In the hospitality industry, effective maintenance management is a key factor that can make or break a guest’s experience—“if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” doesn’t apply when it comes to hotel maintenance. Typically, guests have a short-term stay within the facility and treat this stay as their “home away from home.” Therefore, the time to make an impression is brief and most guests will expect a clean, functional, safe and overall positive experience. Below are some tips that specifically address your guests’ needs as they relate to a maintenance management plan:
- Control Building Odor. A top complaint in hotels can be the odors that guests are smelling throughout the building. Make sure you are treating your building regularly with odor control products in every room. A good way to treat the whole building at once is by using odor eliminators in your HVAC system. This will ensure that it flows through every part of the building. You can also treat the rooms individually with odor eliminators.
- Proper Training for Employees. Make sure your employees are properly trained on how to use all products and where to use them.
- Maintain Clog-free Drains. Guests don’t want to hop in the shower and instantly be standing in a puddle of water. Make sure you are treating those showers and sinks with a drain opener to avoid them getting clogged.
- Upkeep of Designated Smoking Areas. A dirty or smelly smoking area can be a huge turn off for non-smokers staying at your hotel. Frequently, the smoking area is located very close to the entry of the hotel. You don’t want smoke to be the first thing your guests notice when they arrive. Make sure you are cleaning and treating the area with an odor control product.
- Timely Response to Work Orders. Respond to requests and work orders in a timely manner. Work orders will also give you an idea where maintenance might be failing, so make sure you are paying attention and analyzing what requests are coming in, as well as the frequency of the requests.
- Be Observant of Safety Hazards. Keep an eye on anything that could be considered a safety hazard in and around your facility. Things such as trips and falls and illness spreading from building-related issues can end up costing your facility greatly. Make sure you are walking the facility weekly to examine any hazards that might arise.
- Keep Water Quality High. Failure to use water treatment solutions at your facility can lead to major issues, such as legionella, which can cause serious illness and death in some cases. Make sure you are protecting yourself and using preventative maintenance in order to avoid an outbreak in your facility.
- Maintain Temperature Control. A frequent complaint from guests is the temperature of the rooms. If your systems aren’t working properly, the complaints can start pouring in. Make sure you are maintaining your HVAC system and practicing preventative maintenance at least twice a year. You can find a great HVAC preventative checklist here.
- Commit to a Preventative Maintenance Schedule. It is easy to fall behind on your preventative maintenance schedule, but it is very hard to catch up once you fall behind. Try your best to stay on top of your schedule when possible. This is much easier to do when you have fewer emergencies to deal with.
- Smile! Remember to keep the customer service at your facility a top priority, as this can greatly affect your guest’s experience.
Chemsearch FE’s goal is to be a facility management resource partner providing facilities with solutions that allow them to stay on top of a maintenance management plan. Our team’s commitment to your facility through our expertise and product solutions will assist in meeting guest and budget expectations and creating a positive guest experience overall.
Our representatives at Chemsearch FE are extremely knowledgeable about these topics as well as many other facility maintenance areas. If you’d like to discuss further facility solutions with one of our resource management experts, please click here and we will get someone in touch with you soon!
