EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: DEVELOPING YOUR SOCIAL SKILLS FOR THE FRONTLINE OF HOSPITALITY SERVICE

A Training Lecturette Presented to The Class of BSHRM 316B and Amelia Tuble, Ph.D. St. Scholasticas College, Manila, Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For Human Resource Development Bachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Management

Delivered By Grich De Vera February 2012

TRAINING OUTLINE

I. II. III. IV. V.

Target Participants Training Objectives Introduction Whats in it for you? Benefits of E.I. at the Frontline Making The Four Dimensions of E.I. Work for You, The Frontliner a. Self-Awareness b. Self-Management c. Social Awareness d. Relationship Management

VI. VII.

Some Tips in Pursuing Successful Guest Interactions References

TARGET PARTICIPANTS

This training lecturette is specially designed for hospitality service employees who are at the forefront of guest relations or customer service. These are employees who have guest or client interactions on a day-to-day basis such as front desk hotel receptionists, concierge staff, guest relations officers, room and banquet sales executives, and the like.

TRAINING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this training lecturette, the participants should be able to: State the benefits of emotional intelligence at the frontline of hospitality service. Describe how each of the four dimensions of emotional intelligence works for employees at the forefront of guest relations. Mention some tips in pursuing successful guest interactions.

INTRODUCTION

As a frontline employee, you are in the business of hospitality service. Guests will judge you and, more importantly, remember you based on your actions and reactions rather than on how much you know or how intellectually capable you are. They value the people in your organization that care about them; not those who have memorized your hotels published rates or those who are experts at latest front office computer applications. Successful guest interactions and the delivery of, not only good, but great customer service are highly dependent on the use of emotional intelligence. At the forefront of guest encounters every day, you are faced with the challenges of dealing with a lot of emotions your own, your co-workers, your supervisors and managers, and, above all, your guests. While technical skills will help you get your job done, it is emotional intelligence and your social skills that will get you through each of your guest interactions each and every day on the job.

WHATS IN IT FOR YOU? BENEFITS OF E.I. AT THE FRONTLINE

By improving on your emotional intelligence, you will be able to make guest interactions more satisfying both for yourself and for your guests. By being attuned to your guests feelings and managing your own emotions while interacting with them, you will be guaranteed with tremendous payoffs, such as being able to:

Maintain good guest relationships. Encourage guests to feel good about you and the service you provide to them. Ask guests to cooperate with you without alienating them. Upsell a product, service, or an idea to a guest. Calm down an angry or complaining guest. Encourage repeat visits or repeat business from guests. Increase good publicity for your organization and for yourself through positive word-of-mouth.

MAKING THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF E.I. WORK FOR YOU, THE FRONTLINER

Yourself (Personal Competence) Recognition of Emotions

Other People (Social Competence)

Self-Awareness Self-Management

Social Awareness Relationship Management

Regulation of Emotions

Source: McShane, S., Von Glinow, M. (2010). Organizational Behavior: Emerging Knowledge and Practice for the Real World 5th Edition. McGraw Hill.

Self-Awareness In being able to perceive and understand your own emotions, you are able to tell which particular situations upset you, make you sad, trigger your anxiety, or tick you off. This enables you to become attuned with your emotional responses to specific situations and to use this awareness as conscious information for self-management.

Self-Management By managing your own emotions and keeping negative impulses in check, you try not to feel angry or frustrated when guests are already feeling the exact same emotions. You express happiness and joy when the occasion calls for it yet you suppress negative emotions when you are faced with difficult guests.

Social Awareness In being able to perceive and understand the emotions of guests, you are able to empathize with them and be sensitive to their feelings, thoughts, and situations. You are

also able to know your guests needs without them having to tell you thereby increasing your chances in delivering exceptional customer service and making a positive impact on your guests overall experience at your establishment.

Relationship Management Relationship management in the arena of guest interaction is all about turning good guest relationships into something beneficial for both you and your guests. By having established good relationships with your guests, you will be more comfortable with upselling a product or service of your hotel to them and you will be able to encourage guests to keep coming back. Who knows? Perhaps they will even encourage their family, friends, and co-workers to patronize your establishment.

SOME TIPS IN PURSUING SUCCESSFUL GUEST INTERACTIONS

1. Acknowledge that your thoughts cause feelings. Often, your feelings may be predisposed because of thoughts that you have already made up about a particular guest thoughts built on what you may have heard from others through rumors or bad publicity or perhaps through a previous harrowing encounter you have had with that guest. To turn off negative feelings and replace them with positive ones, we must first learn how to change negative thoughts about the guest we are interacting with. Think of positive thoughts. Keep an open mind about any and all your guests. Remember that even a previous bad experience with them was not a personal attack on you, but reflective only of what the guest has to say about your organization.

2. Choose the right words and accept responsibility for them. Start your sentences with I instead of you. Instead of telling an already frustrated guest, You did not tell us you wanted a late check-out, it is more serviceoriented and emotionally intelligent to say, I did not know you had wanted a late checkout. This may help diffuse the guests anger by making him feel that it was not exactly his fault a late-check out was not arranged for him.

3. Their name is music to their ears. No matter how difficult, angry, frustrated, exhausted, or plain bored a guest may be, when you politely call him by his name, you would have greatly improved your

encounter with him whether it were a positive or a negative encounter. By mentioning his name, you make him or her feel acknowledged, important, and special. This tells him that you value his business and, most importantly, his feelings.

4. Decide when and where to express your feelings. Not every guest encounter is a happy one. There will be times, and there will be many of them, when a particularly difficult guest will make you angry. In such cases, it is wiser to wait a bit, collect your thoughts, and consider the best way to redirect your anger or respectfully express your feelings about whoever triggered your anger. Remember though that, as a frontliner, it is certainly inappropriate for you to show an outburst of anger towards a guest. Except in an immoral situation such as sexual harassment, it is unacceptable to react negatively to a guest as this could be grounds for disciplinary action or possible termination of your employment.

REFERENCES

DeVito, J. (2002). Messages: Building Interpersonal Communication Skills. Allyn and Bacon. Gamble, M., Gamble, T. (2005). Contacts: Interpersonal Communication in Theory, Practice, and Context. Pearson. McShane, S., Von Glinow, M. (2010). Organizational Behavior: Emerging Knowledge and Practice for the Real World 5th Edition. McGraw Hill. Stein, S. (2009). Emotional Intelligence for Dummies. Wiley.