📊 🤱🏽 👨🏻‍🎨 Room service in the hotel: technology and organization 🤱🏽 🏂🏾 ⛸️

When viewing travel booklets of travel agencies, one can often see an indication of the room service offered by hotels. It is quite clear to a person who has even a little knowledge in the field of English that in this case we are talking about services that are provided directly in the room. What is a room service in a hotel, what does it include and how can it be organized?

Range of Services

This service offers additional service in the hotel in the form of individual guest service in the room. Today, such a service is gaining popularity not only in high-level hotels, but also in those that have fewer stars.

Specialists of the room service in the hotel offer, first of all, delivery to the guest room of dishes and drinks that he ordered on a special menu. Another function of such employees is to prepare VIP rooms before checking in.

Often when organizing a room service in a hotel, the service structure includes units serving minibars. In such cases, the hotel has another additional service. It consists in checking the minibars in the rooms by the service staff and in their timely replenishment.

Room service in a high-class hotel provides for the provision of many other services. For example, calling a massage therapist, makeup artist, hairdresser, press delivery, etc. By the level and volume of types of service in a hotel, one often judges its category. But in any case, all the services offered should be provided quickly and not allow customers to wait.

The target audience

Which clients are important in organizing a room service in a hotel? The target audience of this service in most cases are:

business people who are tired after a working day, because of which they do not want to go to a restaurant;
couples who decide to spend a romantic evening in private;
parents with young children.

Service Composition

How to organize a room service? Such a service is a whole team, which includes the director and administrators (managers), waiters, and sometimes sommeliers. If the hotel is small, and the number of orders in it is small, then room service is usually performed by restaurant staff. These are waiters who at some point are free at their main job.

Consider the main responsibilities of employees of such a service.

Director

One of the hotel employees manages the room service. It is he who is responsible for the following:

scheduling the work of the waiters included in the service;
distribution of the volume of work;
developing a room service menu in a hotel;
generating sales reports;
interaction with the marketing service of the hotel, which will promote the proposed service;
solving problematic situations that arise during the operation of the service.

The director of the room service should have a higher education (preferably professional), speak English well enough, and have a second foreign language at a conversational level, have experience in catering, know the standards of service, which must be met when serving guests, and also have knowledge of office work.

Manager

The main task of this specialist is to receive orders received by the room service, and coordinate work on their quick and high-quality implementation. Among the main responsibilities of the manager:

Receiving orders from hotel guests, assisting them in the selection of drinks or dishes. In addition, the manager needs to negotiate with customers and the time of execution of their requests. It is important for the specialist to know that the normal organization of the room service in the hotel involves the delivery of breakfast on the card within 15 minutes, by call - in 15-30 minutes. During the same time, the client should receive lunch. Dinner delivery time - no more than 45 minutes. When ordering only drinks, the guest must wait a maximum of 15 minutes. It should be borne in mind that it is advisable to serve food 5 minutes before the scheduled time. Otherwise, the client will have breakfast at the expense of the hotel.
Checking the correct serving of trays and tables.
Checking the formation of orders on the room service menu in the hotel.
The solution of the arisen problems which are in the field of its competence.

Good organization of the room service in the hotel is possible if the manager of the higher education service (preferably professional), good knowledge of English, and at the conversational level - a second foreign language, at least 2 years of catering experience, knowledge of service standards, applied in servicing hotel guests. At the same time, this specialist should be polite, sociable and responsive. In addition, he must have a clear diction.

Waiter

This employee in the room service is linear. It is his responsibility to fulfill the guest’s wishes for delivering drinks and food to his room.

At the same time, the waiter is the person who comes into personal contact with the customer.

The main responsibilities of this employee are:

delivery of the order to hotel guests in their rooms or in the beauty salons, health clubs, etc. located on the territory of the hotel complex;
maintaining order and cleanliness in the service room;
calculation of the guest for the services provided, if the necessary amount is not paid by the client upon eviction;
timely collection of dirty dishes, which should be done within 10 minutes, if requested by the guest by telephone.

