Front Office Ambassador - Renaissance by Marriott Harlem - New York, NY

REPORTS TO:  Front Office Manager

Benefits/Perks of Working With Us:

Upon joining Real Hospitality Group, associates are offered competitive compensation, career growth opportunities, flexible access to wages, holiday, sick and vacation pay, health, dental and vision insurance, employer paid life, accidental death, and dismemberment insurance, an employee assistance program, a 401k, and many associate discount options.

Purpose for the Position:  The Front Office Ambassador for Renaissance Chelsea must exemplify the highest levels of genuine and anticipatory guest service.  The Ambassador will provide individualized and customized service to guests to ensure that their pre-arrival, arrival, in-house, and departure experience is memorable and exceeds expectations.  This individual must maintain local neighborhood knowledge to be able to offer our guests an experience that can only be found in Chelsea.  The Ambassador must be able to handle all telephone, reservation, and guest inquiries seamlessly.

The Front Office Ambassador Essential Responsibilities:  

1. Welcome guests to the hotel, extend courteous assistance, register, and allocate rooms with a mobile check in. Use professional, warm, friendly, and genuine expressions whenever addressing guests.
2. Assist, retrieve, load, and store luggage for guests. Ensure the delivery of parcels, mail, and special deliveries to guestrooms. 
3. Verify guests' credit and establish how the customer will pay for their accommodations. Issue room keys once a valid form of payment and photo identification is confirmed.  
4. Keep records of room availability and guests' accounts using computerized property management systems. Compute bills, collect payments, and make changes for guests. 
5. Perform simple bookkeeping activities, such as balancing cash accounts. Post charges, such as those for rooms, food, liquor, or telephone calls, to ledgers manually, or by using computers. 
6. Demonstrate exceptional knowledge of different points of interest within the surrounding areas of the hotel and New York City attractions.
7. Be able to recommend local (non-tourist) destinations that are unique to the Chelsea Neighborhood.
8. Review satisfaction with stay, accuracy of guest folio, and invite guests to return during the checkout process.
9. Answer all incoming phone calls in three rings or less with proper greeting. Transmit and receive messages using telephones or telephone switchboards.  
10. Make, confirm, or edit hotel reservations.
11. Be knowledgeable in the hotel's selling strategy, rates, package plans, and services. Upsell hotel rooms accordingly.
12. Assist with arranging guest transportation needs such as taxi and/or car services as needed; assist in airline ticket requests.
13. Answer inquiries and assist in making reservations for dining, entertainment, and shopping.
14. Take an active role in listening to and recording guest comments or complaints. Ensure that there was a follow up and all issues have been resolved before the guest's departure.
15. Ensure appropriate steps are taken to anticipate guest needs and resolve guest complaints promptly.
16. Communicate with all other hotel departments and hotel staff as needed in order to facilitate an efficient and effective flow of information at all times.
17. Complete "bucket checks" to ensure all accounts are current and comply with standards established by the hotel's Accounting and Front Office policies.

To this kind of work, you must be able to:

• Be an outgoing, welcoming personality for the hotel.
• Use logical thinking and personal judgment to perform a variety of office tasks that require special skills and knowledge.
• Make decisions based on your own judgment and company policy.
• Follow instructions without close supervision.
• Speak and write clearly and accurately.
• Be available for work days, evenings, weekends, and holidays.

Physical Demands:  Lifting 20 lbs. maximum with frequent lifting and/or carrying of objects weighing up to 10lbs. Requires walking, standing to a significant degree, reaching, handling, feeling, talking and hearing. Must be able to sit or stand for long periods at a time. 

Environmental Conditions:  Inside: Protection from weather conditions but not necessarily from temperature changes. A job considered "inside" if the worker spends approximately 75% or more of the time inside. 

Math Skills:  Requires mathematical development sufficient to be able to: Deal with system of real numbers; algebraic solutions of equations; and probability and statistical inference. Apply fractions, percentages, ratio and proportion. 

Language Skills:  Must have developed language skills to the point to be able to: Read newspapers, periodicals, journals and manuals. Write business letters, summaries and reports using prescribed format and conforming to all rules of punctuation, grammar, diction and style. Participate effectively in discussions and debates. Speak extemporaneously on a variety of subjects. 

Relationships to Data, People, and Things:   

Data:  Compiling: Gathering, collating, or classifying information about data, people or things. Reporting and/or carrying out a prescribed action in relation to the information is frequently involved. 

People:  Speaking-Signaling: Talking with and/or signaling people to convey or exchange information. Includes giving assignments and or directions to helpers or assistants.  

Things:  Operating-Controlling: Starting, stopping, controlling and adjusting the progress of machines or equipment.  Operating machines involves setting up and adjusting the machine or materials as the work progresses.  Controlling involves observing and turning devices to regulate reactions of materials.  

Specific Vocational Preparation:  Proficiency in Microsoft Office Professional with an emphasis on Word, PowerPoint and Excel to format and create professional documents to be used and distributed on the executive level. Candidate must have strong organizational skills and ability to prioritize duties to complete within required deadlines. Creativity to accomplish required tasks, such as documents being appealing to the eye, to find and research various information needed to complete and compile reports.