In a recent service audit conducted by IFH® Asia Pacific for the Association of Rooms Division Executives – Best Front Office Award and Best Concierge Award, Singapore hotels demonstrated their exceptional pride and passion to deliver above and beyond the call of duty.
By: Julie Beattie, Director Regional Sales – IFH® Asia Pacific Pte Ltd

The reputation of any hotel could rest at the front door, as it usually sets the scene for both the first and last impressions of guests. Finding motivated and friendly people to fill these posts is, therefore, much more critical than it may seem on the surface. These roles have a direct impact on the personality of the property and more importantly, of the hotel brand. Marketing teams spend enormous amounts of time, money and energy to establish guidelines and values that build the character and soul of the brand – yet, all this can quickly and simply be eroded, in an exchange with Concierge or Front Office personnel. It is these departments that generally have the most interaction with guests during their stay and therefore are the powerbrokers (or breakers) for the success of the hotel. With this in mind, The Association of Rooms Division Executives last year launched a Best Front Office Department and Best Concierge Department Awards competition for hotels in Singapore. IFH® Asia Pacific is proud to continue it’s sponsorship of this annual competition.

IFH® conducted a series of mystery shops between September and October at participating hotels (26 hotels for Best Front Office and 18 hotels for Best Concierge), and evaluated the performances of the Front Office Departments and Concierge Departments with over 150 questions organised into 32 criteria from “Check-in to Check-out”. A selection of mystery guests came from a variety of nationalities, including Singaporeans, to reflect the major source markets of guests staying in Singapore hotels. Of the 26 participating hotels for Best Front Office, 13 represented the Superior category and 13 in the Deluxe category. As for Concierge, the breakdown was 13 in Deluxe and 5 in Superior.

Generally, all the hotels performed well with an overall average score of 82%, the same level as 2007. Front Office average score for all 26 hotels was 80%, down 1% over 2007; while the Concierge average score for the 18 hotels was 86%, 1 percentage point above 2007. Let’s take a more detailed look at how the hotels fared in some key criteria for Front Office and Concierge:

Based on the audit, the Check-in process showed improvement from 2007, going from 61% to 76%, although some areas are still lacking and it seems personnel are putting the customer through a process, rather than an experience::