Culture Shock

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Culture Shock

• Achieving a Guest Obsessed Culture

Andrew Gammage Head of Quality Guest Insight
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Agenda

• How Premier Inn's has developed a Guest obsessed
  culture
• Key Activities Programmes

• How Guest Recommend feedback has become an
  integral part of Premier Inns business
• Team member behaviours
• Brand decisions

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About Premier Inn
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Premier Inn history

• First Travel Inn opened in 1987
• 1998 - 200 sites
• 2002 - Largest UK hotel chain
• 2004 - Premier Lodge acquired
• 2006 - International
• 2007 - Re-brand to Premier Inn
• 2009 - 550 Hotels

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Premier Inn goals

• Premier Inns strategy is to move from being a
  great Brand to a world class Brand
• Two key components
• Putting the guest at the heart of our business
• Engaging all Team members in the journey
• Understanding guest experience through
• Measuring Brand standards
• Ongoing the Guest research

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The Premier Inn bedroom
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People Service
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Good Night Guarantee

• Launched in 2001
• Understand issues and fix problems
• Continuous improvement
• Customer retention
• Team members empowered to fix problems
• Consistency of product service

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Brand Standards

• Delivering the Basics

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Brand Standards Audit

• Robust Brand Operating Standards
• Hardlines which must be delivered
• Guidelines - opportunities to tailor our approach
  wow individual guests
• Independent measurement through a comprehensive
  Brand Audit
• External professional audit company
• Every site audited twice a year (minimum)
• Tough consequences of failure

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Guest Obsession

• Using Guest Feedback to deliver a Guest obsessed
  Culture

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Guest RecommendProgramme conception

• Previous guest satisfaction measured via a
  twice-yearly brand-level postal survey
• Requirement for more frequent feedback at
  individual site level
• Move from satisfaction to advocacy -Guest
  Recommend
• ORC International worked with Premier Inn to
  implement monthly site-level measurement of guest
  satisfaction

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How the Programme Works
Email sent to Guests within 24hrs of checks out
Guest clicks on email link and completes online
survey (1 to 5 scale)
Portal updated daily with the previous days
surveys
Premier Inn can action findings within a couple
of days of the guests stay
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Real-time web-based reporting
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Easy access across the organisation

• Quick and easy access for all personnel
• Portal facilitates sharing of best practice
• Sites can see their own scores and those of other
  Premier Inn hotels
• Top 10 sites are showcased at quarterly review
  meetings
• Enables bottom 10 sites to learn from their
  example
• Sites can track their own verbatim comments
• Over half the hotels log on every day to keep
  track of their scores and read their comments

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Guest Recommend Programme Outcomes

• Brand level
• Site level

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Guest obsession is integral

• Our focus on Customers is described as Guest
  Obsession
• According to Premier Inns MD Patrick Dempsey,
  the research is worth its weight in gold
• By acting on guest feedback, KPI scores continue
  to increase
• Likelihood to recommend
• Overall satisfaction
• Likelihood to stay again
• Value for money

Our success will be achieved by listening to our
Guests and reacting quickly and instinctively
to their feedback and future expectations
(Patrick Dempsey, MD, Premier Inn)
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Balanced scorecard

• Premier Inns balanced scorecard includes the
  Guest Recommend Brand Audit score
• Key bonus measure
• Guest measures are central to reward
  recognition programme e.g. Conference
• Stretch targets for each site and region
• Hotels chase green by exceeding their targets

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Valuable insight
The Guest satisfaction survey has potentially
been the biggest change introduced in Premier Inn
for many years, giving us valuable insight. It
tells us exactly what our guests think of the key
aspects of the service and product that we
provide, including whether or not they would
recommend us to a friend or colleague. We are
committed to ensuring all our guests have a
fantastic experience the feedback really helps
us to coach and train our team members to deliver
this.
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Programme impacts on decisions made at a local
level

• Portal provides real-time data, all Team members
  know their performance
• From night porter to housekeeping, they
  understand how to improve the guest experience
• Hotel Teams can take quicktactical action based
  on guest feedback
• Sites hold regular meetingsto review feedback
• All sites have a Guest action plan
• GMs talk to Guests about key focus areas

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Informed significant strategic investment
decisions

• All brand decisions are underpinned by the likely
  impact on the Guest
• Key Driver Analysis identifies which elements of
  the offer most likely to improve guest
  satisfaction
• Decisions taken as a result of Guest Recommend
  include
• staff training
• Good Night Guarantee
• Breakfast
• In-room entertainment
• Air-conditioning strategy
• Refurbishment programme

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Focusing on Premier Inns best assets

• Staff Care - Key Driver of top box recommend
• Developed enhanced Brand service standards
• Improved staff training
• Use to drive Staff awareness of their impact on
  the guest experience
• Reward recognition

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Emphasis on Good Night Guarantee

• Guest aware of the Guarantee are more likely to
  stay again
• Use Recommend to measure check inn standards
• Increased importance in Brand Audit
• Drive awareness

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New and improved breakfast

• Review of guest feedback identified that the
  breakfast offering would benefit from improvement
• Specifically food quality and product choice
• New breakfast menus trialled
• Survey used to measure Guest feedback
• New breakfast concepts
• New products
• Healthy, vegetarian Superfoods
• All you can eat
• Ratings for breakfast food quality and service
  are vastly improved as a result

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Bedroom refurbishment

• Guest Recommend survey used to assess impact
• Six out of ten sites improve their guest
  recommend scores
• Most sites improve bedroom r bathroom scores
• Findings help to determine the level of
  investment for the future bedroom upgrades
• Guest Recommend scores helpprioritise investment

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Other Room Upgrades

• Entertainment
• Survey data identified that 40 of guests did not
  give a positive rating for the in-room
  entertainment
• Of those giving a negative score, most wanted to
  see Freeview channels included
• Fast tracked the introduction of Freeview
  channels
• Air-conditioning
• As a value brand, air-conditioning wasnot
  offered as standard
• Guest feedback from guests at city
  centrelocations has driven air
  conditioningroll-out programme

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360º feedback to guests
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The future
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Evolving programme

• Regular reviews of the Guest Recommend programme
• Questionnaire content
• Reporting
• Portal layout
• More dynamic use of the questionnaire
• Premier Inn Guest panel
• Extending UK programme to cover overseas ventures
  Whitbread Restaurants

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Thank you

• Questions?