Luxury hotelier measures emotional connection with guests via quality assurance initiative.

Langham Hospitality Group has built its portfolio on its historical and luxurious past – its "Birth of a Legend" branding message evokes the very first Langham that was the talk of Victorian London as Europe's first grand hotel in 1865.  Now Langham has partnered with LRA Worldwide, Inc., to evaluate how well Langham associates connect the guest emotionally with its legendary past, using LRA's proprietary Emotional Audit framework.

LRA has customized the Emotional Audit protocol to reflect Langham's unique service components and the desired emotional connection they are designed to evoke.  In addition, the program has been customized slightly to accommodate two of the Langham brands – The Langham and Langham Place.

"This program provides us with a view into a guest stay with Langham that we have never had before," said Paul Walters, Vice President -Brands for Langham Hospitality Group.  "The personal interactions between our associates and our guests are what make the experience, and LRA's Emotional Audit helps us quantify what had previously been left to anecdote and observation."

LRA, a leader in Customer Experience Management and Quality Assurance Evaluations for the global hospitality industry, designed the Emotional Audit as a complement to traditional QA audits and guest surveys.  In short, the Emotional Audit serves as a bridge between the brand standards that are communicated to a hotel property, how those standards translate into associate behaviors at the hotel, and how those behaviors ultimately make the guest feel.  Naturally, that desired emotional connection varies based on the brand.

"While typical hotel Quality Assurance programs measure compliance of the behaviors and processes that drive guest satisfaction, the Guest Experience Assessments have allowed Langham to measure the execution of its brand promise, which helps differentiate the experience and drive guest loyalty," explained Rick Reilly, LRA's Account Director for Langham.  "Based upon the program's results, we have been able to augment Langham's set of key performance indicators to include this important measure of performance."

The project with Langham began with a full assessment of the Langham guest experience and how effectively the desired emotional connection with the guest is articulated at a corporate level and delivered at the property.  Following that work, an LRA-Langham team customized the Emotional Audit framework based on the desired attributes that a Langham associate should be trying to convey at each guest touch point to mesh with the Langham brand pillars.   LRA consultants currently conduct the audit at each Langham and Langham Place property across the world on an annual basis.