Hotel front desk training: 9 steps to stellar service

It’s true that many of the skills that hotel staff needs, like friendliness, should come naturally, but you still need to invest in hotel front desk training to ensure stellar service. Aside from being the first point of contact for check-ins, a front office employee is also often the go-to person for questions and guest complaints.

They need a range of skills to handle this variety of tasks. Knowing that they’ve been taught all the soft and hard skills gives them the confidence to tackle everything from managing bookings to upselling guests.

What topics should hotel front desk training cover?

1. Empathy

Traveling takes an emotional toll on guests. From exciting bucket-list holidays to stressful, deal-breaking business trips, your front desk staff needs to be sensitive to a wide range of emotions.

Showing empathy can prevent emotions like excitement or fatigue from turning into disappointment or anger. Plus, if there's no need to use it to de-escalate a situation, it will help your hotel front office to connect with guests on a deeper level.

While empathy comes more naturally to some hotel staff, you can teach employees the appropriate responses for common scenarios like overbooking, lost baggage, or unexpected room charges. You can, for example, use role-play so that your agents have an opportunity to practice applying empathy to situations they’re likely to encounter during their career.

2. Communication skills

Effective communication is more than merely greeting guests. It also extends beyond your verbal prowess and calls for active listening to what’s said and implied.

- Greeting and welcoming a guest

A genuine greeting communicates more than simply acknowledging a guest’s arrival. It shows that they’re welcome and valued.

When welcoming hotel guests, front desk staff should be taught to:

• Greet guests with a smile, which will help them feel comfortable in an unfamiliar setting

• Have a firm, three-second handshake with the palm facing up

• Make eye contact to acknowledge guests and build a connection

• Read the guest’s body language and adjust their conversation accordingly.

- Active listening

Active listening enables staff to identify the underlying message that’s being communicated. It helps guests to feel heard, puts them at ease, and can even prevent conflict.

To practice active listening, you need to be completely present. Maintain eye contact and avoid planning how you will respond to help you remain focused on the guest in front of you. Before you reply, first use paraphrasing and open, follow-up questions to double-check that you have understood the guest correctly.

These steps show that you’re genuinely interested in the guest and prevent you from suggesting an irrelevant solution or promotion.

- Reading non-verbal cues

Along with active listening, you also need to read the meaning behind non-verbal cues to formulate the best response for the situation. For example, guests who avoid eye contact or are standing with crossed arms won’t be receptive to upselling deals.

3. Customer service excellence

During training, recap the basics of good guest service but don’t stop there. Customer service excellence is about personalization and identifying guest needs before they arise. To do this, your staff needs to be efficient and attentive.

Teach them which systems they can put in place so that they can free up time that can be used to get to know the guests better. In addition to processes, also give them crash courses on the different types of guests. For example, luxury travelers will be delighted to learn about your premium rooms and gourmet food options. Armed with this knowledge and more time to focus on the guest in front of you, you can start to offer a guest-centric service.

Not only should their suggestions be personalized, but also the way they interact with guests. Dialogue should flow naturally. Heavily scripted conversations will prevent front desk agents from connecting with guests on a deeper level which is needed to convert first-time guests into repeat business. Even if the guest never has a reason to return to your hotel, the time the front desk staff invests in creating rapport can lead to a positive review, which can encourage another guest to make a reservation.

4. Phone etiquette

It sounds antiquated, but phone etiquette remains essential in service-oriented industries like hotels. Even if most of your bookings are completed directly via your site, and email is used for follow-up communication, it’s important to keep in mind that internal phone calls are often taken in front of guests. Your hotel will also be judged on how it communicates telephonically with other staff.

Whether it’s an internal phone call or one between a staff member and potential guest, it’s important to remember that they’re acting as a hotel representative. As such, their communication should at all times be professional.

Considering that texting is the preferred communication method nowadays, it becomes even more crucial that your training program allocates time for staff to practice these skills. It will help to make them more comfortable. Unlike texting, which requires no direct interaction, phone calls are more daunting.

5. Safety procedures

In addition to money-generating strategies like upselling, you should teach all your employees life-saving skills. Ensure they know which protocols should be followed in the case of an emergency and evacuation. They should also be taught where essential equipment like a fire extinguisher is located and how to use it.

As these skills aren’t used daily, regularly arrange safety drills. Also, make it standard practice to inform new hires about safety procedures before they report for their first day.

6. Upselling

In the modern hospitality industry, front desk agents are also expected to sell. However, for most, this skill doesn’t come naturally. This is why upselling should be an integral part of training.

Together with the Heyward Group, one of Oaky’s partners, we provide this type of training to hotel teams to help hoteliers unlock their full upsell potential and generate revenue. Penn Chai, the group’s lead consultant and a front desk upselling expert, highlights that effective upselling requires

1. Good communication skills and psychology basics

2. Marketing strategies,

3. Solid service knowledge.

Knowledge should extend beyond the hotel’s products and service and basic sales tactics like bundling and include the psychology behind decision-making too. Focusing on these three elements instills confidence in the front desk team and makes this process enjoyable and rewarding.

Formal training also ensures that there’s consistency between how different employees approach upselling. This is especially important for luxury or service-focused hotels where maintaining the hotel’s reputation is a key performance indicator.

