Developing brand standards is a collaborative and multi-step process, which ultimately is aimed at meeting guest expectations and needs, but must weigh the concerns of owners and franchisees, brand executives said.
For the brands, the process of establishing standards involves assessing feedback from guests and consulting colleagues across various departments down to the property level. When the time comes to reconsider or roll back standards, even temporarily as has been the case for many brands during the pandemic, the process largely repeats.
Executives at some global hotel brand companies shared more about the mindset and method of setting and adjusting standards:
Mike Kuenne, SVP and chief customer experience officer, Extended Stay America:
“There are two ways to look at it: the philosophy around it and the process. Our mission is to care for people who are building a better future for themselves and their families, and to make sure we design around that purpose.
“Things important to our customers might be different than what’s important to a more transient hotel segment. We place big value on kitchens, having a full kitchen in every hotel, making sure guests have more space and have the comforts of home.
“All those types of things are more important to our hotels because of the people who stay with us.
“As far as the process, it’s fairly simple, but there’s lots of pieces to it.
“The first piece is we identify whatever the need is or the problem we’re trying to solve or address. We develop new solutions from there, evaluate those, gain internal alignment, and together with operations partners and franchisee partners, we test that to make sure the standard is appropriate and makes sense.
“The last piece is obviously around compliance, the quality assurance process, coming back around and measuring that to make sure the standards are in place. …
“How we approach it on most things is a specific standard, not a specific vendor or SKU. Bedding is a good example: We have changed the bedding package with most customers, to be more refreshed. This is an example of something we got from guest feedback, and it was important to us.”
Megan Brumagim, VP of brand management, design and compliance, Choice Hotels International:
“We consider many factors when creating brand standards. That starts with listening to our franchisees who know their customers best and combining their insights with the frequent guest research we conduct. We’re constantly soliciting owner and guest feedback, whether that’s through meetings with our owner associations or focus groups with members of our Choice Privileges loyalty program.
“At the outset of the pandemic, Choice redeployed hundreds of associates from across the company to assist our franchisees. These associates helped contact owners from every hotel in the system through more than 30,000 individual consultations. It was truly an all-hands-on-deck effort. Because of the tireless work of our franchisees and our efforts to support them, an incredible 90% of our hotels were able to stay open even in the worst week of the crisis. And today, that number is nearly 100%. It’s because of our commitment to our franchisees’ success that Choice maintains an industry-leading voluntary franchisee retention rate of 98%.”
Harry Sladich, EVP of lodging development and franchise operations, RLH Corporation:
“When we say the brand owns brand standards, it’s our chief marketing officer’s team … their fiduciary duty is to the brand. Does it live up to the image? Does it keep its promise? That team, on a regular basis, watches trends. They look at what other brands are doing; they look at trends in the industry; they look at travel sentiment, what works, what doesn’t. They’re constantly meeting on that and they’re comparing our brand standards to those items.
“Recommendations normally would come out of the marketing team … (and then they)would come into operations, which I also oversee. I oversee operations and franchise sales. It would come to us for a pressure test to see what we thought of it. Then, once that occurred, we would bring in the brand advisory board. The brand advisory boards would then run through the thinking and the premise. They might ask to reach out to a few other owners or expand that and then we have the conversations and then we make our decision. We don’t always agree with the owner … but we feel as a brand we really must put a stake in a couple places. But I will tell you for the most part there is great dialogue and agreement. The other thing that can happen is from our operations team, where we’ll have owners telling us the particular brand standard just doesn’t make sense or it’s costing them money or it’s not really generating the additional revenue that was promised.
“We’ll get feedback from the properties telling us that they don’t like it, or they’d like us to reconsider it. We send that up to our chief marketing officer where they do research and then it comes back down. It’s a formal process and you must involve the owner. If you don’t involve the owner, then you’re not getting them to buy in. It’s better to have a little bit of debate and maybe agree to disagree, but it’s far better to do that than to just simply roll something out.”
Sanjeev Raut, VP of operations support, Americas, Radisson Hotel Group:
“Prior to embarking on any major change, brand standard or initiative, we test in the field and gather feedback from multiple managed and franchised advisory workstreams. Any new or replacement items or standards that are likely going to have a significant impact to the guest experience and perception of the brand go through a testing process. We work with multiple owners, general managers and brands on each pilot opportunity, based on the needs and specifications of each individual initiative. Our goal is to ensure there is enough lead time on implementation, and that the owners budget lifecycle is considered when defining timelines and compliance dates.”
Marina MacDonald, chief marketing officer, Red Roof Inn:
“Red Roof is obsessed with listening to its customers and is known for turning customer insights into action. Consumer acumen is a great strength of the brand—understanding guest needs and wants is critical to delivering the best guest experiences.
“When we discover a need or an area of improvement, our Brand Standards Committee, composed of personnel from each department brand-wide, works together to develop the best course of action and solution.
“As a brand, we pride ourselves on our relationships with our franchisees. The collaboration between the Brand Standards Committee and the franchise community is one small example of our genuine relationships. Leveraging our experience as owner/operators, Red Roof insists all brand standards initiatives are tested at great length at select properties before they are rolled out brand-wide.
“Successful tests are based on ease of implementation and operation, cost-effectiveness and guest response.
“Red Roof is committed to our franchisees and understanding their needs with compassion and empathy. Customer satisfaction is also a top priority. When discussing a new brand standard, we always consider the needs of both guests and franchisees. We then develop initiatives that are embraced by all of us: brand, franchisee and guest.”
Ron Pohl, SVP and COO, Best Western Hotels & Resorts:
“Each year we determine strategic initiatives for the brands, and we have 18 brands out there today, so we looked at what those standards are compared to the competition, compared to customer expectations, and a lot of times customer expectations are determined by what they have and can experience at home. We review those standards and say ‘OK, what are the key initiatives for the next year?’ What we basically said is our standards are fine as they are. We’ve actually looked at some standards to say, is it entirely necessary at this point in time? Because the (furniture, fixtures and equipment) is only one aspect of expense. There’s the operating expenses for the hotels as well. What type of things can we eliminate that just aren’t necessary? (We are) evolving with customer expectations. All of the decorative items that were in the guestrooms, pillows and scarves, all of those sorts of things, customers don’t want any of that anymore. Give me a plain bed that I know is clean and sanitized … so we’ve asked hotels to remove those items.”