Introducing Charles Leddy – CEO of Presidian Hotels and Resorts. It’s no secret the past couple years have been rough on the hospitality industry, but Charles shares some wisdom on how he and the rest of the Presidian team navigated these tumultuous times. Tune in as we discuss:
MORE ABOUT CHARLES
Charles Leddy is an accomplished business leader with over 20 years of executive management experience with some of the world’s leading companies, including McKinsey & Company and Starbucks Corporation. Prior to taking on executive-level roles, Charles established his foundational capabilities in corporate finance (investment banking), corporate M&A and accounting. Responsible for the overall leadership and corporate strategy of Presidian, he is an expert in project feasibility, corporate finance, marketing, strategic planning, acquisitions, and general management. Charles graduated with academic distinction from the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia. He holds an undergraduate degree in Business Administration & Accounting from Washington and Lee University.
CONNECT WITH PRESIDIAN
presidian.com | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
CONNECT WITH US
Website | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Introducing Charles Leddy – CEO of Presidian Hotels and Resorts. It’s no secret the past couple years have been rough on the hospitality industry, but Charles shares some wisdom on how he and the rest of the Presidian team navigated these tumultuous times. Tune in as we discuss:
MORE ABOUT CHARLES
Charles Leddy is an accomplished business leader with over 20 years of executive management experience with some of the world’s leading companies, including McKinsey & Company and Starbucks Corporation. Prior to taking on executive-level roles, Charles established his foundational capabilities in corporate finance (investment banking), corporate M&A and accounting. Responsible for the overall leadership and corporate strategy of Presidian, he is an expert in project feasibility, corporate finance, marketing, strategic planning, acquisitions, and general management. Charles graduated with academic distinction from the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia. He holds an undergraduate degree in Business Administration & Accounting from Washington and Lee University.
CONNECT WITH PRESIDIAN
presidian.com | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
CONNECT WITH US
Website | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Mike Cole 0:05
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Peoplecast. I'm your host, Mike Cole and with me today, as always is our co-host and producer extraordinaire, Jerrin Padre.
Jerrin Padre 0:14
Hello.
Mike Cole 0:16
Good to be back.
Jerrin Padre 0:17
Yeah.
Mike Cole 0:17
Season two, Episode Six. We have with us today Mr. Charles Leddy. Charles is the CEO of Presidian Hotels and Resorts. Welcome to the show, Charles.
Charles Leddy 0:26
Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Jerrin.
Jerrin Padre 0:28
Yeah, excited to have you.
Charles Leddy 0:30
Likewise.
Mike Cole 0:31
This will be our first hospitality perspective on inclusive service, right?
Jerrin Padre 0:36
I know, we've been waiting all season for this.
Mike Cole 0:40
So I do have one question for you. So when you're shopping, do you prefer self checkout? Or do you prefer real person?
Charles Leddy 0:48
Interesting question. You know, it depends on how many items I have. I'm a stickler for efficiency. And so if I have fewer than, say, five items, then I'll probably do self checkout. Or if I see that an open line exists, then I'll approach that line. So my shopping is not very social. But I'll do either, it really depends on which I feel is going to be more expedient.
Mike Cole 1:13
Yeah, I think that's been kind of a running theme with a lot of our guests this season.
Charles Leddy 1:17
The other factor, though, is if my kids are with me. I have a five year old and a four year old. And if my kids are with me, then I'll do self checkout. Because they love to scan.
Jerrin Padre 1:28
Yeah.
Mike Cole 1:29
Nice.
Charles Leddy 1:30
They love to be involved in the transaction. I actually think it's good learning for them as well. So if my kids are with me, we'll be more likely to do self checkout.
Jerrin Padre 1:38
Did they have the toys when they were "little" little, like the little grocery store set? And then there's like a little register, and you could ring up items and give each other change? Yeah.
Charles Leddy 1:49
They had the cashier set, they also had the cart.
Jerrin Padre 1:54
The cart!
