Service Excellence -
Training Programme by
EHL Hospitality Business School
Elevate your service, elevate your success
Luxury travel is an increasingly growing trend, with more people seeking unique, tailor-made journeys that offer a deeper connection to destinations and cultures. Luxury is no longer just high-quality facilities - luxury travel appeals to those who value top-tier service, privacy and unique experiences.
With Service Excellence training you will develop your concept, service path and customer experience to stand out in the growing luxury travel market.
Join the Service Excellence Training Programme by
EHL Hospitality Business School
Essentials for
Front Line Staff
Module 1:
Week 34, August 2025
(2 days)
Essentials for Managers & Management Team
Module 2:
Week 37, September 2025
(2 days)
Engaging Change
with a Customer Focus
Module 3:
Week 39, September 2025
(2 days)
From Good to Great: What Truly Makes Service Excellent?
- Good vs. excellent service
- Challenges of service nature
- Operational excellence
- Requirements
Moments That Matter: Where Experience Is Shaped
Beyond the understanding of what constitutes service excellence, where everyone will be led to share their experience, participants will explore what constitutes moments of truth with the customer through the multiplicity of contact points in the customer journey – and where each actor is the custodian and therefore responsible for what will constitute the customer experience.
Seeing Through the Customer’s Eyes
- Verbal communication (questioning techniques)
- Non-verbal communication
- Emotional awareness
Practise Makes Personal: Roleplay for Real Impact
- Greeting
- Taking care of
- Discharging clients
- either face to face or on the phone.
- The power of words and choice
- The most appropriate formulas through role-playing
Building Emotional Connections Through Hospitality
“80% of companies believe they deliver a superior experience, while only 8% of customers agree.”
– Bain Survey, 2005
Where does this hiatus in customer experience come from? How do we approach that as a manager in charge of a service organization?
How can we implement a service culture?
How can we collectively find – by relying on both our teams and our customers – the dynamics of excellence, which is also the dynamic of value creation in the service chain?
If delivering “good service” is not enough to transform the customer into a brand ambassador, then we must:
-
Reconcile operational excellence
-
Integrate customer orientation
-
Adjust service delivery to meet individual perceptions
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Focus on the customer’s welcome as part of the brand promise
-
Embrace the concept of brand hospitality
Living the Brand Promise
- Clarifying its raison d’être (Strategy)
- Defining its state of mind (Culture & Values)
- Aligning skills and processes with agility
- Growing with its clients through collective commitment
Leading from Every Role: Ownership of the Experience
- The Service Profit Chain
- Drivers of service leadership
- Dynamics of excellence within a service team
- Development of a service culture with both individual and collective accountability
The Art of Interaction
- Understand and adapt communication and management style (situational management)
- Create an environment in which a service culture can thrive
- Monitor and evaluate employee performance effectively
What Is Excellent Service?
Most organisations recognise the importance of improving customer service to stand out in a competitive environment. However, there is often a significant gap between how companies perceive their service and how customers experience it. According to a Bain survey (2005), 80% of companies believe they deliver a superior experience, while only 8% of customers agree.
This disconnect highlights the complexity of service: its intangible nature, its perceived quality, and the diverse expectations of customers and employees alike. Good service alone is no longer enough—organisations must aim for service excellence, which combines operational efficiency with emotional engagement, empathy, and personalisation.
Participants will reflect on their own service experiences and explore what differentiates a good service from an excellent one. Through the lens of customer journey touchpoints, each individual will discover their role as a custodian of the customer experience.
Creating Brand Hospitality and Service Culture
Organisations must also clarify their purpose (strategy), define their culture and values, and align skills and processes to create an agile structure that grows with its customers. Excellence is not only delivered externally to customers but also internally to employees, nurturing a service culture where everyone is both engaged and accountable. Topics include:
- The role of communication styles (verbal, non-verbal, emotional)
- Personalisation and customer engagement
- Responsibility at all touchpoints
- Practising service moments through role-play
Leading the Dynamics of Service Excellence
Participants will explore:
- Levers of service leadership
- Building service excellence within teams
- Accountability—both individual and collective
- Coaching vs. feedback in daily leadership
- Understanding and adapting management and communication styles (situational leadership) to support service culture
Driving Change and Customer-Centric Transformation
This final section focuses on change management in service organisations, helping participants understand:
- A brief history of organisational change
- Change methodologies and tools
- The critical path to transformation
Through a service industry case study, participants will apply their knowledge, reflect on real-world scenarios, and identify the steps to implement a customer-centric transformation—where employees are engaged, customers become ambassadors, and service becomes a true differentiator.
EHL (Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne) or EHL Hospitality Business School, is the world's leading hotel management school, founded in 1893 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Recognized by the industry as the world's leading hotel management school, it is also a leader in hospitality innovation and, above all, a center of excellence for teaching hospitality to students from all over the world. With over 25,000 alumni worldwide, EHL has the largest hospitality network in the industry.

