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A Five-Star Brand
Elite-level customer service is an integral part of the Four Seasons Hotel brand; over the past forty years the Canadian-based company has transformed the hospitality industry with fastidious dedication to guest and employee relations. Montgomery Place (MP), a CCRC located in Chicago, Illinois, shares a similar vision for the customer experience. With a beautiful, new expansion and a distinctive brand, the leadership at MP wanted to make certain that customer service kept pace with their outstanding product. With service in mind, MP management level staff had the opportunity to experience what they are trained to emulate by spending a day with the leadership of the Four Seasons Hotel.
The day, facilitated by SB&A, took MP staff through a variety of exercises and discussions. One of the key takeaways was the importance of living your brand. A brand needs to be operationalized at every level; this means having staff fully understand the brand platform and promise, and be able to “make that real” through the operational decisions they make. Another key understanding is that a brand is not simply advertising; it is every contact that a resident or prospective resident has with the community.
MP’s teams reviewed their brand promise, discussing ways that each department could “live” the mission through their operations and interactions with prospects, visitors and community members. Trying to make language less institutional and meeting both the expressed and unexpressed needs of each person were a few examples of ways the staff felt they could deliver.
In the next month, Montgomery Place will take this experience one step further, partnering with SB&A to conduct extended training for line staff in health care, dining services, administrative services and housekeeping/maintenance. The management teams will educate each staff member, helping them to understand their importance in shaping the prospects’ attitudes toward the community, the community members’ quality of life as well as Montgomery Place’s visitor experience.
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