The following professional requirements are presented to the waiters of the room service: higher or secondary professional education, good command of English, experience in catering for at least 2 years, as well as knowledge of the fundamentals of service standards and etiquette in customer service.

Supervisor

If there are room service and minibars in hotels, then the staff of this service will certainly have a person with this position. The tasks of the supervisor include:

order products from stock;
work distribution
scheduling employees at the minibar;
report execution.

Minibar staff

The duties of these employees include:

checking minibars in guest rooms and their replenishment;
entering the cost of consumed drinks and products into the accounts of guests;
blocking the minibar when the guest is in debt;
checking the operating mode and technical condition of the equipment.

The minibar employee must have a higher or secondary professional education, know English, the basics of etiquette and safety. In the case of installing automatic equipment, another requirement for such an employee is the experience of using the hotel ACS.

In addition, with the minibars available at the hotel, the room service manager, in addition to the duties described above, must order the products necessary for this section in the warehouse and generate the appropriate reports.

Schedule and features

How is the working day of the room service employees at the hotel organized? As a rule, this service provides four shifts for its employees:

1st - 6.30 - 14.30;
2nd - 14.30 - 23.30;
3rd - 16.30 - 01.30;
4th - 20.30 - 8.30.

Room service technology involves taking into account some specific factors. One of them is making a menu of dishes offered by the hotel restaurant, but in a more abridged version. For numbered service, the list of what the average consumer most often orders is taken into account. When compiling such a menu, an analysis is made of dishes that visitors often order in a restaurant.

Recently, an increasing number of people have become adherents of a healthy lifestyle. That is why some hotels organize the delivery of organic products. The room service should include in the menu dishes corresponding to the healthy eating program.

Equipment

Room service is located in a separate room in the hotel. This is a room that should be in close proximity to the elevator and the trading floor. In connection with the specifics of the room service, which is remoteness of customers from the kitchen, there is a need to use certain inventory and equipment, including a service elevator (for speed of order execution), serving trays and trolleys, thermal containers, heating surfaces, cooling elements, etc. Cloche covers are also needed. All dishes for the room service should have a presentable appearance.

In those hotels where hot meals are provided at night, their delivery is carried out using special equipment and serving items. It can be, for example, food warmers with paste or a candle, which serve as a heating element. In addition, you will need carts equipped with bottle holders, and other devices that must be functional and convenient.

Reception of orders

Consider the technology of the room service in a hotel. Guests must make reservations to deliver room service. This can be done in the following ways:

By phone, or by pressing a special button that is set to call the waiter. In each of these cases, the service employee must record the room number, number of people, the name of the desired drinks and dishes, the time of reception and submission of the order.
Using an interactive television system (if available at the hotel). With this method, the guest can order food in the room by pressing the remote control button. In this case, there is a procedure for the client to confirm the selected menu, which eliminates the service error.
When using an order card. This method is applicable only for breakfast. To deliver food by the room service, the hotel guest receives card-order forms at the administrative desk during their registration. Subsequently, they are stored in the guest room. If you want to use the services of the room service, the client must take the form and fill in certain columns in it. This is the time of breakfast, room number, last name of the client, number of persons, date of order. At the end of the form, the customer must put his signature. The order card must be posted on the door handle on the corridor side. Make it necessary for the guest until three in the morning. To collect forms, room service employees go around the hotel corridors. They do this at night or early in the morning. Completed forms are sent to the service section responsible for preparing breakfast. In the morning, kitchen workers form dishes in accordance with customer orders.

Payment

How do customers pay for meals delivered by room service? The morning meal service can be provided as part of the breakfast included in the room rate. In some cases, the delivery of such dishes is an additional service and is paid separately.

