How to Set a Professional Standard in Your Service Delivery

In 1953, at the age of 14, Horst Schulze left his home in Winningen, Germany to take a job as a hotel busboy and attend hotel school. This hotel was 60 miles away from home, so Horst moved into a dormitory for teenage and single workers. I like to think my kids are pretty darn capable and resilient, but I’m having a hard time imagining them doing something like that when they were 14 years old.

On his first day, the general manager told Horst and the other new staff that the guests were "very important ladies and gentlemen" and that the staff was there "to learn how to serve those fine ladies and gentlemen."

Working in the hotel restaurant, Schulze paid close attention to the maître d'. He noticed that the guests actually seemed proud when this maître d' came to their table. He was a man of stereotypical German precision and had mastered the art of service. Horst would later recall the maître d' setting a clear expectation, telling the young Schulze, "Tomorrow, show up at 7 a.m. If I meant one minute after seven, I would tell you so."

Two years later, at 16, a hotel-school instructor asked the students to write an essay about the hotel business. Watching that maître d' shaped how Schulze saw the work. He wrote that people in hospitality are "ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen," adding that the only way we lower our own standing is by failing to do the job well. That paper earned Schulze his first A.

If you're a travel advisor and you’ve been in the industry for some time, you may have already recognized the name. Horst Schulze would go on from this experience to co-found The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and serve as its President and COO.

That line from his teenage essay became the company's motto: "ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen."

The Peer Standard in Travel Advising

I love this story because it gets right at something many of us wrestle with in a service business. When a client comes to an advisor with links they found online and asks them to price them out, it can be easy to slip into feeling like an order-taker. Over time, if you aren't careful, the way you talk about your own business can start to drift in that direction too.

Schulze's point in a Wharton Business School interview years later was simple: "We can be ladies and gentlemen, if we deserve it, if we define ourselves like that at work."

When you adopt this Peer Standard, the idea that you view yourself as a professional advising peers, your posture changes. You make a clear recommendation instead of dumping eight resort options into an email and hoping the client picks one, and you set boundaries around how you work.

Earning the Posture Through Excellence

There is a catch in Schulze's essay, and I think it is the most important part of the whole idea. He said we are peers with the people we serve unless we sentence ourselves to something less by not being excellent. For that maître d', earning it meant knowing the craft cold and expecting the new busboy at 7 a.m. sharp.

At Ritz-Carlton, they turned that philosophy into daily mechanics. "Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen" became part of their Gold Standards, printed on the Credo Card that is a required part of every employee's uniform.

Borrowing the Mechanics for Your Business

You run your own business, so you get to set your own Gold Standards. Here are a few ways to put Schulze's approach to work:

• Listen to how you introduce yourself and describe what you do. If the word "just" has crept into your vocabulary (as in, "I'm just going to check on that transfer," or "I just book cruises and family trips"), drop it. State what you do plainly and with pride.
• Write down a one-line standard for how you run your agency and put it somewhere near your monitor where you will actually see it during the day.
• Decide ahead of time what your personal problem-resolution budget is when a trip goes sideways. You might set a modest spending limit for a service recovery gesture, along with a clear point at which you need a supplier’s involvement.

The Pride of Great Service

Think back to the guests in that German restaurant who felt proud when the maître d' walked over to their table. He gave them that feeling of being graced by his presence because he took immense pride in his own craft. Your clients feel a version of that same relief and pride when they hand a big anniversary trip or a honeymoon over to you and realize they are working with a true pro.