Charles Leddy 1:54
And so yeah, we did all that.
Jerrin Padre 1:57
Wait, can I ask a this or that question?
Mike Cole 2:00
Yes, you can.
Jerrin Padre 2:01
Okay, Charles. Hotel or Airbnb?
Mike Cole 2:04
Oh!
Charles Leddy 2:04
It depends. It depends on whether I have my family with me. And it depends on pricing. If I have my family with me, then I'm more likely to go Airbnb or VRBO. Yeah, because I want more of the amenities that come with a house. And then some markets, the pricing is such where hotels are just not affordable. And if I'm going to a major conference, for instance, and pricing on the hotel rooms is in the $500 to $700 range, I will always look to see if there are available Airbnb or VRBO options that are in proximity to where the conference is, and usually there are. And so I will then then do it for that purpose.
Jerrin Padre 2:45
So sensible.
Mike Cole 2:46
Yeah, the family thing definitely determines whether or not we do it. Because you know—and especially if we're going to do some sort of a gathering somewhere and people are coming in, that hosted experience with the room that you get and the ability to have more than one bathroom certainly helps when you have, you know, family or family members traveling with you so. And it becomes really difficult because I've even found it's, in a hotel system, regardless of chain. it's really hard to find adjoining room or adjacent rooms. So, that's always a call as well.
Charles Leddy 3:20
Well there is a talk track there about knowing the system, knowing how to game the system with hotels.
Mike Cole 3:27
Do tell.
Charles Leddy 3:28
Because oftentimes, there are ways to get adjacent rooms/connecting rooms. You just need to be able to speak with the right person. And also if you have reward points through a Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Choice—wherever you're staying, the degree to which you have high loyalty with the chain can inform whether or not the hotel will make the effort to move around rooms to accommodate what your needs are.
Mike Cole 3:54
That's good to know.
Jerrin Padre 3:55
That makes sense. Yeah. It's like airline miles or certain airline tier status.
Mike Cole 4:00
Right.
Jerrin Padre 4:00
Well, we'll offline about this then, Charles. Please tell all of your secrets.
Mike Cole 4:05
So I guess. First question I have for you is where did you grow up?
Charles Leddy 4:08
I was born in Houston, Texas. I moved to San Antonio before I was one year old and grew up in San Antonio until I got through high school. So I am a San Antonio native. Once I graduated from high school, though, I spent about 20 years away from Texas, but my upbringing was all in the state of Texas and specifically San Antonio.
Mike Cole 4:30
Yeah, love San Antonio. My wife and I really enjoy going down there, and what was your—was your first job in San Antonio?
Charles Leddy 4:37
Yes, sir. My first job was at a theme park called Fiesta Texas.
Jerrin Padre 4:42
Cool!
Charles Leddy 4:43
And my job was picking up trash.
Jerrin Padre 4:47
Wow.
Charles Leddy 4:47
It was an interesting story. When I interviewed for the theme park, I had just turned 16 years old. And I went in, I was wearing a suit and tie, and I brought in my resume. Very official. I tried to present myself as pulled together. And the interviewer, after a few minutes of discussion said, "Charles you would make a great guest ambassador." And I was extremely excited by that. I thought, "I'm going to be this person who just gets to talk with guests and try to, you know, get them to enjoy their experience and help them around the theme park." And then what I found first day was they gave me a uniform, I was working in the Mexican village of Fiesta Texas. So they gave me the appropriate attire for a Mexican village. And then they gave me a pail with a stick in a broom. And he told me that my job was to keep the park clean. And, given that I was going to be walking in and amongst all of the customers at the theme park, it was also my job to help them as they had questions. And so the guest ambassadors were actually the people who you see with brooms and buckets cleaning up trash throughout the park.
Jerrin Padre 5:58
Yep.
Mike Cole 5:59
So not quite a bait and switch, but maybe not how you pictured it to begin with?
