How Nordic Choice Hotels succeeds with its tone of voice

It’s not always easy to say precisely what constitutes a company’s tone of voice.

If we look at Choice Hotel, there is no doubt that Petter Stordalen leads the charge there. Even when you read a brochure about the hotel chain’s attitude towards healthy food or something written about environmental undertakings, a picture of Stordalen’s committed, almost frenetic, communicative skills usually comes to mind. He has a lot on his plate, and many burning issues on his mind, and undoubtedly acts as a poster boy for his hotel chain, both in Norway and Sweden. We can genuinely say that Petter Stordalen is a more powerful product than the company he represents. He is, in other words, a Norwegian Sir Richard Branson.

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Stordalen = Choice Hotel

If you were to ask 1000 people what they associate with the words ”Choice Hotel”, the first thing that would pop up in most people’s minds would undoubtedly be ”Petter Stordalen”. If you were to turn this around and mention the name ”Petter Stordalen”, there would definitely be fewer people who would name the Choice chain first, although many would still make this association. Even though ”tone of voice” is a term used to denote a company’s written expression, it would not be entirely wrong to say that an individual’s verbal expression, in this case, to a certain degree, drowns out the company’s written ”tone of voice”. On the other hand, most of what the irrepressible Petter says and does is completely in tune with the tone that Choice desires. Even if he at times may appear to be a loose cannon, he is certainly capable of listening to competent advisors, including himself.

It seems as though Stordalen has managed to strike a balance being both a human being and a product in a convincing manner. By this, we mean without losing himself in the process. He may have an inner switch that enables him to go from being the private individual Petter to being the hotel owner and vice versa, but it’s not so easy to distinguish between the two from the outside. Which of his personas is really the one that invites people to sumptuous parties with Swedish, Roman or rustic themes?

Nordic Choice success with tone of voice

Clearly, there is much more happening within Choice than what Stordalen lends his face to. After all, we are talking about a hotel chain with over 180 hotels. They have a proactive attitude towards the ongoing communication between their chain and their customers on the internet. For example, Choice Hotels places comments from Trip Advisor straight into many of its web pages. In other words, they utilise a completely independent channel which Choice itself has no control over whatsoever. All the dirt and spice that is concocted about Choice hotels on Trip Advisor is utilised completely unfiltered. In other words, they are not afraid of negative reviews from their guests; in fact, these are welcomed. The challenge is, then, to do something with all this feedback, and to do it in the right way.

Choice Hotels has its own member of staff who sends replies to the comments that appear on Trip Advisor. Therefore, the hotel chain is able to quickly thank a customer for having made Choice aware that a bed was uncomfortable, that there were no towels, or that a corridor was not properly hoovered. They turn negative comments into something positive by doing something tangible about the problems that arise. They hoover the corridor. They fix the bed. At the same time, they make the customer aware that they have followed up on their complaint. When they receive praise, they make a point of thanking the customer for their response and welcome the customer back again. What they say in this and other social media constitutes an integral part of the Choice chain’s tone of voice.

A lot of good work is clearly taking place in the huge shadow of the little man who is in charge of Choice hotels.

Source

Inspiration and comments from, for example, Edgar Valdemanis, have been taken from an interview in connection with a Bachelor of Marketing, Internationalisation and Sales Leadership at Kristiania University College, Oslo.