Conrad Hilton Creates A Powerful " New" Service

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Presented here is one of the most powerful lessons of customer loyalty. It's from a man who was arguably the father of hotel hospitality3, Conrad Hilton.
The lesson is from the book "The New Art of Selling" by Elmer Letterman, published in 1957. This is a story about providing service beyond the normal thought process. This is about the philosophy, "Just because we don't have what the customer wants doesn't mean the customer's need goes away. " Here is the story without an edit. ,
)ne of the most overworked words in salesmanship is "service. " I would like D remove it from applying to those regular attentions, which any sensible salesman gives to his customers. Service, to my mind, should mean a unique lewd tailor-made extra contribution made to a customer's welfare beyond mere outline follow-through.
When Conrad Hilton took over4 The Palmer House in Chicago, all hotels were rowed in the wartime rush (World War II) for accommodations5. Travelers sund themselves roomless and frustrated. Hilton saw it day after day in the timelier sign: "Sorry! No rooms today without reservations. " It got on his lerves. That ...
... word "sorry!" stuck8 in his crop. It was weak and it looked inincere. Suppose he were a traveler who just arrived in the city looking for a oom in The Palmer House. He could feel his own gorge rise.9
: was not long before that sign was down. In place of it, he set up accumulation desks with hotel representatives at them ready to help a stranded avider find a room in another hotel. They did not always succeed in their quest, but there was no doubt in the mind of the guests that The Palmer House inversely" wanted to help them. It stood the hotel in good stead when later ays brought about a situation in which there were more rooms than guests.
A second source of irritation12 in those overcrowded days was the delay often experienced by a guest with a reservation who arrived only to be told that his room was occupied until 3:00 checking-out time.13 Instead of leaving him stranded, Hilton set up facilities in the hotel where he could take a shower and shave immediately and have any messages telephoned to him.
The customer came for a definite product. In the nature of things, he could not be given that product. The problem presented, therefore, was to retain14 his good will while being unable to satisfy his specific demand. Hilton did this by a series of unique and ingenious15 new combinations of old ideas. There was nothing new about the idea of trying a second hotel when you couldn't get into the hotel of your choice.
There was something decidedly new, particularly in that period of competition , about one hotel going out of its way to find a room for a guest in another hotel. It gave a new dimension to the word "guests" as applied to the hotel business. What Hilton was virtually saying was this: Any man who comes to The Palmer House first is, by that act, making himself our guest, and we will take care of him as an individual would take care of a guest at his house.