Charles Leddy 6:03
Well, not not how I pictured it to begin with. But, you know, we have life lessons throughout life. As now I've advanced in my career, it's really, I think, foundationally established that regardless of the role you're in, you can have pride in that role. And we all have a place in that customer experience journey. It's really about the mindset and trying to help the employees, the associates, recognize the part they play. And so I actually think Fiesta Texas did a great job by labeling a job that would probably not have interested me, had they told me what the job was upon my initial interview. And so you know, there's just a sleight of hand here with the way that Fiesta Texas was able to get young people to embrace the job as more than picking up trash. And I thought it was very effective.
Mike Cole 6:53
I bet it might have been a bit contagious amongst other guest ambassadors in the park, when, you know, they would see you or someone really interacting with customers and really kind of making that job more than what it is, you know. You tend to model what you see. So I would just throw this out as a guess, you probably picked up a lot of other people from thinking that it's just this job doing this, that it can be so much more, which I think that's cool.
Charles Leddy 7:20
It was. What you found in that environment—this was 25 years ago or more—as it is today, those people who really embraced the spirit of the job were those who advanced and then model the behaviors for those who were under them. So it was contagious, but also as a meritocracy. And the merit was really based on the degree to which your service levels enhanced the guest experience. And to the degree that you were that kind of person who could provide a moment for the guests as they were in the park. And that's how the culture of the park really emerged, really from the ground up. I mean, it was the job that was probably the lowest on the totem pole. Yet they elevated it to Ambassador and made it something that really established, foundationally, a culture for the whole theme park.
Jerrin Padre 8:08
Definitely. I feel like there's a lot of debate right now over title inflation. And kind of like Mike said, some people view it as a bait and switch. But like you said, Charles, I think there's definitely something to making the most out of the situation, to the best of your ability. So it's very cool that as a young man that that came naturally to you.
Charles Leddy 8:30
Well, I think you're raising good point because it was a bait and switch. And so there are ways to do what they did while also being more transparent on the front end. So lessons to be learned on both sides.
Mike Cole 8:43
So did you set out to be a CEO of a hotel and resort chain? Or? I mean, I can see from your LinkedIn profile, you've had some other experiences. What about your childhood and those other experiences led you into the current role that you're in?
Charles Leddy 8:58
Well, I had a very unique journey into hospitality. I actually did not enter the hospitality world until about nine years ago. And I entered into the hospitality world because my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. So my father was actually the founder of Presidian Hotels. I grew up in San Antonio, I went to school on the East Coast. I went to Washington and Lee undergrad. Out of Washington and Lee, I was an investment banker. I found when I was an investment banker that what I really enjoyed was sitting opposite from people who were raising capital for whatever they were trying to pursue. And I really enjoyed learning their strategy. What is it that they were aspiring to do? How would the capital help them get there? And so it was in that period, while I was an investment banker, that I realized that I really wanted to be on the other side of the table. I wanted to be the one actually raising capital for an endeavor. Went back to grad school, was very fortunate to land a role running a mergers and acquisition group on the East Coast. And then in that role, that's what I did. I worked to build the company through acquisition of other companies in China, India, Europe, United States. It was a great experience. And then out of that work, what I found is I really enjoyed the integration of companies coming together. So there's a long backstory here. During my time at Colfax, where I was running M&A, I married a young lady who was starting medical school. I knew that I needed to have the ability to move with her wherever she matched for residency. And so I joined up with a consulting firm called McKinsey and Company. And then when she matched for residency in Seattle, at the University of Washington.
Jerrin Padre 10:45
Woop woop!
