When I spoke with Alexander Pichel, he was general manager of Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta. The book notes that he has since moved to Grand Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel & Residences Emirates Pearl in Abu Dhabi. He appears in two chapters, and in both he supplies a sequence rather than a slogan, which is why I lean on him when the argument needs to be put in the right order.
Pichel speaks first to empowerment, and the phrase that does the work in his account is the first one: after training your team. Training is the precondition. Once the right people are in place and trained, the leader’s job is to trust them to do the right thing at the right time, because the team serves on the frontlines and interacts with guests far more often than the general manager does, whatever the general manager’s years in the business.
“After training your team, empower them to act” Alexander Pichel, then general manager, Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta
He speaks second to recovery, and his sequence is the cleanest in the book. When a guest experience falls short, the first move is to listen, carefully and without prejudice, and to empathize with the frustration. The second is to apologize honestly and offer a solution. The third is the claim the chapter rests on: the unhappy guest, recovered well, becomes an ambassador of the property. That sounds like consolation and is, in the experience of the operators I interviewed, arithmetic. The guest whose stay went perfectly has little to tell. The guest whose evening broke and was repaired has a story with a turn in it, and the property is the hero of that turn.
“Take the time to genuinely hear a complaint, and empathize with that frustration. Listening is half the battle. Second, you must honestly apologize and offer a solution. You must capitalize on this opportunity to turn an unhappy guest into an ambassador of the property.” Alexander Pichel, then general manager, Hotel Indonesia Kempinski Jakarta
In the book, Alexander Pichel appears in Chapter 5, Giving the Keys, where his ordering of training before empowerment opens the chapter’s argument and is extended by Pedro Dias on continuous learning, and in Chapter 10, The Recovery, where his listen, apologize, resolve sequence carries the chapter to its largest claim about what the recovered guest learns that the satisfied guest never does.