Langham hotels demonstrate the value of a consistent service offering under a common shingle. Whether it’s at the Langham in Southbank in Victoria, the Langham in Auckland or one of the other Langham hotels, the experience is consistently excellent. It is this consistent service that brings me back. Each time I am surprised at an extra service or extra step to help me enjoy and remember my stay.
On Saturday night I stayed at the Langham in Melbourne after our Christmas party. When I collected my car in the morning they had left this free bottle of water for the road. Talk about exceptional service. Brilliant.
I love how an organisation the size of the Langham hotel group has been able to systemise providing exceptional service yet doing this in such a way that it feels personal, like they do value you as a customer. It makes me confident that no matter which Langham I visit I will have a consistently good experience.
This is the challenge of the newsagency shingle and the reason more and more newsagents will break away from this and trade under a shingle that operates with some discipline. Major landlords get this and often require newsagents to trade under a shingle that is promoted and has values supporting it.
There is nothing I would love more than the shopper experience in newsagencies to be uniformly exceptional or just good. We can’t do it because we don’t own the shingle and can’t control what people do under and behind it.