Charles Leddy 10:46
I moved to Seattle with her. And then in Seattle, I transitioned my focus from mergers and acquisitions to the integration side of mergers and acquisitions. So what happens after you buy a company. And that got me into what we call service operations. And one of my clients in my work was Starbucks. I left McKinsey to join Starbucks, where I ran a number of different groups that were really involved in the incubation of new businesses for Starbucks. And it was during my time at Starbucks where, unfortunately, I went through a divorce. And after my divorce, decided to move down back to Texas. And it was while I was in Dallas that I met Kelly, who I am married to. And it was while I was in Dallas during those couple of years, when I got a call from my mother that my father was ill. And so that was roughly 10 years ago. So during all of this journey that I had had, I had never really considered being in the hospitality business. My father was a very accomplished developer. He was a CPA. He was a lawyer, he had moved to San Antonio to start the Arthur Andersen office for San Antonio, which was an accounting firm back in the day. And then after Arthur Andersen, he became the president of USAA Real Estate Group. And then he left USAA, after a number of years, to start his own company that he called the Leddy Company. And it was while he was doing that, that he started working on hotel deals, and found that he enjoyed hotels. He thought they were an interesting and complex investment category, and that he wanted to do more of that. And so he did. Over the course of time, he ended up being involved in some hotel developments. And then once he had a number of hotels, he decided that he wanted to manage those hotels for himself. And so he started his own management company. And that's where Presidian came from. And so he was just a very unique skilled developer operator. And then about 10 years ago, he started showing symptoms of dementia. And so my mother asked me if I would come back to San Antonio to see what was happening. And so I came to San Antonio for two weeks, and I observed my father. And I knew pretty quickly that something was wrong. And so I went back to Dallas and talked to Kelly. And fortunately for me, Kelly was also from San Antonio. And so it just so happened that her family needed her for certain reasons, my family needed me. And so we came down to San Antonio, we both left our careers. And I ended up spending the next three and a half years working to get my father into retirement. And then about six years ago, once we had gotten my father into retirement, I decided that, even though I hadn't come down to San Antonio, necessarily to run a hospitality company, through the process of learning my father's business, that I enjoyed the people side of hospitality. I also had the finance background to be able to handle the numbers side of hospitality. And I just thought, you know, there's not many times in life when you have the opportunity to run your own company. And so I started a new company with the help of my father, CFO. And we basically took the name Presidian hotels, and we started six years ago from scratch. And that's how I found myself in the hospitality business. And then over the past six years, we've really worked to build a business that is not dependent on me. So where my father had broad skill set, I have worked to build a team around me who have strengths in their verticals such that I can focus on the things that I'm good at.
Jerrin Padre 14:33
Wow. When you were telling us about your dad, it just made me think of Schitts Creek because he was able to kind of take all of these different aspects from his own business ventures in the past and then create something around hospitality and, you know, build it from the ground up. So that's very cool.
Mike Cole 14:49
Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's really an example of somebody who took their background and used it to really reinvent themselves. So yeah, definitely.
Jerrin Padre 14:59
And then with the focus you too, Charles, I think you've been able to manifest all these amazing accomplishments for yourself and for your family. But also, it's so admirable the way that you've always thought about your community and your loved ones and the people around you, and how those were key turning points in these ventures that ended up ultimately being very successful. So I think that's like a really great model for people of you can succeed. And you can do it by thinking of the other people that you love around you.
Charles Leddy 15:28
I think that's true. I think everybody, or at least for me—I'll speak for myself—that, through my journey, I have found that if I don't have purpose in what I do, I lose interest. And so I'm always seeking what the purpose is in what we're doing. That's what drives me. And I also think that's what drives people. And so I think a lot of the journey I've been on has been a pursuit of purpose.
Editor's Note 15:52
So I think, obviously, this season is all about inclusive service, and what that looks like across industries. I guess my question for you is what comes to mind when you hear the words "inclusive service?" And how does that play out in the hospitality setting?
Charles Leddy 16:07
Well, for me inclusive service is really just about welcoming. You know, it's about the authenticity of the way that you approach your service orientation. The fact is, in the hospitality business, particularly for a company like mine where we run a lot of different types of properties, we are every day engaging with thousands of guests, and we don't discriminate in any form. If anything, we go out of our way to identify where there might be somebody who is not having a good stay, or who needs help. And so it's that idea of how can we go that extra mile for somebody, and keeping that front of mind in the way that we provide service day to day.
