Winning the Baldrige award tums out to be a "good-news, bad-news" situation. A month or two after winning the award, Ritz-Carition received a feedback report suggesting 75 areas of improvement. The next step, Mene said, was to go right back after defects. "We announced to the employees that by 1996, and this one really shook them, we wanted to reduce the cycle time (the time between identifying a guest's need and satisfying that need) by 50 percent, and we also wanted to set an objective of 100-percent customer retention. So, We actually set goals of enormous magnitude right on the heels of winning the Baidrige, long-range quality goals. What I think got people's attention was that not only did we have new high-quality goals, but we weren't stopping at Baldrige. We wanted the highest level of quality. "Ritz-Cariton did not target such traditional goals as occupancy rate because the company expects the focus on quality goals will develop quality production that will drive the financial outcome. “That was a real shock to our employess, “Mene said.” Whether we end up with the highest average rate and occupancy I don’t know, but we will have the most efficient system to satisfy customers.