How to manage the front office of a hotel?

The front office is an important department in modern hotel management and the core of the whole hotel service, which has an important impact on the hotel's market image, industry competitiveness and economic benefits. Therefore, hotels should take active measures to improve customer satisfaction in view of the problems existing in the front office.

First, the role of modern hotel lobby

The front hall is the first place where guests directly contact with the hotel, which involves all the contents of the hotel's service to guests and is the starting point and end point of the hotel's service to guests. First of all, the lobby is usually located at the main entrance of the hotel, which is the main place for guests to get information after check-in. Secondly, for the hotel, the front office is the department that organizes tourists, sells rooms, organizes reception and coordinates guest services, and provides various comprehensive services for guests. Finally, the front hall is like the facade of a hotel. Every guest's service from arrival to final departure is closely related to the work in the front desk, which is directly related to the guest's first impression and service satisfaction. The service quality of the hotel is directly related to the survival and development of the hotel, and the front hall plays a vital role in it. The service quality and management decision-making level of the front office will directly affect the hotel's market image and industry competitiveness, thus affecting the hotel's economic benefits. Therefore, the front office is the key to the operation of various departments in modern hotel management and plays a very important role.

Second, the problems existing in the front office operation of modern hotels

1. The organizational structure and process of the front desk are complicated.

The organizational structure of modern hotel lobby is mostly hierarchical management, and there are deviations and misunderstandings in information transmission from managers, lobbies, supervisors, foreman to employees, which takes a lot of time. In today's increasingly fast-paced society, this hierarchical management process is cumbersome. Reducing organizational levels and flattening organizational structure are the development trends of modern hotel management, which can make information transmission smoother. If the receptionist's request process wears away the patience of the guests, it is easy to cause complaints. This is a common problem in front desk work. ?

2. The selling skills of the front desk staff need to be further improved? One of the main tasks of the front desk is to sell rooms. Room sales closely related to the front desk mainly include the following situations: reservation sales, reception sales, reasonable arrangement of rooms and price control.

(1) When booking sales, guests often call or go directly to the front desk to make reservations. In this process, it is far from enough to have active promotion awareness. The success of booking is also influenced by the receptionist's sales promotion skills, proficiency and familiarity with hotel products. (

2) When receiving sales, the receptionist should show a strong sense of service to the guests who booked the room, and also pay attention to the publicity of other hotel service facilities, which is very weak in actual operation.

(3) The receptionists are often not flexible enough because they are not familiar with the elasticity of house prices. They only checked in and reported the price of the day according to the actual situation, and did not actively promote sales by flexibly combining hotel price policies and preferential policies. ?

3. There is a large turnover of front desk personnel and a serious brain drain? According to the data, the average turnover rate of hotel employees in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and other cities is around 30%, and some hotels even reach 45%. In all departments of the hotel, the turnover rate of front office employees accounts for more than 80% of the whole hotel. An employee needs at least 3 to 6 months of training and work practice to meet the post requirements of the front office. Moreover, the hotel has a large amount of information and special requirements for the front desk staff, which makes the loss cost of the front desk staff much higher than other departments. Staff turnover will not only affect the service quality of the hotel, but also increase the training cost of the hotel. Employee turnover will also adversely affect the work mood of other employees working in the hotel, and affect the mood and work morale of others to some extent. ?

4. the communication between the front desk and other departments needs to be further strengthened? The front office plays an important role in the normal and efficient operation of the hotel, but the hotel service is the result of the joint efforts of all departments and posts, and it also needs to cooperate closely with other departments to better carry out customer service, strengthen communication and coordination, and ensure the efficient operation of all departments and links in the hotel. In the actual operation of modern hotels, a large part of the reasons for guest complaints are the lack of communication between departments. For example, a guest who has booked a room is often told by the receptionist to wait for check-in after checking in, because the waiter is cleaning the room, and then the guest will definitely be dissatisfied. The reason is that the front office and housekeeping department did not check and communicate the room information well.