Jerrin Padre 16:49
So how do you go about crafting that guest experience? For you, when you're thinking about what you want people to feel when they stay at a Presidian Hotel, what are the key components that go into that? And then how does that play out at each level of the company? Like from your role all the way down to your frontline staff members?
Charles Leddy 17:06
Well, for us, it's been something we've built over time. So it's not a simple answer. For Presidian, the path that we have taken has at its foundation really been about, as I said earlier, purpose and mission. Just trying to keep it very simple. Just why are we even in the hospitality business? What is it that we are trying to do? And can we find a common foundation of mission or purpose, that then can really be something that all of the associates in the company can get behind? Now in our case, we originally set a lot of our purpose in our faith. And so one of the things that we did when we first started the company is we established in our mission statement that we're a faith based company. And then from that, we started building the company with like minded people—now you don't have to be a person of faith to be a part of the company, we just want you to be able to appreciate that that's at our core who we are. So we're really trying to establish from day one what the culture of Presidian is, and then try to have that really embed itself within the hotel environment as well. And then what that generates is a couple of benefits. Number one, there is an identity for the hotel and the culture of the hotel that set in something bigger than hotel. But over time, what it really translates to is continuity of staff. So we have really, really strong retention, particularly in our leadership. And so that consistency of leadership, the consistency of the way that we go about running the properties and supporting the way that we bring service to those hotels, you know, becomes something that's repeatable, and as new people come in, they then observe through the models of those before them of how we implement service within Presidian and within each of our respective properties. So foundationally, that's what we have to do. Now, we also, at each of the properties, we do have service standards that we are training people to perform. For instance, we train very in depth on what we call service recovery. If a guest goes to their hotel room and their key card doesn't work, or their water isn't hot enough, or maybe their linens haven't been changed, you know, mistakes happen. How do we then respond? And so we spend a lot of time on what I call managing exceptions, where things don't go well. What do you do? How do you handle the situation? How do we respond in a way where the guests experience is actually enhanced from a problem that emerged, but then we handled it in such a way where that guest feels like we really care? And so we focus a lot on service recovery in the training around that and modeling the behaviors that we want everybody else to follow.
Mike Cole 19:41
So with service recovery, what's your means of measurement? How do you measure if the staff your associates are doing service recovery like they've been trained? And do you have a—in my retail days we used to call it correction of errors? Do you have a correction meeting to look at the issue, maybe how it was wasn't resolved and what could have been done better? What does that look like?
Charles Leddy 20:03
Well, I would say there are two forms of metrics specific to service recovery. The first is social media. We monitor social media for our hotels every day. And we're not necessarily responding to any sort of daily response that we are seeing from a hotel, we're looking at trend lines. We're looking at satisfaction, because what you see in social media is, you know, oftentimes, it's the people who did not have a good experience. So I'd say at the highest level, we are just listening to the guest. We are also on property, real-time. We are asking the guests for their feedback when they check out and through that we are getting feedback at the hotel level. And then third, we do survey our guests, and we monitor trend lines in the survey feedback that we're getting from guests. So those go out regularly. And then within kind of the day-to-day of the hotels, we do daily stand ups where our general managers are talking to the staff. And they are talking through, on a daily basis, what has emerged in the day before as a problem. So it becomes a focus area for the days ahead. Opportunities for improvement. That's a daily exercise. So always keeping a focus on, you know, trend lines. And then as there are trends that are emerging, making sure that GM is focused on those specific areas. And then over time, we expect those trends to improve in those areas.
Mike Cole 21:25
So you mentioned trend lines and watching trends, which is kind of a interesting segue into my next question. So during COVID, how did your guest experience strategy shift? And how did you keep team's morale motivation up?
