Banquet Department (October 14th)

My second week at the Albany Marriott, the whole class was in the banquet department. Our mentor for the day was Debby. She filled us in on a lot of good information about that department. Everyone works together and its not always easy. It includes late hours sometimes. The have a lot of responsibilities. For example, cleaning, greeting the guests, and going over the BEO (banquet event order) with the customers. They have their mind set on a goal of always satisfying the guest to get them to come back. They show the guests that they care through always smiling and having good eye contact when talking with them. They might have problems from time to time and that's usually either with the Internet or the kitchen not having enough food. What we did this Tuesday was walk around and look at all the different banquet rooms. We also talked about each individual set up they have for different parties or meetings. I realized by being in this department that they have a lot of work to get done because of the amount of people they have to satisfy. The main thing that we learned was the GSS. It means guest satisfaction score. That day it was a score of 82. There plans of action to improve them is by having the guests interact with the employees. It was all a remodel for them, which brought them more satisfaction. It was a fun day. The whole class got to learn how to fold napkins and clean the silverware. We also learned unique facts, like that the hotel had to take the water fountains out because of the spreading of germs and that they eliminated public phones because of security. Overall, their main idea and challenges are making sure the guests are satisfied. By Debby sharing all this information with us, i feel that we learned a lot.