Pictured: The Commerce Club Atlanta’s Employee Partners, Octavio Meza, Maitre d’ Rasool Hassan, and Gabriella Green, in the Club’s Maynard-Jackson Room
Autobiographies. First-hand accounts. Testimonies. Whatever one is pursuing, there is nothing more satisfying than getting the facts straight from the source, the honey from the hive. Business, in Atlanta or elsewhere, is no exception.
Sites like Yelp!, Trip Advisor, and Angie’s List, not to mention the roughly 400 or so social media platforms that are in use today, provide reviews that can quickly make or break a company’s reputation. We are living in the day of the consumer (the skeptical consumer, if we are to be entirely honest). Big business knows it no longer runs the show, and good, authentic feedback, unforced, can often do as much for a company – maybe more so – than can a flashy, big-budget ad campaign.
There’s something about the customer review. Genuine. Raw. Untouched by photoshop and marketing teams, it speaks volumes. People prefer to look at a friend’s twelve-point font, two-sentence review than a blaring billboard that clutters the pristine skyline of one’s morning commute. A comment about a great, local restaurant, dropped casually into conversation like spare change, is much more convincing to a potential consumer than a throwaway, here-today-gone-tomorrow newspaper insert, than our culture’s fast-paced, slick TV commercials, a cacophony that bombards the overwhelmed, though underimpressed, senses.
Armed with the magnitude of this information, it is no wonder companies in this day and age’s competitive markets covet buyers’ feedback so much. Where there is expected to be any amount of success to come, comment boxes, survey links, and customer review cards must abound.
For The Commerce Club, unarguably a leader in the hospitality industry, this is the rule rather than the exception, and has been for some time now. Club Members, each valued enough to be known by name, are quite regularly encouraged by staff to share their experiences with the entire team.
General Manager Everrett Butler shared this recently with a group of new Members at their Orientation luncheon, “Let us know when we don’t meet your expectations. We don’t ask for these comments so that we can chastise our employee partners. We use each incident, any missteps, as training opportunities to continue to perform better.”
Listening 101. The simplest of methodologies, tried and true, works.
But, of course, it would be hypocritical if I said you had to take my word for it. See for yourself.
“Mr. Rasool [Hassan] was excellent as always. His kind words, memory and social grace impress each guest I have brought to the club. Octavio [Meza] was attentive but not overwhelming, and Gabriella [Green] provided a wonderful description of the dessert menu. I’m a very happy member.”
These gracious words, shared with The Commerce Club by Member John Montgomery, an Atlanta-based financial consultant, are quite indicative of the precise type of familial atmosphere that the Club strives to create daily. In short, it’s nothing less than what we expect.
ClubCorp, the world leader in private clubs and the network to which The Commerce Club belongs, entrusts each of its Employee Partners with the priviliged responsibility to ignite Warm Welcomes, Magic Moments, and Fond Farewells for all of the hundreds of thousands of guests that enjoy their 200+ clubs worldwide each year.
When these guests take the time to share with us, even briefly, that we are doing just that, and doing that well, there is no prouder feeling to be had.
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