QUALITY & REPUTATION: Embroidered Goods

In the age of double airline miles and hotel club points, how can a hotelier stand out? The age-old truth still applies—by being the best!  The best does not mean the lowest prices, the largest amount of rooms, or number of people sandwiched into them, nor your bottom line skyrocketing (at least in the beginning).

The best means just what you think it implies: Grace, beauty, comfort, civility, and all those intangibles that keep guests coming back year after year and urging their friends to use you as well. We’re talking about QUALITY over quantity. In today’s mad dash for every penny, it’s easy to find yourself caught up in scraping the bottom of the barrel when you should be skimming the sweet cream of success off the top. If done right, your investment in QUALITY will pay off in huge and unexpected ways, and for many years to come.  Why? Because reputation is everything in the hospitality business! Do you want to have a budget reputation or a brilliant one?

We’re guessing you want brilliant, so here are some suggestions for how to maximize the QUALITY of your guests’ stays:

Uniforms: Everyone, from front desk staff to housekeeping and the valets should dress in coordinating wardrobe, clean, pressed and thematic. Where appropriate, their uniforms should be embroidered with the hotel logo and the employees’ names. This tells your guests in one glance that this hotel is organized, friendly, and has high standards for cleanliness and care. A picture really is worth a thousand words – think of every employee as a walking billboard for your brand. What do you want them to say about you? QUALITY.

Linens: From the beds to the tablecloths, using top quality, high thread-count durable cotton linens is a must. White is often the standard because it both connotes quality and cleanliness, and is the easiest to wash/bleach in high temperature commercial washers. Consider adding a hotel logo to the center of each tablecloth or a decorative edge to the pillowcases with custom embroidery. The same goes for the toweling—purchase the cleanest looking design you can at the highest quality you can afford. White towels are also a standard, but you can play with color more in this choice, particularly if you have cabana or pool towels. Custom towel embroidery kills two birds with one stone. It allows you the QUALITY assurance yet again by showing your guests you don’t just use a linen service, but invest in your hospitality. It also is a great theft deterrent. Few people want the reminder of your hotel logo staring at them when they shower at home.

Robes and Hangers: Yes, it’s true you can’t embroider the hangers, but the type of hanger you choose to place in each room says a lot about your commitment to your guests’ experience. Choose a high-quality wooden hanger, and place a variety of pants hangers and regular ones in each closet. It’s a little thing that goes a long way indeed.  You can also reinforce your customer care, brand, and QUALITY by providing embroidered terry cloth or velour robes for your guests’ use. When a new arrival opens the closet to find an array of hangers and a fluffy robe and slippers for their use, you gain innumerable reputation points! Again the embroidery is another way to get your brand in front of the guest (in an unexpected and luxurious way), and acts as a theft deterrent. 

These are just  a few of the ways you can build your own QUALITY brand, with an emphasis on guest care, which will increase your reputation and reach in this very competitive industry.