How not to get replaced by machines

I was not exaggerating in my previous article when I discussed how "machines will soon perform more service jobs than humans." If it is still difficult to convince you, here is an additional example: "Meet Sally, the robot who makes perfect salads." This machine specializes in only one menu item — salad — yet it can do a better job than most chefs. For example:

• It can make salads within 60 seconds.
• It makes salad with perfect proportions, even with accurate calorie counts.
• It can create more than 1,000 salads from the 21 ingredients stored inside the machine.
• Those 21 ingredients can be changed over time, making it possible for the machine to create even more salads.
• It weighs 350 pounds.
• It has a price tag of $30,000, but can also be leased for $500 a month.

"What? A machine that costs over $10,000? That is too expensive, especially when we consider the high maintenance fees associated with the machines. There is no way that restaurants would use such expensive machines to replace real humans at work." — That was one comment I received from my previous discussion.

Actually, $30,000 is not that expensive if we do the math.

Let's say a restaurant pays a cook $15 an hour ($15 an hour will soon become the minimum wage). Let's also assume the restaurant does not pay any benefits for this cook, even though an employer would usually pay over 30 percent on top of a staff person's base salary as benefits.

Thus, $30,000 is equivalent to 2,000 working hours for this chef ($15 x 2,000 = $30,000). If a full-time cook works eight hours a day or 40 hours a week, those 2,000 working hours are equivalent of 50 weeks of work for one cook (40 x 50 = 2,000).

Because a machine can work 16 hours a day without a break (two shifts), as compared to eight hours a day for a cook, those 50 weeks of work for one cook are now shortened into 25 weeks (if two cooks are replaced by the machine) (80 x 25 = 2,000).

In fact, a machine can work seven days a week without any holiday pay, meaning it can work for 112 hours a week (16 x 7 = 112). Then, it will only take 17.86 weeks, or 4.5 months for the restaurant to get the initial investment back (2,000 / 112 = 17.86; 17.86 / 4 = 4.46).

What do you think now? Does $30,000 still sound expensive to you? Most of all, when machines are put to work, there involves no recruiting or training cost, and machines will never call in sick or want to quit.

So, what can we do if we do not want to get replaced by machines?

If you are with me and convinced that most manual labor will be replaced soon, it is now time for us to make plans for the future. My suggestions include:

Strive to be a leader in the field

People can demonstrate their leadership potentials with a progressive career path on their resumes or through the leadership responsibilities they take in professional or student organizations.

Leaders are visionaries and focus on the big things in life. Leaders set good examples for others, but at the same time, they understand the art of delegation. Leaders inspire others and grow with their team. No matter how good they are, leaders never stop learning.

Focus on transferable skills

We need to develop transferable skills, such as leadership, critical thinking and analytical skills, as well as effective communication skills, in addition to the technical skills taught in class or learned at work. The content we learn in class or the ways people do business may change or get updated quickly, but those transferable skills will stay with us throughout our career.

Do whatever it takes to be irreplaceable

The attributes for being irreplaceable may include:

• Being an advocate for our organization and ourselves both online and in person.
• Being a good presenter or public speaker, with or without visual aids.
• Being able to tell stories with pictures, which can be used in business communications, presentations, and public speaking.
• Being approachable and being able to anticipate others' needs.
• Being a critical thinker who can make informed, rational decisions, sometimes through an analysis of a data set or a complex situation.

What else can we do so that we will not be replaced by machines at work? Any suggestions?

Machines are now replacing humans in service jobs

I am not joking. Machine serving people has now become the new reality, as I suggested in my recent discussion on Multibriefs.com .

Here are just some examples:

• A restaurant with no hosts, no waiters, and no tables
• Burger-flipping robots
• Robot baristas 
• Robot that makes salads
• Self-ordering service - Domino's Pizza, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Wendy's. 
• Food delivery robots
• The robotic butler service in hotels
• The automatic drink dispenser
• Personal assistants
• Self-driving cars

Does it become obvious that the new era of machines serving people has already arrived? I think it is now the time for those who are feeling the panic of being replaced by machines or robots at work to reconsider their career paths. Manual labor will certainly be replaced, and the only way for us to survive in this competition is to become the leaders in the field.