An analysis of the room service indicates that the price of the dishes offered is usually slightly higher than those set in the restaurant or hotel cafe. On average, this difference is 15%.

There are two ways to pay for food delivered to your room:

The waiter at the moment he submits the order. For this, the room service employee must have an account prepared in advance. The waiter will hand over one copy to the guest, and the other two will be taken with him, which will allow him to draw up further reports.
At the time of eviction of the guest. Often, guests are asked to deposit the amount for the services provided in their general account. In this case, the waiter needs to give all three copies of the document, where the dishes delivered to the room and their cost are painted, for signature to the client. After that, the account is transferred to the reception. When giving the document to the client, the waiter must make sure that he signs it legibly. Also, this room service employee needs to make sure that the account number is clearly indicated on the account where the food was delivered. As for the client’s signature, it must be identified by comparison with the existing sample recorded in the hotel’s computer system. With the correct billing directly at the place of service, the risk of losses during the final settlement is minimized.

Cleaning dishes

How is this process organized? In most cases, dishes are taken from the room during cleaning. Although it is better to do it when it is convenient for the guest. There is one more option. It provides for placing the tray on which the dirty dishes are in the corridor.

In this case, room service employees should clean them immediately. After all, the trays will not only impede movement along the corridor, but will also make a frightening impression on the guests.

Minibars

Such equipment is mandatory for hotels, the level of which corresponds to 4 and 5 stars. At the same time, minibars can be used in three different modifications:

traditional
semi-automatic, equipped with sensors for opening the door with the simultaneous receipt of information on the operator's computer;
automatic, allowing you to find out the consumption by a guest of a product with the simultaneous inclusion of its value in the bill.

The latest version of minibars compared to the rest has a number of advantages.

They consist of:

Providing real-time equipment with information regarding stocks of products, while indicating the time and date of consumption of food and drinks, as well as their prices and the shelf life of the goods left in the minibar.
The presence of an automatic control system. It is required when installing equipment with a transparent door. With this design, guests can familiarize themselves with the assortment of products without opening a minibar. If guests wish to use this service, the device will be opened by the operator.
Automatic billing. Such a system allows you to completely eliminate inaccuracies and errors in using the minibar. Extracting by this system is quite quick, which is its significant advantage.
Existence of the program of automatic control of equipment occupancy. When using such a system, the necessary products are delivered to minibars without causing inconvenience to guests.
Possibilities of servicing up to 400 numbers by one employee of the room service; Cost optimization in this case is possible immediately in 5 departments of the hotel. Among them are the reception, accommodation, personnel management, maintenance, and accounting services.
Ability to track product expiration dates in real time. Such a function completely eliminates the likelihood of damage to the product and allows you to promptly offer discounts, significantly reducing the amount of loss.
The presence of an automated control system that monitors energy consumption. This is very beneficial for the hotel. This feature allows you to reduce energy costs.

Based on the analysis of the work of the room service, which uses automatic minibars, marketers have convincingly proved that such equipment can pay for itself in just 2-4 months. After that, it starts to make a profit.

Booklet Issue

The introduction of room service in a hotel is not a sufficient condition for use by its customers. To make a profit, each hotel guest must first of all be familiar with the organization of room service. As one of the advertising options, you can consider the release of bright booklets, which will describe the restaurant menu.

In addition, hotel guests should be informed that the delivery of drinks and food by the room service is based on the specified time, with a breakdown of plus or minus five minutes. At the same time, all employees must strictly adhere to this rule.

Also in the booklet it is recommended to bring the specialties offered by the hotel restaurant, and their photos. It should also indicate the cost of offers, as well as available bonuses and discounts.

When organizing the service, you will need to analyze the restaurant and determine the time of its least attendance. In these unpopular hours you can make a discount.

Judging by the reviews, the room service attracts more attention if the booklet offered to guests is cheerful and vibrant, with a simple description of the rules of this service, which the service employees must adhere to.

Room service in the hotel: technology and organization