain­ing our guest loy­alty, rely­ing mostly on qual­ity of service.

4. Pro­vide Per­son­al­ized Attention

Lastly, I hold by Delaware North Com­pa­nies’ (my employer and con­ces­sion­aire of Yosemite National Park) guest ser­vice motto: “Cre­at­ing spe­cial expe­ri­ences one guest at time.” In the hos­pi­tal­ity indus­try, we need to remem­ber that every indi­vid­ual guest deserves our per­son­al­ized atten­tion, for a guest doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily remem­ber what you say to them or do to them, but they will always remem­ber how you made them feel.  Small ges­tures, such as send­ing a fam­ily with small chil­dren milk and cook­ies dur­ing turn­down, trans­form a nor­mal stay in to a mem­ory, and know­ing you are respon­si­ble for that mem­ory is why we in the hos­pi­tal­ity indus­try do what we do.