Customer Empathy

I have been watching the growth of Chinese visitors to Hawaii ... and have been advocating that the hospitality industry do much more to understand their needs.  I've heard from tour operators and others that, to properly service this market, hotels need to have Mandarin speaking staff members available 24/7, include amenities that are preferred by the Chinese (i.e.loose tea in addition to coffee makers in the room), include Mandarin television channels in the in-room entertainment system, and more. 

Intellectually, I understood the importance of these considerations.  Recently, however, they came home to me viscerally when I stayed in a hotel in Morocco. 

The first issue I encountered was the need to make a local telephone call late at night (my suitcase had been lost and I was trying to track it down).  There were no instructions for making calls in the room, so I called the operator and asked (in English) how I could get an outside line.  The operator obviously spoke very little English.  She first said "you must call from your room."  I said "yes, but how do I get an outside line?"  She said, "I don't understand."  I said, "how do I make a telephone call?"  She repeated, "I don't understand."  And hung up. 

I was also trying to follow a breaking news story (the disappearance of the Malaysian aircraft). Once again, there were no in-room materials for the television.  I was able to find CNN, but it was in French.  It was frustrating to try to follow the news without access to a channel in a language I understand.  (Thank goodness for the internet ... it was my English-language window to the world). 

So now I have experienced the issues and challenges that I only imagined before.  Taking a walk in the customer's shoes is a real eye-opener.