Tag Archives: front desk

Sales Manager gives a personal welcome :)

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I stayed late as I promised the coordinators of my military convention. Tonight was their meet & greet. I enjoy stopping at the tables during their banquet to give them a personal welcome. I’ve learned to take a pad and paper with me so I can write down what they may need….more hand towels, my remote doesn’t work, my key card won’t work, etc…….. Oh my, dare I ask.

They were the loudest military group and liveliest. Most of the males headed right for the bar after check-in. Not even the coordinator expected that. Navy fellows, they like their beverages. Overall they are very happy and I saw a lot of smiling faces – some red from too much alcohol….lol.

After I finished my notes, I went to the desk and contacted everyone who could correct their problem and asked them to do it. I can’t leave until I know that everyone has been taken care of. When I finally left, a group of men were hanging out in front of the hotel and for some reason they decided to show me all of their tattoo’s….oh, thank you, just want I wanted to see after a 12 hour day.

Still no internet. And the renovations are getting worse. I shuffled my trace calls files, binder and things I needed to try and find a desk with a phone. It was impossible and after a couple tries – people that were scheduled off but came in – I finally went back to my office and took off the sheet on my desk that was covered in dust. Everything is covered in dust sheet or no sheet. Thank goodness I’m only chunky since I had just enough room to squeeze myself into my chair behind my desk…..ok, I exaggerated somewhat.

I heard the Opera System was awesome but I’m not seeing that. I’m not sure what happened….with the software, training – is it our fault, is it there’s. Something isn’t right and I have seen nothing but problems everyday, wasting every one’s time. Rate codes missing, groups missing or being coded incorrectly, incorrect preferred rates. So many rate issues and I hear people complaining about their rate everyday at the desk. Our staff doesn’t even seem sincere about it either.

If you booked your hotel room at $100 and have PRINTED confirmation, then you check out and the room rate was $150 – you would be pretty mad. You would be mad as a guest because my desk would do nothing about it but stand there and look stupid and argue that they will adjust nothing off. Boy, I’m Italian and Irish and if you get me going, good luck! By the time I’m done I would have paid nothing. Let’s apologize and correct the problem. We are turning off people everyday who can drive 2 seconds away and stay at another hotel. Why would they come back? Not to mention that complaints that are coming through from our Franchiser and additional charges we get from having too many complaints. Our franchise scores have dropped and we just made an “A”. Not anymore. Someone has to fix this.

Next week we are in training all week for the Opera Sales Program. Oh goody.

Good luck selling tomorrow!

Pure Energy

A New Dawn for The Screamin’ Sales Manager

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Today I was pretty busy. I did some soliciting over the phone this morning working on trying to get some appointments for next week. Finally all of my letters went out and are completed. And my traces are caught up. Since we don’t have any sales program in the office, I still use the old trace system writing down the group name on index cards. We even still use the big “bibles” for our function bookings. Pretty amazing and what a pain. I waited for my tour bus to arrive tonight…est 5pm…just 16 rooms and found out that they weren’t arriving until after 10pm. Everything was all ready for them so I left to go home about 6:30pm.

I have almost 16 years experience in the hotel industry and I have worked in every department with the exception of Housekeeping….can’t even keep my own home clean! My most recent hotel – full service mid class – is just under 350 rooms with 15,000 square feet of flexible meeting space.

We are located 2 miles of an airport so we draw a lot of business from the airlines and distress passengers. The hotel is newly renovated but still has area’s that could look better and there are projects that we are still working on. They renovated for over 3 years so a lot that has been done is looking worn now. There was no preventative maintenance program ever in place. Yes, I have never experienced a 3 years renovation plan either until now.

I’ve been there almost 2 years to date working mostly as Director of Sales in a 3.5 man office – p/t secretary, 2 catering sm and me the DOS…by 2008 we were down to 1 catering sm (1 had to be let go) and myself and finally I got more hours for the secretary to work with the Catering sm. I mostly booked SMERFE groups. We did increase sales but not enough although we did make budget 9x out of 12. Still many service issues and rude staff. When the new GM came aboard about 2 months ago, I simply was tired of being beat up by my guest’s and the back stabbing, gosh. I asked to be a Sales Manager and for them to bring in someone new to handle this mess.

My new boss is pretty cool and I like her. So I was asked to work in Corporate Transient Segment which I did for 2 weeks and then I was asked to take on the SMERFE Sales Manager position that they were interviewing for. Although at first I was a bit offended, but when I thought about it I realized that I really enjoyed working with the groups….so I’m settled now and plugging away. I have the gift of patience and I’m very friendly so I fit well with all types of SMERFE clients.

Most of the Management Team was let go and new people are being brought in. At first I felt like I was walking on eggs shells each day as these new people were so hard to read. They were and still are always behind closed doors and you just don’t know what is going on or if you are going to be the next one fired. I’m in my 40′s now and I simply want to settle down, book tons of business and have some fun.

I don’t have an interest in hotel hopping anymore as like I did when I was younger simply to make a few bucks more. I did think about looking for a new sales job but my positive benefits list simply out weighed the negative. I like the staff and I know the product and I want to be a part of the team that turns this hotel around. I don’t feel like that everyday though….

Good luck selling tomorrow. I’ll be back.