Pegasus Soultions/Utell, Sao Paulo, Brazil
“We saw an increase in our mystery shopping scores immediately after the training was completed. It was like night and day. It impacted our results significantly. We had conducted our quality training, but whatever Doug had said or how he presented it just seemed to click with the agents. They took it to heart, they knew right away what they should be doing differently on the calls, the criteria they had to meet, the steps they had to follow. Something just turned on and they got it. The scores were average and then after the training they were where we needed to be and we were meeting our goals. It was well worth the time the money and the effort put in to make it happen. We did truly see an impact from it.”
- Bobby Robinson, Director of Voice Reservations Services
“Doug and the reservations team at Pegasus/Utell in Sao Paolo, Brazil"
Kimpton Hotels & Resorts, St. John, New Brunswick
“I am really excited with the relationship that Kimpton Hotels has with Kennedy Training Network. Their philosophies integrated really well with the programs we already have here at Kimpton. We like to build special moments for guests throughout their stay. In working with Doug Kennedy, we were able to customize the content of our existing monitoring form to be able to integrate a more conversational selling style. This is taking us to that extra degree - that one step higher - in enabling us to carry on casual, wonderful conversations with the guests. The guest’s seem to relax with this conversational selling style and they offer a little more of themselves too. It takes away from that transactional selling and makes a better selling of the service. With investigative selling, we could anticipate all of their needs before they arrive and relay those to the hotel.
“As to our trainer Doug Kennedy, the agent’s connect with him really well. He just represents what hospitality is all about. He is out there helping all of us do what we do better.”
- Bernice McCurdy, Vice President of Operations
“From Left: Bernice McCurdy, V.P. of Reservations, Doug, and Kathleen Reidenbach, V.P. of Revenue and Distribution, Kimpton Hotels.
“Anticipating a tough year in the economy, I knew we had to take special measures. Coming into December of 2008, we were already in a decline in excess of 15% and getting worse. We did an initial two day training session for all of our reservation sales people and saw an immediate response. We also started the KTN mystery shopping and coaching reports, which were absolutely critical not only for our sales agents but also for our trainers to understand how to coach.
“Doug came back about six weeks later and customized a secondary training for Twiddy & Co. and that really helped with the buy-in. All of our people could recognize right away, ‘Hey he knows who we are, what we do, and what the challenges we have here! He’s not just repeating the same old concepts but instead making it for our area and our situations.’
“Toward the end of the January and into February the conversion rate started showing some progress. Then in mid February we started exceeding prior year results, which was remarkable given the economy then. From the third week in February on, we exceeded last year’s results every single week. On June 2, we celebrated the milestone of exceeding last year’s overall same date unit sales, and I am sure that we are the only one in the local area that can claim that, perhaps even nationally. So we are sold on KTN!”
- Jon Summerton, V.P. of Operations
“We realized we weren’t in the business of hospitality to help facilitate securing the reservation. I think it became pretty clear we were in the business of taking orders. (The challenge was) switching from ‘You want this home on this date?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Your last name is X?’ ‘Okay, done thank you very much…’ to ‘How can I help you?’ and then listening to the guests needs.”
“Now, you can walk through our office and just hear the conversations we are having with guests and you just say ‘Wow, I don’t know how we didn’t do this before.’ Just the tone they now take; the reviews we get now from our guests. We know folks are shopping around much more these days. Now (the guests) are saying ‘Hey I have called a few companies and you guys are by far the best in terms of hospitality.’ I think anyone outside our immediate area competition should use Kennedy Training Network!
- Ross Twiddy, Marketing Director
Caption: Doug and some of the guest services team at Twiddy & Co
