Horst Schulze believes that forgetting the rules and putting the needs of the guest first will reap rewards. Horst Schulze believes that forgetting the rules and putting the needs of the guest first will reap rewards.

The founder of Capella Hotels, personalised service legend Horst Schulze, tells Louise Oakley why forgetting industry standards is the key to providing exactly what the guest wants

Horst Schulze is an industry legend when it comes to setting standards of service in hotels. Most famously, he spearheaded the development of Ritz-Carlton into a worldwide chain back in 1983, creating the operating standards which are still in place today and coining the firm’s well-known ideology: “We are Ladies and Gentleman Serving Ladies and Gentlemen”.

The dream then, and now, Schulze explains, was to provide exactly what the guest wanted.

“We were inspired by the guest; what does the guest want in a large hotel? The number one comment from guests was ‘friendly, caring people’ so we concentrated more around friendly caring people, which meant that we had to concentrate more on selecting people, we had to concentrate more on training. That was of course the secret, not to take it for granted that the staff know everything but to continue training. We really made an effort for continuous alignment to the company thinking, and the company thinking was aligned with the customer thinking.

“It was very clear that if you want to give the guests what the guest wanted, we had to pay more attention to our employees and to the hotel surroundings. That was the inspiration and that’s what we did,” sums up Schulze.

Story continues below
Advertisement

At the same time, he strived to create the type of working environment in which “the employee would enjoy working”.

His overriding aim was to provide the type of individualised service available in smaller, independent hotels; something he thinks is still “absolutely” achievable today.

“[There are some] major companies which are driven more by economic decisions rather than customer decisions. But if you put the guest first, you can accomplish easily what an independent hotel can. It’s only a decision regarding what a company’s prioritisation and concentration is. Do you give rewards to your organisation only for economic results or do you give rewards to your organisation also for customer satisfaction results?”

The philosophy worked: during Schulze’s tenure as president and CEO of Ritz-Carlton from 1988 and vice chairman from 2001-2002, the group became the only company ever to be awarded two Malcolm Baldridge Quality Awards, in 1992 and 1999, and was continuously voted “best hotel company in the world” by trade publications.

Financial success followed: when he left the company, Schulze was responsible for US $2 billion worth of Ritz-Carlton operations around the world.

So, why leave a “dream” that has been so successful? Here, Schulze’s constant striving for perfection shines through.
“Well quite simply the painting was painted. If you paint a correct painting, you step back, you enjoy it, and then you say ‘how can I create a better painting?’” he says.