NewsTrade News

Protea Hotels by Marriott Recognised as Service Excellence Leader

Cape Town, 15 November 2016: Acknowledged yet again for service excellence, Protea Hotels by Marriott® has been named as the winner in the Hotels Category of the Ask Afrika Orange Index®.  This follows its 2013 award in this benchmark of service excellence, which has been running for the past 15 years.

According to Maria Petousis, Director of Target Group Index Southern Africa (TGI), which carries out the research, a substantial number of people were interviewed to provide their experience of service standards in various companies.  “This year we conducted 15 000 interviews with representatives from about 155 companies, and all the people we contacted were selected independently since we do not ask the companies we measure to provide us with their client databases.” The credibility of the process is enhanced by the auditing of the results by BDO.

 The Ask Afrika Orange Index® reflects on customer service excellence across industries. Its meticulous research and expert collaboration provides the foundation for in-depth discussions on service trends and diagnostics in the South African corporate and consumer landscape.

Among the hotel groups in the running for the award were Protea Hotels by Marriott, City Lodge and Southern Sun.

Mark Satterfield, Chief Operating Officer, Africa, Marriott International, comments that, “Excellent service is the single biggest differentiator in any industry that deals with the public. Our service offering is built around an understanding of our customers, in particular the needs of the many generational groups who stay with us across our portfolio of hotels.  Today we cater to many millennial travelers.  Since they want to reach out to us via a multitude of channels using different devices, we have developed a structure to meet and respond to our customers’ needs across both traditional as well as digital channels such as social media.”

“In addition, our face-to-face service levels are of crucial importance. We train our staff in Marriott’s world-leading service standard.  A significant element of the learnings from Marriott is a deeper understanding of cultural diversity and how to translate this into service excellence.”

The Award endorses the recognition of Protea Hotels by Marriott as a leading hotel brand. It follows on from many other similar accolades: awards for the Coolest Hotel Group in the Sunday Times Generation Next surveys, the Ask Africa South African Customer Service Award, winner of the Hotels category in the Ask Afrika Youth Brands Survey, as well as numerous TripAdvisor Certificates of Excellence.

Related Articles

Back to top button