This article originally appeared on my Substack, “Operator’s Notes.”
The social media campaign and website photos are published. The views sealed the deal. A group has booked a retreat and excitedly waits for the experience you’ve promised. The property and marketing have done their job.
Now the kitchen, housekeeping crew and everyone else on the staff must do theirs.
If you’re surprised to hear property maintenance, housekeeping and guest services are core functions of a retreat property, I strongly suggest reevaluating your interest in the hospitality industry.
I know it sounds obvious. But does it sound important?
Having successfully developed and launched my first retreat property, with two more nearing opening day, I can assure you: You should be thinking about the sheets way earlier than you think.
The critical tedium
If you’re surprised to hear property maintenance, housekeeping and guest services are core functions of a retreat property, I strongly suggest reevaluating your interest in the hospitality industry.
In Part I of this two-part column, I looked at the big-picture decisions that shape a retreat business. Here, I’ll get into the daily grind of delivering the experience and obtaining the information that ensures your retreat is guided by guests, not guesses.
These are the top five operational questions that need attention from aspiring retreat operators long before opening day. (Click here for a prinatable infographic checklist that combines the Top Ten questions from this column and Part I.)
1. [ ] Can your kitchen consistently deliver on the menu and food safety?
It’s easy to get excited about a restaurant concept and launch menu. Let that excitement drive you. Don’t let it dictate your priority list. Purchasing, refrigeration, the cleaning schedule, government compliance — even crisis planning — are just a small few of the considerations that determine whether you’ll actually deliver the meal and experience you promised.
Dinner concepts, great experience ideas, and a great chef does not equal commercial kitchen. We’re talking about a whole different animal.
If you don’t have the experience yourself, talk to people who have done it. Figure out who will order supplies, how food will be stored, how you’ll cover for absent kitchen staff, what happens when the equipment is down, and where the manager on duty can find the crisis-management protocols. Food safety and accompanying requirements and regulations that apply to your operation need experienced, competent attention and oversight.
Kitchen processes and a menu your team can execute consistently is worth more than an ambitious one you’ll keep apologizing for.
2. [ ] Can housekeeping and laundry keep up with your busiest turnover day?
I like to think about housekeeping as the “engine room” of any retreat property.
Get experienced housekeeping leaders involved early and often. Work out how rooms will be cleaned, inspected and resupplied; in what order and on what sequence; and how the team will handle delays.
As you’re sketching that out, put yourself in the shoes of the team members doing the work and constantly ask questions. For example: How many trips between buildings does this schedule require? How much time do those trips take? Does the proposed washer and dryer equipment package suffice for your volume of linens? Does the configuration of the laundry room maximize efficiency? Do you have a reliable vendors and processes in place if equipment goes down?
A plan that works on paper may unravel when someone spends half a shift hauling supplies across the property. Back-to-back departures and arrivals from one sold-out week to the next will quickly prove whether the equipment, linen inventory and staffing plan were realistic. While guests may never see your laundry room, I guarantee they will notice if it can’t keep up.
3. [ ] Can your team solve guest problems and help improve the business?
Excellence in guest service from everyone on the team is easier said than accomplished. If that’s the expectation (and it should be), you’re going to have to put more than a pep talk behind it. Delivering excellent guest service requires excellent training and culture-building. If we haven’t given someone the tools needed to do the job, that’s the business’s fault.
Practice the situations people are likely to face: a room that isn’t ready, an unhappy guest or a request outside the usual routine. Make clear what each person can resolve, when to get help and who can make a decision. Revisit emergency procedures as the team changes. The guest should not have to navigate your management structure to get an answer quickly.
We run a fairly horizontal organization. I think it helps when everyone has a say. Admittedly, it can get a little noisy, but I think the information is worth it.
If you prefer a more hierarchical structure, just make sure it doesn’t impede or complicate management’s ability to be quickly in the loop when a housekeeper spots a recurring problem with a particular issue or the person greeting arrivals keeps getting the same question. Ask your team what they are seeing, assign owners to issues that arise, and communicate the outcome of their input.
People will stop offering ideas if the conversation never goes anywhere.
4. [ ] Are guest conversations shaping both the experience and the marketing?
Plan for talking to as many guests as you can about what went right and what went wrong. Don’t just ask what prompted the booking, but also what guests valued once they got there. The answers will rarely be the same, very often surprise you and always help you understand what they are taking home from the stay.
Use guest conversations to improve the operation and the way you describe it. If guests keep mentioning an experience you barely market, give it another look. If they arrive expecting something different, examine the language and images you’re using that may have given them the wrong impression.
Many people tell us how much they loved slowing down. Thankfully, that one isn’t a surprise, as “slowing down” is foundational to our entire concept. But validation is still valuable. And without frequent intel straight from guests, you’ll be playing a guessing game and run the risk of spinning your wheels to fix things that aren’t broken.
Arm yourself with the guest feedback that will allow you to quickly swat down bad ideas and recognize good ones. Your strategy and decisions should be informed by chatty guests, nor restless guesses.
5. [ ] Can everyone explain the goals you are working toward over the next 90 days?
Hospitality gives everyone plenty to do. Without shared priorities, a team can work hard all quarter pulling in different directions. Choose a few organization-wide goals every 90 days, give each one an owner, and explain how the daily work contributes.
Define the milestone or the improvement you want and how you will decide when it has been accomplished. Check progress while there is still time to adjust.
Don’t leave the strategic plan in the management meeting. The people doing the work need an understanding of the goal, the tools to reach it, and consistent feedback on how things are going.
The staff closest to your guests matter most. Act like it.
When guests tell us they loved slowing down, it’s an affirmation of why I got in the retreat business in the first place. But the fact its working doesn’t make me a visionary. It’s a reflection of the most important thing I’ve learned since the vision took its first steps toward reality: The people working closest to your guests are the most important people to the business.
Embrace that and empower them. Don’t leave the strategic plan in the management meeting.
And, yeah, the view doesn’t hurt.
— Ryan Tyrrell is a Nashville-based entrepreneur and operator with experience building businesses in consumer services, hospitality, digital products and community-focused ventures. Ryan’s background includes growing operating businesses in Middle Tennessee; helping launch a Nashville startup focused on sports fans and real-time community; and contributing to hospitality and retreat-oriented concepts centered on connection, restoration and place.