How to shut down bad online reviews

What can managers do to shut down bad online reviews? Here is a real example: 

It started at the Broadway Oyster Bar in St. Louis this February when Mary S., a Yelper, left the business with a one-star rating and a description of the negative experience she received in the restaurant. As a reference, the restaurant is now being monitored by Yelp for any content related to media reports, meaning some reviews have been or would be removed from the business's page on Yelp, but the restaurant has an overall 4.4 star rating from more than 900 Yelpers in March.

Mary went there for a birthday dinner. She claimed that she had a reservation for a party of nine people, but the party waited for two hours before they were finally seated. To make it even worse, because there were three additional people joining the party and the manager was unwilling to work with them, they would have to wait for longer to be seated together or be split up.

She then took the group of 12 people with her to a nearby restaurant, where she and her guests could enjoy a "FABULOUS dinner with EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE"(in Mary's own words).

Then, the owner of the restaurant exercised his rights of responding to Mary's review on Yelp — for every comment left by a customer, managers are usually allowed to post one response. As a matter of fact, managers are highly recommended to post managerial responses to online reviews because their responses have significant positive impacts on the helpfulness of reviews as well as their business's financial performance.

The owner of the Broadway Oyster Bar pointed out the "real" facts on Yelp, including:

• Mary did not have a reservation because the restaurant doesn't take reservations.
• The party was waiting for one hour and half, but not two hours.
• The party of nine was indeed squishing in a table for eight guests, but that was agreed to by the party.
• Shortly after the party was seated, five additional guests (not three) joined the party.
• Without asking for any assistance, the party helped themselves by getting more chairs from another part of the restaurant.
• When 14 people sitting in a table for eight, some guests were actually sitting in the aisles or right next to other guests.
• Because the party had infringed on other guests' personal space and the server found it difficult to serve the party in their current seating situation, the floor manager offered a separate table for those five additional guests, which triggered a fight between a member from the party and the staff, or "a heated argument with F-bombs" in the manager's words.
• Some members of the party ended up staying and not going with Mary to another restaurant.

Later, Mary posted another review to respond to the manager's "real" facts:

• Some members of her party stayed only because they had already ordered food and wanted to wait to take out their order so that they could join the party afterward in another restaurant.
• "The rest of your inaccuracies were not even worth debating."

Now that you have read the reviews from Mary and the manager's response, which side will you take? Who presented the real facts?

More importantly, do you see how critical it is for the owner to respond to Mary's review? In a case like this, managerial responses can provide additional information from the business's perspective, allowing other customers to make an informed purchasing decision with an evaluation of both sides of the story.

In the end, I would like to make the following recommendations for managers who are ready to take an active role in responding to online reviews:

• Listen to what customers say about your business, and treat online reviews as customer feedback.
• Encourage satisfied customers to post positive reviews and let them be the advocates for the business.
• Thank those "influential" customers who left positive reviews.
• Stay calm when reading negative reviews; do not get emotional.
• Focus on the facts, but not how you feel or how the guest felt when writing a response.
• When more than one customer brings up the same issue, it is likely that the customer is right.
• When the customer is right, acknowledge that and seek ways to address the issue. It is important to show that the management team is listening and working on the issue.
• Understand the needs and wants of the target customers. Because different customers are seeking different types of product-service mixes, managers should adopt different tactics in responding to online reviews based on the unique characteristics their product carries.

What else should a manager do in responding to online reviews? What are your suggestions?

* Another version of this post was published in MultiBrief.com. 

Managerial responses to online reviews: Strategies should vary across different hotels

Last month, I published two journal articles about online reviews. The first one was about how managers of different hotels should use different strategies to respond to online reviews and published in The Cornell Hospitality Quarterly (with Karen Xie and Wei Wang). The second one was a review of current literature about online reviews and published in International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (with Karen Xie and Tori Richards). 