Charles Leddy 21:43
Well, that's a big question. It was a very bumpy cycle for probably a couple of months, we were just in shock. We were trying to figure out how to manage furloughs, how to manage layoffs. How to do that with love, how to communicate what was happening. Within the hotels themselves, I would say, we probably took our eye off the ball of the guest experience to focus on our associates more than the guests, at least for a period of time. Feeling that if we treated our associates with care, then that would translate to our associates treating the guests with care. Now, we certainly cared about the guest. But we were more focused on safety and, you know, bringing in the right programs to ensure the guests at our hotels are safe. And so our metric shift—or I should say at least our focus shift for a period of time—it shifted quite dramatically. What we decided to do was to create as much transparency as possible with our team member. When the pandemic hit, we had about 600 staff members in the field. And then we had to furlough a very high percentage of those. So we started doing live townhall meetings, where anybody who was a current or former or furloughed associate from Presidian could be a part of a live meeting. And we did it monthly. And as part of those meetings, I would provide macro updates, and we would just talk, and then I would open it up for Q&A, and associates could ask any question they wanted. And I would just try to be as honest as I could be. I don't know when your jobs going to come back, you know, the kind of questions around how do we care for our children during this time? How do we—we have needs, how do we make our ends meet? And then through that, we decided, you know what, there is a very significant need amongst our associates. So we started a nonprofit called Presidian Cares. And we started to raise money for our associates, where if you contributed to Presidian Cares, I would match it 100%. For any gift that was given. And then we use those funds to meet the needs of our associates, whether it was food or shelter. Maybe their car broke down, we would pay for their cars to be repaired. So to answer your question, specifically, I would say we took our eye off the ball on guest service and we focused on associates.
Mike Cole 24:04
Yeah, sounds like a huge effort on your part for internal customer service. And I don't think you took your eye off of your customer at all, I think you focused where it needed to be. Because if you don't have those internal customers, if you don't have those associates to service external customers, no matter how small the number are coming in, that makes it very difficult to get those excellent reviews. Hats off, because I could not imagine having to go through that in any sort of industry where it's such a hyper focus on human relationships. So.
Jerrin Padre 24:38
Absolutely. So obviously COVID presented a bunch of challenges that made your job, I'm sure, a little bit tougher in the past couple of years. But in general, what would you say the toughest parts of your job are? And then on the flip side, what are some of the most rewarding parts?
Charles Leddy 24:56
Well, the toughest part of the job is always accountability with the team; we want to lead with love. But at the end of the day, we also have to meet certain thresholds with their financial thresholds or other metrics that are important to our investors. And so I always find holding people accountable to be the hardest part of the job. Now, we try to do so with love. But I also believe that when you give feedback, particularly if it's constructive feedback, you have to be very direct. And whenever I do that, I feel stress. So I would say it's that people side of the accountability equation that I struggled the most with. In terms of the best part of my job, it's when you see somebody who basically understands what they have to do to advance in some form of their life. And so that—the best example might be we bring in somebody who doesn't have a college education, they start at the front desk, but they aspire for so much more. And then getting them to a place where they can advance up. You know, we have great examples of people starting in housekeeping and ending up all the way up as general manager, or starting as a front desk agent and ending up being a director of sales.
Jerrin Padre 26:10
That's awesome.
Charles Leddy 26:11
And, you know, we have a lot of people in hospitality who just did not have that ability to go to college. They just—it wasn't their fault. A lot of people who end up in hospitality are in hospitality because they needed to have a job to support their families. And so, in a lot of cases, these people don't have that perspective that even though they didn't get their college degree, they can still be a salaried professional. We want them to know how to invest into themselves, we want to help them to invest into themselves, so they can acquire the skills to take that next step in their career journey. We want Presidian to be the kind of place where you can have a career, you can advance upward. And so I get the most satisfaction when I see people climbing that ladder, through their own merit, their own work, to develop their skill set. There's nothing better than having somebody come and shake my hand and say, "Thank you for giving me this opportunity." And then I just turn around and say, "You did this. We might have provided a company for you to do it with them. But you're the one who did the hard work." And it just feels wonderful.
