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LRA Worldwide Extends Relationship With Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
New Brand Assurance Program to Measure and Enhance Guest Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty for Starwood's Global Hotel Portfolio
HORSHAM, Pennsylvania; May 22, 2002 - LRA Worldwide announced today that Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) has renewed and extended its business relationship with LRA Worldwide. LRA will be partnering with Starwood and its various hotel brands around the world to design and implement an innovative quality and brand assurance program. LRA Worldwide is a leading provider of specialized brand performance, quality assurance and customer satisfaction consulting services to the global hospitality and travel industries.
"The program is highly focused on elements that are critical to our guest's experience and satisfaction, what we refer to as our loyalty drivers," said Diana Oreck, senior vice president of operations for Starwood. "LRA has been a long-time partner of Starwood, and the two organizations have worked closely together to successfully enhance our measurement processes and quality metrics."
"We have taken several steps to improve the consistency of our product and service quality," remarked Glenn Tuckman, senior vice president of Starwood's North America Hotel Operations. "Starwood was the first hospitality company in the world to embrace Six Sigma, the internationally recognized program that dramatically accelerates and maximizes business performance." Six Sigma has been rolled-out across all of Starwood's brands. "Six Sigma provides critical focus on the customer, and over time, will help deliver a dramatic improvement in our hotels' bottom lines. We incorporated Six Sigma into the Brand Assurance Program we designed with LRA Worldwide, where our focus is on zero defect performance on the elements that define the brand." In addition, Starwood recently announced ambitious plans to further upgrade its brands, including Sheraton. The focus is on consistency in product and service quality worldwide.
"The extension of our relationship with Starwood will enable us to further enhance the quality measurement processes and performance metrics that we developed with Starwood for its brands," said Stan Lashner, Chief Operating Officer of LRA Worldwide. "Starwood's current brand assurance program measures the key elements of the guest experience and the items that define the brand, including the Starwood Preferred Guest program, the Westin Heavenly Bed and other essential standards. We have designed one global platform that integrates with Six Sigma and can be customized by any Starwood division or a brand, including Westin, Sheraton, W, The Luxury Collection and Four Points by Sheraton."
About Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with more than 740 properties in more than 80 countries and 110,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. With internationally renowned brands, Starwood is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchiser of hotels and resorts including: St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, W brands, as well as Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwood.com.
About LRA Worldwide, Inc.
LRA Worldwide, Inc. is a leading consulting, organizational development and research company that specializes in Customer Experience Management (CEM). LRA helps companies and brands design and deliver the optimal customer experience across all key touch points using an integrated suite of services that measure and improve service quality, customer satisfaction, employee performance, loyalty, customer advocacy and profitability. LRA specializes in "operationalizing the brand" - turning brand promise and customer strategy into operational reality. LRA's CEM practice areas include CEM Strategy Design, Standards Development & Content Management, Organizational Development & Training, Research and Quality Assurance & Mystery Shopping; these are either deployed together in a strategic manner to continually monitor and improve the customer experience or deployed individually to address a specific tactical client need.
LRA's clients include some of the world's leading companies and brands, including Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos, the PGA TOUR, Albertsons Supermarkets, the NBA and First Niagara Financial Group. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.LRAworldwide.com
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