I highlighted the important implications of these two journal articles on Multibriefs.com. For example, I recommend that responses to online reviews should vary based on hotel class. In particularly: 

• Budget traveler hotels — provide more but also more concise (shorter) responses by the executives.

• Mid-market economy hotels — provide more responses by the executives.

• Full-service hotels — provide more responses by the executives in a timely manner.

• Above-average hotels — provide more and longer responses by the functional managers (e.g., front desk manager, sales manager, etc.) and reply in a timely manner.

• Luxury hotels — provide more and longer responses by the functional managers.

In the literature review paper, we pointed out what we know and what we don't know about online reviews. Particularly, I would like to see what you want to know about online reviews. Maybe your comments will inspire more research studies in the future to help us further advance our knowledge about online reviews. 

Looking forward to 2017 with a review of 2016

Are you ready for a new year? I know I am. As we are looking forward to 2017, let's review some of the key events and discussions in 2016 as published at MultiBriefs.com.  

Impacts from the major events in 2016

There were several surprising, if not revolutionary, changes in 2016 that need our special attention as we enter 2017. Here are some examples:

• Donald Trump will officially become the 45th president of the United States after the inauguration on Jan. 20. I do not believe his presidency or his comments about illegal immigrants will stop people from traveling to the U.S., but his foreign policies — such as tighter border controls and new regulations or procedures of handling visas for temporary visitors — might have a negative impact. Meanwhile, Trump's infrastructure plan may boost the travel and tourism industry, providing easier, faster and safer access to a destination.
• A growing number of terrorist attacks in Europe have made (or soon will make) it more difficult to travel from one country to another in Europe. Those tragic events also put people in great concern of their safety when traveling inside of Europe.
• Brexit is probably the most shocking news in 2016 for Europeans. This past weekend, Italian voters rejected a batch of reforms, and the resounding defeat has led to the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Now, there is a strong chance Italy will become the second country to separate from the European Union (EU). The collapse of EU would make it more difficult to travel in Europe. The positive spin of Brexit is that the value of the pound is at a historic low, making a trip to Britain a great bargain.
• President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba helps to spur travel to the country.

The economy

• The U.S. dollar remained strong in 2016, and this trend will probably continue in 2017. We can expect a more diverse mix of international travelers visiting the U.S. as the number of visitors from Canada and Mexico drops. Meanwhile, more Americans are expected to travel overseas.
• Travelers have been taking more road trips in recent years due to low gas prices. Last week, however, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reached an agreement to cut production, which may lead to higher gas prices in the future.
• The possible recession, as well as the rising minimum wages will continue pushing hospitality businesses to optimize efficiency in operations. More restaurants and hotels are rolling out new concepts, such as automatic service and no-tipping policies.

The evolving competitive landscape

2016 has been an exciting year for many hoteliers. Marriott and Starwood completed a merger and became the biggest hotel chain in the world. Yet the competition is just going to get tougher. For example:

• More hotels are luring travelers with local flavors.
• Hotels are reinventing their loyalty programs to win travelers, as reflected in 2016's top travel reward programs.
• Room-sharing websites, such as Airbnb, have become a big threat to hotels, even though some believe Airbnb's negative impact remains negligible.
• As hotels continue to fight with online travel agents (OTAs) using book-direct campaigns, we need to pay close attention to the possibility of Airbnb and OTAs working together against hotels.
• Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and online reviews deserve continuous attention from businesses. I am going to share the results of my research on online reviews as soon as my papers become available on the journals' websites.

Travelers want more authentic experiences

In 2016, I also shared a few discussions about new hotel and travel trends. Today's travelers want to gain more authentic experience in a tourist destination. They want to try local flavors, demand efficient service with the aid of technology, stay healthy and practice sustainability.

Above is a highlight of the key events of 2016, as reflected in my discussions over the year. Do you recall any big events in 2016 that I missed? How would they impact the future of hospitality and tourism business?

References:
The picture was downloaded from ArmstrongEconomics.com.