Ritz-Carlton's competitive advantage through employee empowerment and service culture

Ritz-Carlton

Ritz Carlton: Truth behind Competitive Advantage/What makes Ritz Carlton the Prime Choice among Customers

By maintaining its own standards, Ritz-Carlton is recognized as one of the leading brands when it comes to luxury lodging. The company focuses on three main fundamentals to beat competition. Firstly, the location ensures the customers would want to stay in our luxurious hotel. Secondly, the product- creating the most appropriate physical products bearing in mind what our clients need now and what they will need in the nearest future, this requires an investment that ranges from $500,000 to $1,000,000 for each room. This is the platform. Thirdly, the people- our personnel, the ladies and gentlemen in charge of service deliveries to our clients. They bring the platform to life. It satisfies the guests. A new position was created by Ritz management, a pull from the systems department of the hotel management information, known as the concierge. The guests get any technical support they require for the running their computer and technology-based businesses with services that run from Mondays through Fridays. Overall, the customer service has greatly improved. The moral of the works at Ritz Carlton has also improved (Koutroumanis, 2011).

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel group is a good example of organizations where human performance delivers very sustainable and competitive benefit. Employees at Ritz Carlton are allowed to engage in creative measures to make customers feel special on their wedding days or birthdays. They can spend as much as $2, 000 on guests without waiting for managerial approval. The culture which permits the investment of time and money to enhance customers feeling of satisfaction helps increase customer's loyalty and patronage. Employees do not spend companies' money on more expensive hotel room decor or faster room services; they only find more creative ways to foster their relationship with the guests. This is one dominant factor that has sustained the success at Ritz Carlton. If managerial approvals were to be obtained before an employee could spend company's money on guests, most creative ideas and innovation created to please the guests would have died as ideas. Other competitors can easily match Ritz Carlton's luxurious rooms and very fast room services, but when it comes to employee behaviors, Ritz Carlton remains unbeaten (Seidman, 2011).

Question 2

Ritz Carlton workers, referred to as 'ladies and gentlemen' are known to write up their special moments and share them with their managers. These are known as WOW stories that are related during interactions between workers and clients, colleagues, neighbors and residents. Organizations that resort to storytelling end up creating a healthy work environment that help stimulate employee commitment. Apart from that, it also goes a long way to spread joy and happiness. These WOW stories are shared during daily pep talks and meetings that involve all workers all over the world (Ritz-Carlton, 2014).

As a matter of fact, such WOW stories provide the customers with very satisfactory services. This is as a result of the fact that they are quite inspirational-Stories of excellence inspire people to do their best and be the best they can be; they are able to recognize and demonstrate admiration of greatness-both recognition and appreciation are known to be two of the most powerful motivators known to man. Both human needs are addressed by sharing stories of employees achieving great feats; they have very clear and compelling ways of communicating your Behavioral Vision-Your Behavioral Vision is made up of all employee behaviors that help make your Vision, Mission, Brand Promise, as well as your business goals very possible. Sharing inspiring stories of great customer service helps reinforce your own vision of what a great customer service should look like.