I had a chat with two hotel managers in an airplane. They were anxious to tell me about their service program that ensured that guests were getting what was needed. They worked for the same chain and were on their way to a corporate management meeting. They planned to present the results of their jointly developed program to this session.

The key to their program was an assistant manager at a desk in the hotel lobby. In each room was a tent card stating that the hotel had a "quality hot line." If guests had a problem they punched the hot line number on their telephone and the assistant manager answered. If she was off on a mission then the call would be transferred to the front desk. The call and its result were logged into the computer system and the resident manager could have an instant printout. They had some of these with them.

Guests' most common complaint referred to the time it took for room service. The second most common had to do with items in the room, such as towels, being missing or inadequate. One hotel averaged 23 calls per day on the hot line; the other averaged 34. The number range was pretty standard over the six months that the program had been in effect.

"We are really giving our guests great service," said one manager. "They get their problem fixed within 20 minutes and we have a goal of 15 minutes by the end of this year."

I said that it appeared to me that the same problems happened over and over. There didn't seem to be much effective corrective action. What they had was a very expensive way of fixing things temporarily. They were crestfallen and repeated the story to make certain that I had not misunderstood.

"How about installing that system on this airplane," I asked. "If we run out of gas, we can call a hot line and they'll send some up. I think I wouldn't like that." "What would you suggest?" one said.

"Prevention, prevention, prevention. Use each problem as a way of learning how to never let it happen again. Guests really don't want to talk to the hot line. They would prefer to just go about their business."

They were disappointed.

"You're saying that what we call service is just another name for rework?" he asked.

©2000 Philip B. Crosby