From cherished jewelry to beloved stuffed animals to important work-related documents, the items travelers bring to your hotel are filled with personal and perhaps financial significance. When something goes missing, the true value of lost and found resolution and management becomes evident.
“Behind every lost or found item is a person who cares deeply about it,” said Mindi Cooke, senior vice president of business development for Reunitus. The company offers software solutions to automate and optimize the lost and found management process in vertical markets that experience a high volume of lost and found items.
“The ability to quickly log in, input all relevant information and receive immediate updates when someone files a matching ‘found’ report is a game-changer,” Cooke said. “It instills a feeling of staying connected in the quest to retrieve a lost item. This connection with the process helps alleviate the initial stress and provides a beacon of hope.”
According to Cooke, lost and found software surpasses the capabilities of relying on one or two individuals attempting to connect the dots. “It operates seamlessly behind the scenes working to return lost items quickly and efficiently, thus enhancing overall guest satisfaction,” she said.
Cooke added that the linchpin for any successful hospitality business is the return of satisfied guests. A negative experience, whether it's a lost item or other issues, can tarnish a guest's perception and deter them from returning.
“It's the human side of lost and found management that, when handled with care, leads to greater customer satisfaction and encourages repeat visits,” Cooke concluded.
Efficiency and Ease of Use
The JW Marriott in Grand Rapids, MI, is a Reunitus client. Andrey Marchena, director of rooms, said the decision to use a lost and found service stemmed from the property’s post-pandemic increase in occupancy.
“We saw the need to implement something more efficient than the Excel spreadsheets we were using,” Marchena said. “It was very time-consuming for us to look at every single line and figure out if it was a match for the item a guest was looking for.”
Marchena said the property has found the Reunitus platform to be very user-friendly, simple and straightforward.
“Just a few keystrokes gives us access to so much more information than our old method,” he said. “It’s now much easier to manage lost and found requests and inquiries. A year ago it would have been really difficult for my team to make hundreds of phone calls or send out hundreds of texts letting people know whether we had found their items or were still looking for them. In a large hotel like ours, it would basically have taken a full-time person to do that.”
Marchena added that the software-based system gives guests a sense of connection by letting them check on the status of their lost item. “The system’s ability to respond to our guests is a way for us to show them that we’re on top of things, which is very important for our guests’ satisfaction,” he noted.
Despite the automation enabled by a software-based platform, the team at the JW Marriott in Grand Rapids never forgets the human aspect of lost and found. “Sometimes an item is worth more than just a dollar value for a guest,” Marchena said. “So we ensure that we are empathetic and understanding that whenever someone is missing something, it could be really dear to them.”
Choosing the In-House Option
The AAA Five-Diamond Ritz-Carlton San Francisco chooses to keep its lost and found procedures in-house. Enrique Nepomuceno, director of engineering, explained that the property has a strict standard operating procedure in place to ensure items left behind are returned in a manner that guests have come to expect from the iconic hotel.
“At The Ritz-Carlton San Francisco, building strong relationships and creating guests for life is a part of our culture, so we always try to incorporate surprise and delight into the guest experience,” Nepomuceno said. “For example, we had a child who had left a unicorn stuffed animal behind. When we mailed it back we included a Ritz-Carlton San Francisco stuffed lion, plus a hand-drawn card featuring the two toys. We are hoping that the child was not only happy about the return of the unicorn, but also delighted that it had made a new friend.”
Lost and found may seem mundane, but in reality it serves as a great example of how the hospitality industry every day uses a combination of technology and humanity to serve its guests and turn challenges into opportunities.
This article was originally published in the June edition of Hotel Management magazine. Subscribe here.