Week 3

Reservations

Now that I have gotten comfortable with answering the phones and using our database OPERA my task for the week is to now apply all the stuff I have learned and turn this all into a reservation now.  

The phone rings and I answer and say my normal line, "Thank you for calling the Publick House, this is Dino, how may I help you." The guest says I would like to make a reservation.  First I say is this for dining or lodging.  Once the guest said it was for lodging here I am doing my first reservation. 

I go along and the first thing I ask is what date are you looking for followed by where are you looking to stay.  Once I get that information I go along and read them our rates.  The first person I got did not like the rate I gave them and said they have had lower rates then what I offered them.  What I did was I looked up the guest's profile and saw his recent history and what I did was just offer him his usual rate of $109 plus tax instead of $136.  It's a good thing I payed attention when I was taught how to work with OPERA.  

I went along with the reservation and just plugged in the dates the guest was asking for and I asked for his email so I could send him the email confirmation and then continued to ask for his credit card to secure the room. After that the reservation was booked and it was in our system.  My first reservation was in the books.  

This whole week I just got comfortable with taking reservations and using the first 2 weeks knowledge I had and using it for the reservation process which made it a whole lot easier.  One thing I was told not to do was wedding reservations.  They had a lot of faith in me huh?   

Week 2

Week 2 

Getting Familiar With The Computer

After the first week of getting used to the property and getting a hang of how to answer the phone I was tasked with learning how to use OPERA.  OPERA is a hotel database where you pretty much do everything on.  Using this system gives you many options such as; making a reservation, updating a reservation, checking people in and out, seeing if the rooms are clean or dirty, seeing how much cash you have taken in.  This is like my best friend here because I am constantly on the computer.

The front desk supervisor is the one who helped me with the learning process of most of the important things here.  Week 2 I was to learn OPERA or at least look over at the other desk clerks to make sure I get an idea of what it is like.   

While taking the time to learn our database, what I got very comfortable with was checking people in.  My shifts the first 2 weeks have been all afternoon shifts.  Since check-in is at 3 p.m or later that's what I have been doing.  The check-in process is very simple all I have to do is ask for the guest's photo ID and a credit card and then just swipe there card and click on OK which then checks them in which I then give them the room keys and show them how to get to their room.  

In the hotel business I quickly realized that you will see all sorts of people walking in and out.  I soon realized that I saw what may have been the rudest guest we have had.  The guest called from their room multiple times asking if we had DVD players or AAA batteries.  Unfortunately we are not a Wal-Mart, of course I didn't say that to him.  My supervisor has had a past with this guest last year and he caused a huge scene at his wedding apparently and now he had 2 free nights in our suite.  Well he wasn't finished.  He was cussing out my supervisor and demanding money so he can go buy the items himself and told her she was full of excuses.  So as he leaves I went to go buy the batteries and deliver it up to his suite.  Surprisingly he was pretty nice to me but he asked for a free breakfast on top of his comp'd room.  I simply told him he would have to speak to my manager about that. The next I find out he had a lot of nice things to say about me which made me feel good about the job I was doing.  

To cap up week 2 what I did basically all week was to continue to get used to the phone and how to speak properly as well as getting comfortable checking people in.  On the side I would get familiar with using OPERA and see the different options it has on there.  If I were to get a phone call for someone trying to book a room I would hand it over to my supervisor or an experienced desk clerk and I would watch and learn. 

Week 1

Week 1 

Introduction Of The Hotel Industry

I started my internship at the Publick House on May 18th.  Here are the three Lodging buildings that we have on property. We have the Publick House Historic Inn which is our main building and there we have 17 rooms including 3 suites. We have the Country Motor Lodge which has 90+ rooms and then the Chamberlain House is under construction and will open up with 20 brand new rooms including multiple suites.   

                                                                                   

      The first couple of days, my task was basically get to know the property since it is so big.  I walked in on the first day and the whole parking lot was full.  Come to find out we have 2 restaurants that Mon-Wed they have a buy one get one free entree.  So I got to get familiar with the restaurant fairly quickly as well as the hotel.  I met every front desk clerk in week one and there was even someone new just like so I didn't feel too left out! So I got a couple of tours of the property and it is so amazing at all of the history that is in this place.  Everything is so amazing and old but its not a creepy old.  I have never worked or been around anything like this besides my old Victorian house that my Mother is obsessed with.  On a serious note all the art work in here and the unique character it has is something everyone should take a look at.  A property like this that was built  in 1771 is something you don't see everyday.

                      

So after I got familiar with the property I was basically just hearing in on the phone calls that everyone was taking and learning more about how to answer and using proper hotel terms.  Right on the first they asked, "want to hop on and get your feet wet?" I didn't really have much of a choice I wasn't going to say no I just started here!  So here I am taking phone calls and saying, "Thank you for calling the Publick House, this is Dino how may I help you?" Right there I knew I wasn't going to struggle.  I never worked at a place with so many extensions so learning the extension numbers are not fun all though most of them are questions about our restaurant.        

The first week of work I was that excited intern ready to just learn anything and everything I could possibly learn.  Week one I would say was a success.