Olivier Verschelde
Head of Hospitality & Service DNA at EHL Hospitality Business School (Switzerland)
Areas of Expertise:
- Customer experience enhancement
- Service design
- Hospitality strategy development
- Food & Beverage concept development
More information
As the Head of Hospitality DNA and Senior Consultant in the Lausanne office, Olivier has extensive experience with assisting several organisations, from the luxury industry to the banking sector in establishing their service excellence culture.
As an advisor, he thrives in multicultural environments and therefore travels the world to work on projects ranging from mixed-use destination projects to private medical facilities. Prior to joining EHL advisory, Olivier has been involved in managing a number of hospitality projects with one of them being a luxury boutique hotel & spa near Paris. He has also taken the lead in the setup of several food and beverage outlets around Europe and Switzerland from conceptualization to opening.
The last one being a gastronomic restaurant that obtained a one Michelin-star rating 5 months after opening. A graduate of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, Olivier is also a Project Management Professional (PMP) certified. His is a native Dutch speaker, is fluent in English and French, and can communicate in German and Spanish.

Meygan Gerber
Consultant at EHL Hospitality Business School (Switzerland)
Areas of Expertise:
- Customer Service Excellence
- Customer Journey Analysis
- Service Standards Development
More information
Meygan Gerber is a consultant specializing in Hospitality & Service DNA Activation at EHL, within service organizations, with a focus on achieving transformational excellence for more than 7 years. With a core emphasis on employee engagement, service signature alignment, and strategic customer service integration, Meygan brings invaluable expertise to her role. Her dedication lies in fostering employee & customer engagements and optimizing the HR cycle to bolster service excellence within diverse industries, including airlines, banking & insurance, healthcare & pharmaceuticals, automotive, and retail & luxury retail sectors.
One of Meygan's key strengths lies in maintaining stringent quality control over service delivery while efficiently managing client accounts. Her strategic planning and execution of mandates consistently yield tangible results, driving organizational transformation and fostering a culture of service excellence.
Moreover, Meygan brings a wealth of hands-on experience from her tenure in various prestigious hotels across Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Panama, and USA. Having worked in both front and back-of-the-house positions, she possesses a nuanced understanding of operational intricacies and customer service dynamics within the hospitality industry.
Meygan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Business Management from the prestigious institution, EHL Hospitality Business School (known also as Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne) and continues to stay at the forefront of emerging trends and best practices in the field. Committed to lifelong learning, she regularly participates in professional development opportunities.
With her multifaceted skill set, Meygan is dedicated to partnering with organizations to navigate complex challenges, unlock the potential of their people, and achieve sustainable growth. Whether facilitating executive education programs, designing strategies, or implementing solutions, Meygan is known for her strategic insights, collaborative approach, and unwavering commitment to client success.

Franck Louveau
Consultant at EHL Hospitality Business School (Switzerland)
Areas of Expertise
- Customer service design | Employee engagement
- Digital transformation & Digital Marketing
- Business Effectiveness and Strategic Alignment
- Business Development | Strategic Partnerships
More information
As a Consultant in the Lausanne office, Franck is convinced that beyond strategic alignment, employee engagement and customer engagement are the fundamentals of service excellence and competitive advantage leading to better business performance.
For any compelling brand or service, the employee’s engagement (including partners) allows to create a seamless experience that can surpass customer expectation, hence engaging the customer to return and to recommend the service. Understanding the strategic intent of organisations, the dynamics – and the resilience – of the stakeholders in the customer journey, the complexity of the service delivery would it be in the physical world or in the connected world, are all dimensions that need to be covered when addressing service excellence. Prior to joining EHL Advisory Services, Franck started his career in the IT industry (AlcatelLucent Enterprise/Business Communication) as a sales engineer and then business developer in charge of strategic partnerships, leading teams in France, Brazil, Sweden and the US. Earnest about his interest in hospitality management and customer care, Franck undertook the EHL Masters programme in 2012 to then move to a new set of leading roles as hotel manager and hotel director in various properties.
Franck holds a Master of Sciences in Telecommunications from Telecom Bretagne, a Master of Business Administration from London Business School and a Master of Hospitality Administration from Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne. He is a French native, fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Are you ready to take your services to the next level and attract luxury travelers?
Well-known luxury tour operators are paving the way for a larger group of operators, and success in this service segment is one of the criteria for the future success of the region. It is time to utilize the growing potential of luxury tourism and make the North an even more attractive destination for travelers seeking exclusive experiences.
Select the appropriate person from your organization for each module. One person per module.
Do you have any questions? Contact us!

Eija Pahtakari
Training Coordinator
eija.pahtakari@redu.fi
+358 40 352 1440