Not only should employees ensure that they communicate the deals correctly, but that they apply upselling practices consistently. For upselling, to drive long-term success and generate high conversion rates, it needs to become part of your daily operations.

When starting with upselling, many hoteliers face team resistance. Resistance to upselling is often tied to a lack of confidence or failure to understand its goals. That’s why Penn Chai prefers to use the term “upserving”. As servicing guests comes more naturally than selling to most front desk agents, describing upselling in this way can help them to see that their recommendations will also improve the guest experiences.

7. Conflict management

Dealing with conflict in the hospitality industry requires confidence and grace. With this attitude and problem-solving and crisis-management skills, you can neutralize negative situations or even turn them into a positive experience. It’s a good idea to use a step-by-step guide when conflict arises. The front desk agent should always first acknowledge the issue, express an apology, and use empathy to communicate they understand before suggesting a solution.

You can even go as far as to create a script. That said, responses should still be genuine and adjusted to the specific situation.

While conflict management skills are essential, your goal should always be to prevent conflict. For example, with a proactive upselling strategy, you can prevent overbooking, which often leads to conflict and guest dissatisfaction.

8. Documentation and reporting

Front desk agents should learn how to record, manage, and retrieve guest information accurately while following hotel policies and data protection regulations.

This section of the training might cover the following aspects:

• Guest profile management in a PMS: Guest profiles serve as a valuable tool to personalize interaction. You can, for example, use it to identify loyal guests and make a note of their preferences so that you can know what their expectations are before they check in.

• Check-in and checkout documentation: For operational efficiency, offer a checklist of each task that must be completed during these crucial touchpoints.

• Billing and payment records: Accuracy is key to maintaining guest satisfaction and financial growth. Staff should know how to keep these records up to date in real time and communicate details tactfully.

• Shift and handover reports: These reports should document VIP arrivals, pending guest requests, and issues to ensure service continuity and excellence.

9. Software and technology training

From property management systems (PMS) to point-of-sale systems (POS), front desk agents use many tools.

Proper tech training will ensure front desk agents know how to make the most of the tools in your hotel tech stack. In addition to that, it will also improve their time management skills. The reality is that front desk staff has multiple tasks to handle. Knowing how to use all the features of the tools in your tech stack will reduce the chances of dropping the ball.

That’s why when you’re adding new tools, it’s crucial to make sure they can be integrated with each other to reduce time spent on multiple tools management and speed up training.

How do I train my front office staff?

In-person training

While in-person training is more challenging to organize, it doubles up as an opportunity for fellow staff members to get to know each other better.

You can, for example, invite employees from other departments like marketing or housekeeping to do live presentations during which they share more about their operations.

With this exercise, front desk agents can see how their role fits into the hotel’s operations, helping them to feel valued and identify other areas where their skills can help.

Online training

Hospitality courses, certificate programs, and a hospitality LMS (a learning management system) that streamlines training across departments are some of the online options.

What makes online courses and programs an attractive method is that they offer convenience and flexibility. You can typically complete them at your own pace, key for hospitality staff who typically works full-time during the day.

However, they offer limited practical components which are needed to develop hands-on experience. For example, an in-person certificate course will be better for a life-saving skill like cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

How to implement front desk training?

1. Create a structure

Develop a structure of your training program to ensure consistency in your efforts. Outline clear topics your front agents should learn (empathy, conflict management, upselling, etc.)

Whether you opt for in-person, online, or a hybrid approach, you also need to provide notes. Not only will this serve as study material, but it also gives attendees a better idea of what they can expect.

The best approach when structuring any training program is to combine a few formats like video, role-play, presentation, etc. This way, you cater to various learning styles. Let the amount of time available for training guide you.

Once again, use a combination of worksheets they need to complete during the training and resources like checklists and templates, which they can refer back to after training.

2. Set up goals

Training goals should contribute to overall hotel success, such as improving guest satisfaction scores, boosting revenue, and increasing operational efficiency.

Use your team’s current knowledge and skill level to guide you when deciding on your goals. This way, they will remain realistic and fill specific needs.

Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals to track progress. Examples include:

• Reduce check-in time to under 3 minutes per guest

• Achieve an 85%+ positive guest feedback rating

• Increase upsell conversions by 10% within three months.

3. Provide feedback and evaluation

Worksheets can serve as an opportunity to apply knowledge learned practically and be used as a feedback tool. Set time aside during the training so that attendees can share and discuss their answers.

Conduct regular assessments and role-playing exercises to track progress and adjust training strategies if needed.

In addition to the content covered, feedback sessions should also focus on uncovering areas where staff still struggle.

4. Reinforce training with continuous learning

To keep your staff up to speed with hotel trends and developments in technology, host monthly refresher sessions. It’s also important to create a workplace culture that encourages agents to attend industry workshops and webinars.

You can also provide mentorship programs. This way, more experienced staff members receive recognition for the value they have to offer, while new team members can learn tried-and-tested tips.

Final thoughts

Training offers you the opportunity to reinvest in the staff behind the success of your hotel. If your front desk agents know they are well-trained, they will develop a stronger sense of confidence and new energy to go the extra mile to make a good first impression.

Focus on keeping staff updated about the latest trends and refreshing essential skills that they might not use daily. As there are several topics to cover, it can never be a one-time event.

And, why would you want to limit it to an annual event that you force staff to attend?

With access to interesting resources like video, training can be both functional and fun.