Mike Cole 27:15
So we've talked a lot about internal customer service, external customer service, and just kind of the overall guest experience when they come into a Presidian property. So what would you say would be some good tips that either you've learned from watching other people, or you have yourself for dealing with unhappy guests or customers?
Charles Leddy 27:39
Well, I don't know that I have anything revolutionary to say. When you have an unhappy guest or customer, the most important thing to do is listen, and to help them feel like they are being heard. As long as their complaint is reasonable. And when I say reasonable, that requires a degree of common sense. But you have to listen first, and to the degree that you can't manage the situation, you need to escalate it and bring in that next layer of management. So to me, it's just really about listening, it's about having empathy. It's about trying to put yourself in that person's shoes. And oftentimes, the problem they're having isn't something that we have done, it's something bigger going on in their life. It's a stress point that they have, and our job is to take a little bit of the punch. It's to actually accept responsibility, even if we don't feel that we're responsible. It's okay to accept some responsibility, to see if we can take a little bit of that stress off the customer. We often find that when we ask a customer, "How can we help you with whatever the situation might be?" The customer actually doesn't want anything, they just want to be heard. They just want a place to be able to talk through their concern. What they really want, then, is some degree of responsiveness on the issue. If we respond, then we can actually turn something that was a bad situation to a loyal customer for life. It just depends on how we respond. But we've got to listen first. The other thing is we are willing to offer ways to cover that person's pain by way of whatever it might be that they need, whether it's points for their stay, maybe we comp their stay, it depends. We never try to give them something to overcome their problem. We want to listen first, if appropriate, we might try to offer them something particularly if it's our fault. We definitely want to step up and own it. I don't think I'm answering your question very well. It starts with listening.
Mike Cole 29:41
No, I think I would accept that answer any day of the week. Listening and empathy are two big things to me. If I'm experiencing difficulty, you know, whether it's in a store or hotel, I appreciate feeling like I'm being listened to and the biggest—for me, the biggest phrase someone can say say or ask or the biggest question is, "What can I do to make it right? How can I help you?"
Charles Leddy 30:04
Yeah.
Mike Cole 30:05
Because then you open the door, right? You're not saying, "Here, take this $50 gift card." Or, "Okay, let me throw 500 points onto your rewards program." Because, to your point, you don't want to do that just to try to solve it quickly. You want to listen and you want to have empathy first. No, I think you answered that spot on, at least from where I'm concerned. And I would think a lot of our listeners would agree with that, too. So.
Charles Leddy 30:27
One tip I would share: we do something called shout-outs. It's cards that we give our employees with their names on them that they can give to a guest. The cards provide instructions on how the guest can provide feedback on their stay. If the guest provides feedback, and includes the employee's name in their feedback in a positive way, then we give that employee a bonus at the next pay cycle. We incent employees to let people know their names, because we want the engagement with customers to be genuine. We want there to be sincerity. And there's nothing more sincere than telling somebody your name.
Mike Cole 31:06
That's very cool.
Jerrin Padre 31:08
So cool.
Mike Cole 31:09
Maybe at Media Partners, we should do something like that, too.
Jerrin Padre 31:12
I know. If only we actually delivered anything in person, and we could just give people cards to go out on the spot.
Mike Cole 31:19
Exactly, exactly. No that's—well, definitely incentivizing. I think we're at time and we have a lot, a lot. Well good luck editing this one, Jerrin, because there's a lot in here.
Jerrin Padre 31:29
There's so many good nuggets.
Mike Cole 31:31
Yeah, for never having been on a podcast, Charles, you did a fantastic job.
Charles Leddy 31:36
I forgot it was a podcast. I was just talking to you guys.
Jerrin Padre 31:39
That's so good. That's our goal. So that means we did our job.
Mike Cole 31:43
That's right.
Charles Leddy 31:44
Well, thank you for having me. I enjoyed it as well.
Mike Cole 31:47
Well, thanks everyone else for listening and we'll see you next time on Peoplecast!
Jerrin Padre 31:51
Bye!!