My Hypocrisy

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1

The economy sucks ass right now, and it shows at this hotel. My occupancy is down because less people are travelling, so myself and the owner decided to put coupons in the Room Saver books that you get at rest stops for a slightly lower price on the rooms than we would normally charge. Obviously, I had to pay for this advertisement, but I did the math on it and figured my return on investment would be worth it.

Anyway, now everytime someone comes in with one of the damn things I try to upsell them. I do everything but roll my eyes when I see someone come in with the damn coupon book. And, if I fail to upsell them I usually mutter something along the lines of, “cheap son of a bitch,” when they are out of earshot.

I mean, the plan worked. The return on investment has been better than anticipated because the ads started running three months ago and we have already made in profits from the rooms that the ads brought in enough to pay for the ads plus a few grand more. I imagine that one when the ads (semi-annual) get done running I will have made about $22000 in profits due to having the ads.

Really, it is probably more like $18,000 because I have to factor in the people that would have found their way here anyway and paid a higher room charge, but still.

So, what I can’t figure out is what problem do I have with the cheap asses that come in with the coupon books, when the desired effect (to bring in the cheap asses) has worked?

2

sheets and pillows on that bed? well, that is an extra $20…

-Imp

3

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ greed gets to all of us. Give us an inch we will look longingly at that mile teasing us just out of our reach. Its your hunter gathering mode kicking in. A farmer that does not get all of their wheat in in time loses, they will kill themselves to harvest on time. Are they greedy? Nope, they just realize there is a limit of time and a limit on how much they can actually do.The more they get in, in the limited time they have, the better off they are. You are just trying to harvest before it all runs out. Its not hypocrisy. Its just survival kicking in. Moods/emotions are affected by survival modes. Don’t sweat it. We all turn to bastards or bitches at some points in our lives. :smiley: :laughing:

4

I suspect that you have problems with the “cheap bastards” because you thought you were offering them a fair price without the discount. The easiest way to shift perspectives is to remember that what something is worth is what someone will pay on the day you need the money. :laughing: If they are spending money with you, they are doing you a favor.

Isn’t it interesting that you look for “good buys” when furnishing those rooms, when purchasing cleaning supplies, when hiring people to wash the windows? Those “cheap bastards” are doing exactly what you are doing… :smiley:

5

You know, Tentative, I think I liked KrisWest’s take on it a little better, but have to agree with both of you.

KrisWest: You are completely right. My semi-annual contract negotiation (raise) is pretty much based on three factors, gross room revenue, ADR (The average price paid for a room) and occupancy percentage, more or less in that order. Gross room revenue should only be down a little thanks to these coupons, occupancy percentage will be down about 10% unless something drastic happens, but my ADR is going to be for shit. Oh well, I guess there is always the January-June period to hopefully work on getting the 5% raise I always shoot for. The way this half-year has been going, I will take 3% and be damn grateful.

It’s not just about my money, though, I want to see the hotel succeed. I work the evenings because I like guest interaction, I want to be the guy that sells all of these people because not only am I the most qualified to do it, I am the one most likely to try. The clerks and nigth auditor could give two shits about the ADR I assume, and if a customer is giving them a tough time they may get frustrated and just let the customer walk without giving a true sales effort. I tried to get the owner to do some kind of a commission system where the desk clerk gets 1% of all of the walk-ins they get and 2% on any upsells on resrevations and it gets added to the check, but he won’t bite. That’s why you guys will almost never see me on Sundays, I’m always off on Sundays, so few people walk-in that I could give two-shits what happens, besides, everyone should have at least one full day off every week.

Tentative: You’re absolutely right also. Let the hotel manager that has never went to a hotel liquidation sale cast the first stone. I look for the best deals, I try to save as much money as possible for the hotel, and here I sit and complain when people are trying to watch their personal pocketbooks. It’s not all that bad, though, I’ve rented rooms at 70-80% off if there is a family in a hard way, or a travelling guy whose cheap son-of-a-bitch company only gives him a $45 (including taxes) room allowance or something like that, so it goes both ways. But, when some son of a bitch comes in here with a $3,000 watch on and proudly presents his cute little coupon, man that pisses me off.

