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People are reluctant to sell because they feel they are pushing the buyer to purchase something. They can be made more comfortable in selling when they believe they are offering a service or product that will benefit the guest. Each of the room’s features should be highlighted as a reason for the guest to select the room. This reason relates to guest satisfaction. For example, if the clerk promotes a guest room with an additional small meeting room (at a higher rate) as an attractive feature, the person who is registering may be grateful to learn about this valuable option because it allows him or her to conduct corporate business without renting two rooms.

Front desk clerks should be trained to recognize subtle cues to a guest’s needs. Cues are usually present in both face-to-face situations and during telephone calls. Not all people recognize these cues because they are not trained to listen for them. A training procedure should be developed and presented to the front office staff. When the front desk clerk feels comfortable in being able to satisfy the guest’s needs with a certain type of room, then a good sales attitude has been fostered. The idea “I have to sell” is replaced with “I want to make the guest’s experience the best it can be.” If a caller mentions a reservation is an anniversary gift to her parents, the reservationist may want to suggest “a bayside room that overlooks the Charles River or a room that looks out over the beautiful mountain ranges of the Poconos in Pennsylvania.”

The front office manager should also devise an incentive program for the staff to maximize room rates. Incentives should be related to the needs of the employee. If money is the motivator, then a financial reward (based on the average daily rate achieved for the evening above the standard average daily rate) is presented as a bonus to the desk clerk. This bonus could also consist of preference in scheduling, additional vacation or personal days, or consideration for promotions. If employees know their individual efforts in achieving room rate maximization will be recognized, they will be more enthusiastic about selling. As with all incentive programs, the financial expenditures for the rewards must be cost-effective.

The staff with the proper knowledge, vocabulary, and attitude maximizes room rates better than the staff that is simply told to sell from the bottom up, a sales method whereby the least expensive rate first is presented first, or another sales method from the top down, where the most expensive rate is presented first. These principles are important in achieving a maximum room rate. However, if the desk clerk or reservationist is armed with facts about the product (rooms), familiar with words that accentuate its positive features, and comfortable with selling as a procedure that improves the guest’s stay, then he or she is likely to generate higher room rates and encourage repeat business.

Discuss Sales Opportunities

The front desk clerk has an unparalleled opportunity to promote the services of the hotel during guest registration. The front office manager who has adopted both a marketing focus as well as a front office focus understands the benefits of developing a front office staff that is comfortable with salesmanship. The discussion here focuses on additional room reservations that can be garnered at registration and the promotion of these additional room reservations.

214 C H A P T E R 7 ■ G U E S T R E G I S T R AT I O N

F R O N T- L I N E R E A L I T I E S

qAs front office manager of a hotel, you have noticed that several of your desk clerks don’t offer a warm display of hospitality at check-in times. They are a nice group of people and mean well, but they don’t have the spark they displayed several months ago. How would you

handle this situation?

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produced by the additional reservations; such costs may include financial bonuses and additional vacation.

Assigning Room Keys

During the guest registration process, a room key is issued to the guest. This is a fairly simple task; however, the process does involve security and maintenance of keys. Later in this chapter, computerized room key assignment is discussed.

After the front desk clerk determines the room assignment and the guest agrees to the room rate, the key or keys are obtained for the guest. The key being issued must be checked against the room number assigned on the registration card, electronic folio, or computer screen before it is handed to the guest. A key for room 969 can look like 696 if it is viewed upside down. The key for room 243 could mistakenly be picked up for room 234. These errors occur when the front desk staff is busy checking people in and out. For the guest’s safety, giving him or her the room key should be handled with utmost discretion. The front desk clerk should not loudly announce, “Here is your key to room 284.” It is better to say “Here is your key,” or “Your room number is written on the inside of your check-in packet.” It is also important to instruct a guest on the procedure for using an electronic key, a plastic key with electronic codes embedded on a magnetic strip. If there is a waiting period or a colored indicator light on the guest room door, the clerk should point this out.

Security of the Key System

Maintaining the security of the keys requires that they be stored in a safe place. The familiar pigeonhole key and mail rack system is still found in some hotels. Others have adopted a key drawer, located beneath the front desk. Hotels with electronic locking systems produce a new key for each new guest. The electronic combination is changed each time at the front desk. Guests who lose their key during a stay may ask for a duplicate, for which proof of identification and proof of registration should be required. This protects the guest who is registered in the room as well as other guests of the hotel. Most guests do not mind providing these proofs of identification. They are usually satisfied to know their security is a priority at the hotel.

Maintaining the Key System

The maintenance of a hard-key system requires the front office staff and housekeeping staff to return keys to their storage area, a time-consuming job when several hundred keys must be returned to their pigeonholes or slots in a key drawer (a drawer located underneath the counter of the front desk that holds room keys in numerically ordered slots) after a full house has checked out. If a member of the housekeeping staff [males are referred as houseman and females are referred as housekeepers] notices a key left in a room after a guest has checked out, he or she should return it to the front desk. Some hotels use a key fob, a decorative and descriptive plastic or metal tag attached to a hard key (a metal device