Hospitality Principle: The 10/5 Rule

True hospitality of warm, personal and engaging guest service can only be achieved when the guest believes you’re on their side. Have you ever walked into a restaurant or hotel and been completely ignored by the staff? A server walks by you, a busser, a bartender, even a manager walks by you and never acknowledges you—almost like you were a piece of furniture that required no attention.

In my career, I have found that the 10/5 Rule is the single best practice to deliver true hospitality. It’s quite simple—I train my staff that when they’re 10 feet from a guest, they smile and make direct eye contact. And when they are five feet from a guest, they verbally greet. The key to a highly engaged staff versus a non-engaged staff is that you have to train your team to look for the guest. By doing this, the energy in the room is vastly different because now, you have an engaged staff looking for ways to engage the guest.