Guest Star: The Oberoi

In November last year, Tapan Piplani, General Manager of The Oberoi Vanyavilas, got a call from a top Mumbai-based industrialist. The businessman wanted Piplani to put together a gala for 30 guests at the Ranthambhore hotel to celebrate his wife's birthday, which was barely two days away. Above all, he wanted the occasion to be a memorable one.

The businessman was very particular about food and specifically asked for Thai cuisine. He told Piplani that he had liked the Thai food served at the Rim Naam restaurant at The Oberoi, Bangalore, where he had stayed a couple of days ago, and expected a similar standard and quality of food for his wife's birthday bash. He also wanted Egyptian cuisine for some of his guests.

"It was extremely difficult to make those arrangements at such short notice. In the normal course, it takes at least five days for food supplies to reach us. But given the urgency, we had to make special arrangements to get the ingredients from nearby Delhi and Jaipur hotels in a day," says Piplani. As the industrialist was a long-time patron, The Oberoi Group's top brass was roped in to help put together the do.

Over the next two days, several people were flown in, including a chef from Rim Naam, two chefs specialising in Egyptian and Chinese cuisine from Delhi, a jazz band from Mumbai and a pyrotechnics expert from Bangalore. The hotel was bedecked in a theme of gold and black, and folk music performances were thrown in to welcome the guests. "I still remember how overwhelmed the guests were when they checked out after a three-day stay with us," says Piplani.

Many patrons of the 76-year-old hotel group were hardly surprised when Travel+Leisure magazine ranked The Oberoi Vanyavilas as the best hotel in the world in its 2010 survey. Three other group properties - The Oberoi Amarvilas in Agra, The Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur and The Oberoi Udaivilas in Udaipur - also figured amongst the 15 best hotels in the world. These hotels were also ranked as the four best hotels in Asia. This is no mean feat considering that over 80 per cent of customers at its leisure hotels are foreigners who are exposed to the best hotels across the world.

"If I talk about just Asia, it starts from Afghanistan in the west and goes as far as Japan in the east, Ulan Bator in the north, and right down to Jakarta. Some of the most fabulous hotels are located in this region. It's difficult to believe that we are the best hotel in the world," says Liam Lambert, President, Oberoi Hotels & Resorts. The Oberoi Group, which caters to almost a million customers in a year, has over 31 properties operating under two brand names, The Oberoi and The Trident. The group has 4,741 guest rooms and suites in hotels, resorts and cruisers across five countries - India, Indonesia, Mauritius, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

So what really makes Oberoi hotels tick? "We have evolved our philosophy of customer service, which exemplifies care for the customer through anticipation of need, attention to detail, respect for privacy, along with warmth and concern. Speed of service doesn't translate into good service, which is about how the guests are treated. I always insist that staff members should wear a smile from their hearts," says P.R.S. Oberoi, Chairman & CEO, The Oberoi Group.

In fact, the seeds of the exemplary customer service were sowed by the CEO's father, M.S. Oberoi, way back in 1938, when he took over the management of Calcutta's famous Grand Hotel. Prior to the acquisition, the hotel had remained shut for several years due to a stigma - many guests staying in the hotel had died during the 1933 cholera epidemic in the city. As the story goes, the senior Oberoi once met the father of Bobby Kooka, the man who conceived Air-India's Maharajah mascot, and asked him to shift to the Grand from Great Eastern Hotel, where he used to stay during frequent visits to the city to oversee his business. Oberoi offered him a discounted rate. "I'll die of cholera," said Kooka senior. Oberoi tried telling him how the hotel had been renovated, but when Kooka senior still looked unsure, Oberoi said he would give him soda (free) to use in place of water if he was so paranoid. "You can even use it to brush your teeth if you are that worried about typhoid on tap," assured Oberoi. Kooka checked in and became a regular customer.

Understandably, people are the group's key asset. "We teach our staff that anybody with money can build a great hotel and can have any brand to run that hotel. The real difference is made by people. Soft, emotional gestures by staff members make people stay with you," says Rattan Keswani, President, Trident Hotels. Piplani adds: "We train our staff to understand that when we address our guests by their names, it gives them a sense of assurance and identity. We page all our staff members whenever a guest checks in so that everyone knows the name of the guest plus the person who's accompanying."

Also, the Oberoi hotels have developed a unique way of becoming familiar with the tastes and preferences of their guests. Each guest who stays at an Oberoi hotel comes in contact with a staff member almost 42 times in a day. This gives staff members enough opportunities to gauge the preferences and tastes of guests. Butlers, house-keeping and room-service boys play an important role in this by giving inputs into a centralised guest-history system, which at present has profiles of over 11 lakh guests and includes minute details such as their preference for room numbers with certain digits or for certain floors, types of pillows and beds and even flowers.