Although, I do the same thing they do. I never stay at a hotel outside of this franchise and it has nothing to do with brand loyalty, it has to do with my rate is $25 a night wherever I go!

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I am and have been both employee and employer. From the perspective of employer I found that if you pay minimum wage, you get minimum work done and minimum worthwhile employees. You pay a living wage you make money, they make money and things are done well. From the employee perspective: How the heck do you expect to get money in your pocket if you don’t do your darndest to make your employer money? It amazes me that folks can’t figure these two perspectives out. Hang in there. Do you plan to be an owner in the industry someday?

7

I see what you are saying. Actually, I pay about $1.50 an hour over the state minimum wage to a starting desk clerk and give a quarter an hour raise every three months. The problem is they know what they are getting an hour and they know they can let every single customer walk out that door and I still have to pay them for their physical presence.

An owner in the industry, not quite but sort of. I want to open a bed and breakfast (Like a 4-6 room deal) when I retire, just enough money to break even is all I want from it. Of course, I do not plan to retire from the hotel industry, boredom may be starting to creep in a little bit, I’m probably going to switch to something else in two years if I can make the same amount of money and not have to endure going back to college for a different degree when I already have one.

8

Ahh, but, see you left no incentive in their brains. We have always told our folks the more the company makes, the more you make.They always got their raises but, if profits increase then they also recieved bonuses quarterly. Its amazing how that works to get people to work. You give them a stake in the business and that creates incentive. You can even do a bonus competition. Put the bonuses on rates so that their bonuses are in line with how many customers they sell to. John attracts more than Jack, John gets the higher bonus. We did this in the off season primarily. It increased the company profits and put a litte extra cash in the pockets of our employees around the holidays. Always a welcome thing.

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I agree completly, the owner, however, is not so easy to convince. Like I said, I’m second on the totem poll around here and handle staffing and schedules, but not payroll.

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Sounds like he needs statistics put in front of him. Where you could find them though I have no clue. Or you could do a short term scaled down version to prove yourself if he promises to reimburse you if it succeeds. That might work.

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I’ve got the statistics. It’s entry level Human Resources Management, really. Now the purests will talk about praise and congratulations…bullshit! Nearly everyone wants more money, and many people want money on top of what they would normally get for a job well done.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, Kriswest, but I also see the other side. The owner’s deal is we pay entry level front desk clerks better than any of our competitor’s and all we ask in exchange is that they do the job that both he and I up front made them aware they would have to do.

Incentives don’t always work, I supervised a telemarketing sales place at one point in time, and no matter what amounts of money or 40-inch TV’s you threw at 85% of those lazy sons of bitches you couldn’t get them to do anything. You talk about a second selling effort, you’re lucky to get a first selling effort out of them! At least the people that work for me here try to get the sale once, and all of them either have respect for me or do a good job pretending to.

12

You know I wonder if its about the type of person. See we have never had issues about incentives and working hard with our employees. But then again our work was hard and if you could not hack it, you quit with in a week. If you could hack it you had to have drive in you somewere. Installing and repairing lawn sprinklers in the desert is hot nasty hard work. And we demanded perfection on each system so that made it even rougher. The job weeded out those that had no drive.
I don’t think hotel work, telemarketing or most other businessess has such an arduous weeding process. Too bad there is not a way to find the people with drive for your business, it would make your world alot simpler.

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That is very true, the other thing is, people complaining that the lawn sprinkler system sucks also helps you weed out poor employees. I mean, it is very easy not to piss off the guests, but selling is an entirely different thing. Anyone that says being a front desk clerk is not a sales job has never worked in a hotel.

The employees at the telemarketing place were just awful. Now, the call centers themselves either get paid by the sale or by the hour and the vast majority are by the hour, so they want to staff as many people as possible, as a result, you end up with people that aren’t fit to work at goddamn Burger King.

