Succeeding Today

Ritz-Carlton Naples Shares World-Class Quality Formula

You Don’t Have to be the Ritz to be the Best

The Ritz-Carlton Naples is one of the finest hotels in the world. The quality of its facilities and of its legendary service is no accident.

In fact, it’s the result of an evolving quality system that combines great employees with finely-honed processes. A fortunate group of local executives and educators spent a fine October day learning from the best of the best in the world of continuous process improvement.

The Naples hotel orchestrated a day filled with the specifics of creating and maintaining an environment where caring, empowered employees provide guests with an astonishing level of service. In fact, the Ritz-Carlton folks have determined that its sumptuous facilities are necessary but not sufficient to make it a five-star/five-diamond resort. Rather, it is the lofty level of customer service that makes the difference.

Secret #1: People

At the heart of its promise of outstanding customer service is a total commitment to the welfare of its guests — and of its employees. The Ritz-Carlton can afford to make such a commitment to its employees because it selects them with extraordinary care. Typically, it rejects 92 to 95 percent of all applicants. In a recent two-month period they received more than 1,000 job applications. And at a September hotel job fair more than 200 hopefuls showed up. Only a tiny fraction was hired. This selectivity is half the secret to the Ritz-Carlton’s ability to deliver world-class service.

Equally important to the delivery of world-class service is the commitment of the resort to its employees as eloquently stated in “The Employee Promise.”

At the Ritz-Carlton, our Ladies and Gentlemen are the most important in our service commitment to our guests.

By applying the principles of trust, honesty, respect, integrity, and commitment, we nurture and maximize talent to the benefit of each individual and the company.

The Ritz-Carlton fosters a work environment where diversity is valued, quality of life is enhanced, individual aspirations are fulfilled, and The Ritz-Carlton mystique is strengthened.

For those lucky few selected, the company takes particular care that they are placed in the job that best suits their basic set of ‘talents’ — as the Ritz calls them. Once hired, the company commits to an ongoing training process and genuine empowerment. The result is a motivated group of employees on a mission to look after their guests, the hotel, and one another. In fact, each employee is able to authorize an expenditure of up to $2,000 — on the spot — to solve a guest concern. Now, that’s empowerment.

Moreover, the hotel company’s turnover is 29 percent vs. an industry average of 105 percent; the Ritz-Carlton Naples’ turnover is even lower at 17 percent vs. its biggest local competitor’s rate of 85 percent. That low turnover rate alone would provide a dramatic competitive advantage over other resorts in the Southwest Florida market — and around the world, for that matter.

Secret #2: Process

But talented, trained, and motivated employees are not the complete answer to understanding the Ritz-Carlton experience. The quality processes that enable them to do their jobs effectively make the difference between a very good hotel and a great hotel. From the late 1980s, the company has been on a road to continuous quality improvement based on the establishment of processes that let great employees do a great job.

Continuous process improvement enables great people to function in an optimal way. For example, the ability to promise immaculately clean rooms in which everything works is the result of processes that have been established for that express purpose. The successful operation of the Ritz-Carlton, Naples is the end result determining how to optimize each critical process that leads to a wonderful guest experience. Done right, optimum results are achieved with great efficiency of effort.

In the end, doing what’s required to build a world-class resort, enables a highly profitable operation. Why?
First, the closer each guest’s experience is to perfection, the more likely they are to spend happily when they are there and to return — again and again and again.
Second, process improvement typically reduces costs by eliminating useless steps, minimizing expensive guest complaints, and reducing unnecessary cosmetic or remedial capital expenditures.

No matter what your business, there is a lot to be learned from the Malcolm Baldridge, Florida Sterling award winner in our midst. Learn more about their quality commitment go to their Gold Standards page.

Originally published in Southwest Florida Business Magazine