Every evening at all the group hotels, general managers, sales managers and front desk managers sit together and go over the next day's arrival list. All inputs in the guest history of the arriving guests are studied and the staff briefed accordingly. Ravinder Zutshi, Deputy Managing Director of Samsung India, who has stayed more than 100 times at various Oberoi properties over the last 20 years, says: "A few years ago, while staying at one of the Oberoi hotels, I got stranded in the lift for a few minutes during a power outage. I mentioned it casually to the house-keeping staff. Much to my surprise, the next day I received an apology letter personally signed by some of the group's top-level executives along with a bouquet of flowers."

Adds US-based Rob Armstrong, who works for a large global pharma company and is an Oberoi loyalist: "What I like about Oberoi hotels is that they go out of the way to deliver customer service. Last November, I and my wife Laura came to Delhi to attend the wedding of a business associate. After two jet lags, Laura could not move out of her bed...The Oberoi hotel staff helped her and ensured faster recovery so that she could attend the wedding." Thanks to such efforts, the company boasts of one out of every five customers as a repeat guest.

Having wowed customers from across the world, the challenge for the Oberoi management today is what they should do to retain and improve their current standing at the top of the hospitality world. Chairman Oberoi has the answer: "Continue to exceed our guests' expectations."

COMMENTARY-1

A tough act to follow
AKSHAY KULKARNI, Executive Director (Hospitality Services), Cushman & Wakefield

Over the last 70 years, The Oberoi Group has been a pioneer in service delivery and continuously worked to enhance its service standards. From the old world charm of The Grand in Kolkata to the more modern structure of The Oberoi in Mumbai to reinventing luxury through their Vilas properties, the group has been instrumental in creating new standards of service and excellence for the Indian hospitality industry.

Delivering quality service consistently is not easy. It takes not only passion to be the best but also military-like discipline to be able to recreate memorable guest experiences. The group has been successful in bringing that sort of discipline to its service quality. We have known P.R.S. Oberoi to be a perfectionist in this field, with an eye for detail that could identify and highlight the smallest of deviations. This has helped his entire team to think in a certain way as far as quality is concerned.

I am aware of the instances of how closely involved the Oberoi senior management has been in ensuring new standards of quality in terms of experience building for the guest. Some of their steps are not only unorthodox but also defy management themes. Today, quality and personalised service coupled with standardisation are the hallmarks of an Oberoi experience. There are, however, some areas that, from a pure business strategy point of view, may be worth exploring.

For instance, all the hotels that have gained recognition are located in leisure destinations but they do not contribute the bulk of the revenue. The largest revenue generators are still the business travellers. The latest recognition has put Indian hospitality as a whole and the Oberoi's service in particular in a different league and it will be a tough act to follow. Expectations will increase. These recognitions can further elevate the overall standard of the Indian hospitality industry.

COMMENTARY-2

People are the key
MANAV THADANI, Managing Director, HVS India, a hospitality tracking consultancy

T he world over, The Oberoi Group is synonymous with the right combination of luxury, warm service and quiet efficiency - always with a smile. During the past two decades, the group has transformed itself into a luxury brand. Today, it not only competes with the best, but is ahead of better known brands from the Western world and continues to improve as time goes by.

It's rare for an individual who has stayed at an Oberoi hotel while on holiday or business and not been wholly delighted with the experience. Several of these individuals are well-heeled travellers who understand luxury and have high expectations of the places they stay in. What they like about Oberoi's luxury properties, it seems, is not just their perfect blend of superb design, interiors, service, food, scenery and location, but also their ability to make a guest feel unique, special, and above all, well looked after. Staff at Oberoi's resort hotels have gained a reputation for being able to fulfil every need - and every whim - of their guests in a manner that is completely non-intrusive.

The group has various hotels, but is heavily dependent on its three properties in Mumbai and one in Delhi, which account for nearly 70 per cent of the group's revenues. This is perhaps the only major weakness in my opinion. Perhaps, I'm being a bit selfish, as I would have preferred to see Oberoi hotels in key gateway cities and resorts around the world. The group gets the bulk of its customers from Europe and the United States, yet it does not have any properties in these countries.

The group also has amongst the world's best-trained staff and an excellent hotel management school. These two things provide the group with an excellent opportunity to be the best, but at the same time these also pose a challenge: it has a very esteemed list of alumni around the world who are no longer with the group.