The donation telemarketing is different, the companies have to be more picky there. How many of the donation calls work is lets say the State Troopers Association calls you, well, they are not Troopers it is a telemarketing place. The telemarketing place pays the State Troopers Association $500,000 (or more) guaranteed money for the calling lists and then gives a percentage of what the people donate (generally 10-15%). Now, that $500,000 is lost money as is the percentage, so you need to hire people that can sell very well to make that up because every lead that doesn’t get sold may have been sold by a better seller and calling lists are only good for so long. Even if the telemarketing firm does not draw $500,000 in total donations the still have to pay the 500K to the Troopers Association.

The telemarketing center I worked at (which I am still bound not to disclose who they nor the client were) sold credit cards and credit card products and got paid by the client by the hour, even though there are company sales goals that it would be a good idea to hit the most important thing is to call all of your allotted hours on each individual program. Hours are alotted by the month so if you have a program in danger of not hitting hours, then you pull people from another program and train them to the program in jeopardy inadequately just so you don’t leave any money on the table.

Then there are your inbound places. Most of the time when you call customer service or tech support for a company you are not actually calling the company you do business with but an independent third-party company. Now, customer service is the name of the game here as they get paid by the other company by the hour, but you also want to upsell people to products or upgrades they do not already have because you usually get about 20% of that sale, and if it is a monthly service charge you usually get everything for the first month. The employees there are better off because if you are good at sales but somewhat lacking in actual customer service, they will keep you, and if you are great at customer service, but can’t sell Aquafina in the Sahara, they will still keep you.

The final type of outbound telemarketing is a company that gets paid by the sale, not at all by the hour. They will fire you just as quickly as the donation places if you can’t sell. Most of these companies fold quickly and on average, if any of the above companies take a project like this they usually drop it within 2-3 months.

I would mention political and survey calling but these are one time contracts usually paid by the hour to the company and are handled by the above types of companies. There are very few telemarketing firms engaged exclusively in political or survey calling they would not survive.

The thing that sucked for our company was everytime we would get a good employee who could sell and follow all of the rules they would usually pick up six months or so of experience and then go to an inbound place. The average employee turnover (known in the industry as attrition) is about 130%…monthly.

14

130%! Damn!

There is a new project down here, A group gets employers to help employees buy houses. In order to keep the turn overs lower. It is supposed to be profitable for the state, profitable for employers and the employee. Theory is keep the two invested together, work goes up, profits go up and taxes fill the coffers if folks are all invested in the community. It will be interesting to see if it actually works or if its dropped.

I tried telemarketing once, selling extended warranties… I could not do it. I could not hear an old person’s voice on the phone or a harried parent and try to talk them out of hard earned money. I lasted one day. Now, I could sell with a clear concience to our customers because they had to call us, they wanted a system or repairs , I just had to convince them to go with us not our competitors, that is easy.

While I find telemarketers have an uncanny ability to irritate and call at precisely the worst time of the day, I do understand that the job is not easy.

15

Yeah, inside sales is definitely much easier.

Contrary to popular belief, outside selling is only a hard job if you don’t have the personality for it. Being sarcastic, being cussed out on the phone suits me fine because I give the customer everything they just said to me and better when they hang up.

I remember when one guy threatened to kill me, that was funny, I was not a supervisor at that time. I felt like being a dick and didn’t think I was being monitored (I was, but my supervisor thought it was funny so she left me alone)

“Listen, asshole, you’re going to kill me? Let me tell you something cocksucker, I have your name and address right here in front of me. Did you know you live within fifty miles of me? You don’t know what my name is, you don’t know what I look like. Anytime, anywhere, I can be there, you will not know. Do you really believe it wise to disrespect someone that you don’t know, I have two fucking felonies under my belt (not true) and you fucking think I would hesitate for one second to rip your fucking heart out of your chest?”

At this point this guy wasa breathing hard and sounded like he was about to cry:

“No, man, I’m just fucking with you, have a good day, if you have any questions about this call, call 1---****!”