Why team experience defines guest experience (+ key trend insights)
In hospitality, service excellence is no longer just about smiling at the front desk or delivering room service on time. It’s about empowering frontline teams to navigate constant change with confidence and agility. Rising guest expectations, labor shortages and new technologies have put hotel staff under unprecedented pressure.
And leaders are asking: how do we equip our people to thrive in this new era?
That question was at the center of a recent Hotel Business Hot Topics webinar, From Check-In to Checkout: The Key to Operational Agility and Guest Satisfaction, hosted by Glenn Haussmanlin. Industry leaders from Marriott International, Crestline Hotels & Resorts, Extreme Hospitality, and Axonify CEO Melissa Burghardt came together to share how they’re rethinking team experience as the foundation for guest loyalty.
The conversation revealed a truth worth repeating: the guest experience can never exceed the team experience. And if hospitality wants to deliver world-class service at scale, it must start by making sure teams are always customer-ready.
Empowerment is the engine for agility
Hospitality moves fast. A guest arrives frustrated after a long flight. A family asks for a last-minute room switch. A wedding group needs flexibility at check-in. In those moments, agility is everything, and agility only exists when staff have both the permission and preparation to act.
Eric Rubino of Extreme Hospitality cut to the heart of it:
“Your employees can’t be agile if they aren’t given the authority to make decisions. You have to take the risk that your team will make the right decisions and empower them.”
This isn’t about policy, it’s about culture. James Carroll of Crestline Hotels & Resorts reminded us that empowerment means trust, not just rule changes:
“The point isn’t the number—it’s the trust. Employees who know they are trusted will act in ways that strengthen the guest relationship.”
Trend insight (2025): Hotels are increasingly embedding empowerment structurally. AI-enabled SOPs, real-time decision support, and property-wide playbooks are making it possible to decentralize authority without losing consistency. Empowerment is key to operational efficiency.
Confident teams deliver consistent service
Confidence is the invisible force behind every great guest interaction. It shows how quickly an associate resolves an issue, how easily they explain a new promotion, or how warmly they reassure a traveler after a flight delay.
Melissa Burghardt, CEO of Axonify, framed it this way:
“The guest experience can never exceed the team experience. Having that team empowered with that bias to action—that’s super important.”
Confidence grows when associates are trained continuously, supported in real time, and trusted to act. And it’s contagious—spreading across teams, raising service standards, and inspiring loyalty.
Trend insight: With many new entrants to hospitality lacking traditional role models for service, confidence must now be designed into the employee journey. Microlearning, gamification, and reinforcement are becoming table stakes. Marriott’s Jessica Lee shared compelling data: hotels that focus on learning in the first 30–60 days see lower turnover and higher engagement, a direct link between early confidence and long-term retention.
Technology should free staff to be more human
Technology has become a double-edged sword in hospitality. When done well, it frees staff to focus on guests. When poorly implemented, it distracts and frustrates them.
James Carroll cautioned:
“When technology pulls employees away from guests, it has failed its purpose.”
And Jessica Lee added that while data tells you the “what,” it’s human creativity that delivers the “how”:
“You can know someone’s preference is a Diet Coke with two cubes of ice, but can you deliver on that in some creative way? For me, it’s about storytelling.”
Trend insight (2025): Hotels are investing in platforms that unify training, communication, and task management so associates don’t waste time navigating multiple systems. The goal isn’t more tech—it’s smarter tech that amplifies human connection.
▶️ Also read: What is guest experience (and how frontline teams bring it to life)
Early learning defines long-term loyalty
Today’s hospitality workforce is younger, greener, and often less exposed to traditional service norms. As Eric Rubino put it:
“We have a green team training an even greener team.”
This has huge implications for onboarding and mentorship. Without intentional investment in the first days and weeks, employees churn and take the guest experience with them.
Trend insight (2025): High turnover remains one of hospitality’s biggest challenges. The brands winning today are those that treat onboarding not as orientation, but as the foundation of engagement and retention. The first 30–60 days are no longer a ramp-up period; they’re make-or-break.
Invest in people so the business can win
The panel closed with a reminder that the path to profitability runs straight through people. James Carroll captured it simply:
“When you invest in your team, they’re happier. They stay longer. They take care of your guests. Less turnover is less expense. Great guest scores mean customers come back and are willing to pay more.”
And Jessica Lee noted that even the best technology can’t replace the fundamentals:
“All the tech in the world is going to help us be more efficient, create less friction, but there’s still this need for human skills. Communication, EQ, teamwork—these are what will create the experiences that guests remember.”
That’s the virtuous cycle: invest in teams, build confidence, empower action and watch it ripple outward into loyalty, efficiency, and revenue.
What this means for hospitality leaders
Hospitality today is defined by constant change. But the pathway forward is clear:
- Empowerment creates agility in the moment of need
- Confidence drives consistency and service quality
- Connection ensures alignment across properties and shifts
- Smart technology amplifies humanity instead of replacing it
At Axonify, we help hospitality leaders operationalize these principles by embedding learning, communication, and task management into the flow of work. When frontline teams are empowered, confident, and connected, they deliver the kind of experiences that guests remember—and that brands rely on to grow.
Because when your people thrive, your guests feel it—every check-in, every checkout, every moment in between.
Ready to elevate your team experience?
Your guests will only ever feel as confident as your teams do. Discover how leading hotels and resorts are using Axonify to boost retention, streamline operations and deliver consistently exceptional service—every shift, every property.