The Real Secret to Ultra-Loyal Clients? Letting Your Team Spend Freely
Empowered employees—not perks—are the real key to guest satisfaction, client retention, and long-term loyalty.
Photo: Marriott International
What do the world’s most beloved luxury brands have in common? At the Ritz-Carlton, any staff member can recover a guest experience issue, up to $2,000 per incident, without asking for approval. There’s no need to check with a manager, no call to corporate, no red tape. The rule is that approval.
That’s not just generosity. It’s strategy.
Client issues arise from time to time at a hotel, resort, on an airline, or at sea. This could be a misunderstanding of the offering: A client simply thought there was an inclusion that doesn’t exist. It could be a delivery failure on the part of the brand: something that should have worked but didn’t. It could be that the client bought the wrong product and now, at the point of travel, wants the experience to match their expectations.
Brands and travel partners don’t win or lose because of these hiccups: They win or lose based on how they respond to them. And the strongest brands have a secret up their French cuffs: They empower their employees.
The Ritz approach works because it allows any employee to step in and solve the problem at the point of failure. That creates quicker resolutions and deeper loyalty. After all, a client’s lifetime value far outweighs the expense. The math is hardly the problem.
It also has three powerful ripple effects: It engenders loyalty from the employee who’s empowered to act; it reduces management workload; and it creates clients for life.
There’s a fourth effect, too—less often mentioned. It places responsibility squarely on the employee. Any team member who could solve a problem and chooses not to is now accountable for that failure.
In high-stakes industries like oil and gas, where safety is paramount, the same philosophy applies. “Stop work authority” gives any employee the right to halt operations if something seems unsafe, regardless of rank or tenure. They can’t be overruled. But with that authority comes responsibility: If they don’t act, and something goes wrong, it’s on them.
Travel agencies can take a page from both books.
If a client’s car service isn’t waiting at the airport and the driver isn’t responding, don’t leave the client in the cold while an advisor tries to sort it out with an indifferent dispatch center. Just send an Uber. To the client, it feels like magic—you made a car appear.
If a cruise guest boards and no onboard credit shows, don’t wait to fight it out with the cruise line. Let the advisor solve the problem on the spot and reconcile the credit later.
Agency owners are often surprised by how loyal employees become when they feel they have the power and the voice to act on a client’s behalf. And clients? They’ll have a hard time walking away from an agency that puts their comfort first.
Meanwhile, leadership can stop chasing minor fires and focus on bigger priorities: product development, marketing, or mentoring rising staff. Should the owner of a luxury agency be on hold for 40 minutes to resolve a $50 snafu? How much is their time worth? At what point does the refusal to delegate stop saving money and start costing the agency business?
Empowering staff is one of the easiest, most impactful things an agency can do. It doesn’t need to be a $2,000 carte blanche, like the Ritz. But there is some number—$50, $100, $200—that isn’t worth executive attention. Start there, and adjust as necessary.
The results will speak for themselves.
Kyle Stewart has been a travel writer for over a decade and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, TIME, Forbes, and Travel + Leisure, among other publications. He runs Scott & Thomas, a luxury travel agency, and when he isn’t traveling with his family of four, he splits time between Pittsburgh and Fort Myers.
