"We stayed in this residence a few days ago for new year's day, a bleckout from 9.30pm up to 04.00AM without any informations from the Hotel Stuff. Obviously, no way about a refound...”
[The Hotel response]
"Dear. Mr Matteo, we are sorry for the discomfort caused by the lack of electricity during the hours you mentioned but, as communicated to all customers, the problem was caused by a failure in the electric cabin of Enel and our staff Maintenance, always present until restoration, was not authorized to intervene. "
If you don't want to justify yourself to your customersas a kid with your customers for something you don't even have to be blamed for, you absolutely should read this article ...
In the modern era, where even the most complex operation is carried out using a smartphone, telling a customer that the fault comes from your network operator sounds ridiculous.
How would you like it if the restaurant owner told you that your Carbonara Spaghetti will never come to your table because "those of the gas" did not bring a loaded gas cylinder?
You can not bounce on the Customer a problem that is exclusively yours.
Emergency Generator at the Hotel: Why you shouldn't underestimate it.
Have you ever tried to keep your eyes closed for a few minutes? Just to test your other senses and maybe orient yourself in a room or a premise. Some of us wake up at night, get out of bed and drink a glass of water without opening the eyes not even for a minute.
My grandfather, though he missed sight as a child, used to remember by heart most of the electrical wires of an electric motor, and was even able to tell others how to connect. Even today, talking to him, I wonder how he did it! I hardly remember what I ate yesterday.
One thing is for sure, though: staying in the dark without seeing anything is difficult. Every operation becomes complicated and you feel a very intense sense of insecurity , so that reopening the eyes, makes you feel like a great relief.
Now, however, we try to make the situation more complicated by the fact that more people inside the same room close their eyes and have to get inside it without hurting themselves.
I think it's definitely complicated, do not you find it?
If you turned off the light, were you? In this case you have no reasons for staresereno.
Should any of those who are in the dark get harmed? No one would want to be in your place.
Maybe you will not believe it but this is what can happen in a hotel when electricity is lost and everything goes out: lights, elevators, hoists, computers, telephone switchboards, video surveillance, home automation, etc etc A large number of people (including you) find themselves closed-minded to have to move hoping they will not do harm and above all not hurt someone.
Maybe you're thinking I'm just pulling water out of my mill, and here you live blackouts and emergency generators during blackout, but you're wrong.
In fact, the solution to the situation I have imagined before is not to have an Emergency Generator in the Hotel, but something more: " Possessing an emergency generator that is really efficient ".
Between having an emergency generator and having one working there is a big difference, like that between launching an airplane with a parachute or throwing a rucksack.
Most of the hotels with a couple of stars and a quality-oriented property feature an emergency generator, but only 3 accommodation on 10 has one that actually works.
Why? It's simple: they do not do the proper maintenance!
When a computer does not work, or when an air conditioner is failing, the facilities quickly resolve the problem, and when it comes to emergency generator sets it seems there is always time available.
If you are a maintainer and you are wiping your nose, I can assure you that you are misunderstood what I have written. I know you are maintenance to the generator, but we both know that you sometimes have some sometimes structural and / or temporal limits for which you certainly have no fault. (You probably often find yourself doing more than you would have to do).
We can say, if I were a top-of-the-line generator, the generator would be the most efficient machine in the facility and it would not be in the least economic and image loss.
I remember the matches of Soccer where the goalkeeper who missed the last minute and missed in turn came to the door. It happens then that at the end of the game there is always the "phenomenon" that pulls the sums with other comrades on how many goals the team lost my fault while I was in the door.
Now I say, but in my opinion if I was a "good goalkeeper", would I ever play soccer with you ?!
That is why it must be objective: The regular maintainer, though good and prepared, can make some nice parade, but to save a penalty it will take a real Goalkeeper!
Security: Protect yourself
Bullets, burnt, crushed, suffocated, mutilated: Generating sets may die.
Being aware of those who are at risk while starting a generating set could make the difference between a live and a deadman maintainer.
Speaking of security at the hotel or in any accommodation facility, restaurant, bar, etc, we refer mainly to two figures, that of the client is that of the employee in the structure.
Both figures must be protected in the same way but with different systems and instruments since it is clear that the level of information you can give to the customer is not comparable to what you have to give to your staff.
In order to protect you, you have to protect it, so in practice you have to give evidence of how you have provided specific training on the generation of the generator and how this has been maintained efficiently through regular maintenance activities.
Costs: how to handle them
Specific strategies can be adopted to optimize the costs of managing a generator.
The first thing to avoid is that you do not handle the maintenance regularly. Statistically, a maintenance-free generator does not work right at the moment it has to work.
An intelligent way of managing costs is also to plan the most important maintenance interventions during low attendance periods, allowing scheduled rematches and functional tests, avoiding having to require night or week breaks at higher rates.
Safely manage a generator failure at the Hotel
For your safety and that of your collaborators, I ask you to avoid improvised and precarious solutions that may turn away from you. It's better a blackout than a serious accident.
As soon as you notice a blackout that is not readily contained by the emergency generator, you can proceed by following these three simple steps:
1. Find out the magnitude of the blackout. You have to determine whether this is a fault in your facility or a failure affecting a wider area served by the electric operator.
2. Make sure there are no Guests inside any elevators, and then put them out of service.
3. Only after you have made the previous steps you can collect the ignition information and contact the service center. When contacting the service center, keep the generator, engine and alternator nameplate data available.
If I read this article is a Hotel Manager or a maintainer, I can prophesize with certainty that in the event of blackout and failure of the generator, both will rush in front of the generator to try to figure out what is happening.
I know very well what happens in these cases, so I thought about giving you a gift: "A cover for the main breakdowns of the generator". It is a poster we provide to all Hotels that enter into a maintenance contract with us. It is very useful in case of failure because it allows you to understand how to operate and contact us aware of what is the information we need.
Our "hotels" usually expose them outside the technical premises, or they keep a copy in the office at hand. Often they have solved many problems autonomously without cost of intervention.