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| Opportunities & Exposures: Marketing |
We’ll Be Watching You
Niki Leondakis
12/01/2005
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When the Kimpton Group is hiring staff for a new hotel, every interviewee for
every position is given an unusual test. The interviewer hands the applicant a
small sack of ordinary items. We then ask the interviewee to take 10 minutes to
come up with a story involving each of the items.
The test is one way that we
employ psychographics, a term marketers have used for a couple of decades to
imply tapping into the personal values and lifestyle behind a customer’s product
choices. In a service industry that requires constant face-to-face encounters
between the staff and the customers, however, psychographics also works as part
of our management strategy aimed at hiring staff able to cultivate a sense of
genuine rapport with the guests.
We handed one young woman a bag containing
thread, lipstick, a ruler, a watch, a shoelace, chewing gum, a comb and a
Post-It note. The applicant managed to adapt all of the items into a story about
a woman on a job interview: “As Betsey approached the office building for her
big interview, she looked at her watch, which read 8:45, and glanced at the
Post-It note she had on her resume that read 9 am . . . . She made her way to
the ladies room . . . touched up her lipstick and glanced down at her well-worn
suit, wishing she had a needle and thread to fix the loose button . . .
.”
The test is designed to measure the applicants’ ability to think on their
feet, as opposed to following a rulebook. You can train the staff to fawn and
respond to every guest demand with “Anything you wish, sir,” but to fulfill a
request in a way that leaves the customer feeling truly understood and cared
for, you need someone who will respond with insight and personal initiative—and,
at times, a sense of humor. A person who responds with a really dark story or
cannot come up with a creative answer at all will probably not be a good fit in
our organization.
| The test is designed to measure the applicants’ ability to think on their
feet, as opposed to following a rulebook. |
Imagine a customer who complains that no matter what the
thermostat says, her room is too cold. The employee at the front desk will
listen politely, then try to come up with a creative solution: perhaps sending a
pot of hot tea or a king-size faux fur blanket to the guest’s room.
In
that hypothetical scenario, the employee might first check to see if we have a
profile on the customer, and if the profile mentions anything about liking tea,
or if she might prefer Irish coffee. If a guest has stayed at a Kimpton Hotel
before and filled out a survey, we will have at least a general idea of what he
likes in a hotel. The survey asks about favorite snacks and beverages, hobbies,
favorite magazines or newspapers, as well as preferences vis-à-vis a high or low
floor of the building, proximity to elevators, foam or feather pillows or a
request for specialty rooms, such as one that is environmentally friendly or has
high ceilings.
At many of our hotels, our staff members will pick up the
telephone and conduct their own psychographic research on customers before they
arrive. A recent guest at our Hotel Monaco in Washington, D.C., checked into her
room and found framed digital photos of her cats on the night table. A marathon
runner, she also found a copy of Runner’s World, a city map showing a seven-mile
run, Luna bars and Gatorade in her room. A clerk had contacted her assistant to
ask about her interests, and staff members had fun using the information to
customize the room.
Our aim is to foster a customer base with an emotional
connection to the hotel as well as the Kimpton brand. For those who like our
boutique hotels enough to return frequently, we use psychographic profiles in
our loyalty program, offering rewards that are tailored to the guest’s
interests. Two months ago, an oenophilic member of our Inner Circle, which
requires at least 15 stays at a Kimpton hotel, was rewarded with a trip to Napa
Valley and a private tasting and tour at Kimpton CEO Tom La Tour’s
vineyards.
And that interviewee who told the story about the watch and the
lipstick? She got the job.
| Niki Leondakis is chief operating officer of Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. |  |
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