Over the years I have spent a lot of time in hotels. I train in them, teach in
them and stay in them. I spent over a year working with Telewest as their
National Sales Trainer. It meant that I flew from London City Airport on Monday
morning to Edinburgh and back on the Friday night. The following week I flew
from Stanstead on the Monday morning to Newcastle upon Tyne and back on Friday
night. I did that alternating routine for eighteen months. When I flew back from
holiday in Cyprus the flight attendant gave me a form to fill in with the usual
questions: what newspaper did I read, where did I book my holidays and,
surprise, how often had I flown in the last year?
I thought about it for a
while and did the math. Allowing for the occasional one-day return, it worked
out at 123 times. It was more than the flight attendant I think.
I was
always booked into a Hilton or the Holiday Inn. I was always welcomed and
greeted like royalty, just like the other guests were. Efficient, nothing too
much trouble and caring. They understood the rules.
Paying customers are
great but repeat or returning regular customers are the lifeblood. When I first
arrived at the Hilton in Edinburgh they didn’t know me from a hole in the road.
I was treated as if I had stayed there before every week for the last five
years. It was comfort all the way.
The thing about great service is that
you tell five or ten people. The thing about bad service is; you tell
fifty!
I was told one week that I would be staying at a very exclusive
hotel near Edinburgh. It was an old manor house in landscaped grounds. I liked
the sound of that.
I landed at Edinburgh, picked up my hire car, and
drove through the snow to the big gates of the Hotel and as I made my way along
the drive I looked up and saw the sign: The Dalmahoy Hotel and Country Club. As
I parked the car a doorman in a long coat and top hat came out and carried my
suitcase into the hotel.
As I stood in the foyer I looked around at the
décor. Yes, very classy and very gothic with a touch of the stately home about
it. Behind the reception was a big sign. It said: Marriott. Then I noticed a big
picture of old man Marriott smiling at me. It was a strange smile and made me
feel uneasy. Like a turkey that had just caught Bernard Matthews grinning at it.
I soon realised what he was smiling about. He was smiling at all of the gullible
suckers that book into his hotels. Like PT Barnum is WRONGLY attributed as
saying, ‘Theres a sucker born every minute’, old man Marriott must be thinking
‘Theres a sucker checking in every minute’. There was another sign on the wall
next to it that said: We Are Dedicated To Your Service. That turned out to be hilarious.
The
girl behind the desk looked up and greeted me by saying: ‘Yes?’
That was the
customer service over with.
I told her my name and handed her the fax
booking details with the reference numbers that stated that I was booked in for
four nights in a suite on a company account with all meals and drinks included.
Any other bills accrued by me were to be added to the company bill and charged
to the company. The company was ‘Telewest Communications’. Nevertheless, I
tended to pay for my drinks in the bar myself as they only amounted to one beer
a night or possibly more if I was watching football on the TV. In all my time in
hotels, having presented a paper of authority like that it has been good enough,
the hotel is not going to be stiffed and I am whisked away to my room and left
to my own devices to get on with the job in hand.
‘Credit
card?’
‘Excuse me?’ I thought she had asked me for my credit card for a
second.
‘Credit card. Do you have a credit card?’
‘No.’
I
waited.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
‘What’s it got to do with you?’ I answered.
‘In any case why would I need a credit card?’
‘We have to swipe your credit
card to activate the premium TV service, activate the telephone and release the
mini bar.’
‘Why, what's the mini bar done? Was it locked up for being
drunk?’
‘The mini bar has a security door, electronic, which is released by
us by taking a swipe of...’
‘Yes I get the picture. No, I do not have a
credit card. If I did have a credit card I wouldn’t give it to you to swipe. You
have a fax confirmation requesting that any and all charges I incur are sent to
my company which, I think you will find, include activating TV channels I will
not be able to understand, allowing me to make a phone call and giving the mini
bar parole.’
I think it was her general demeanour and ‘I hate my job’
attitude that clinched my hatred of her. I had a credit card but I was damned
if I was going to give it to her when I didn’t need to. I don’t like credit
cards in any case and I see them as an emergency only item. I am and always have
been a cash person. I have been standing in line when I have seen someone buying
a can of coke and two bars of chocolate on a visa card. I have wanted to beat them over the head with an iron bar.
‘Well, we need a credit card.’
‘You
do realise that you are at risk by letting me have a room in which you have
disabled the telephone, thus preventing me from making a call in an emergency,
like to a doctor, etc?’
This fazed her slightly.
She kept on about
credit cards for a while but then gave up after I told her I was getting fed up
arguing the toss with her when I had business to attend to. I asked her for my
key which she handed over after telling me that although she would release the
minibar, the phone and the channels on the TV it was only ‘this once’ and if I
returned I would need to make arrangements for a company credit card or pay £75
up front to cover any hidden extras!
‘Never mind all that crap...Whose the old guy in the photograph?’ I
asked, pointing at the wall behind her.
She looked around at it. It was about
four-foot tall by two feet wide so I was surprised that she appeared not to have
noticed it before.
‘I think that’s Mr Marriott.’
‘Is it? I bet you don’t see that
very often here?’
‘What?’
‘A happy face.’ I picked up my suitcase and
walked off to the lift.
The room was okay and had a very old world feel
about it. I couldn’t fault the food either. I sat at breakfast with the snow
falling heavily outside eating haggis, neeps and tatties (seriously). I looked out of the
window and a stag met my gaze. This was wonderful and my earlier problem with
the sales prevention officer behind reception was forgotten, until I went back
to my room and found a note under my door asking me to let reception have my
credit card details, the mini bar door electronically locked, the telephone not
working and no SkyNews on the TV.
I went down to reception and there she
was.
'Do you have some form of mental illness?' I asked her.
'Pardon?'
‘Have you ever read that sign?’ I pointed at the wall and old man
Marriott’s motto.
‘Yes?’ She told me.
‘Well where is the service you are
supposed to be dedicated to?’
She just stared at me.
I tore her note up
into small pieces and placed it on the desktop in front of her.
‘Switch it all back on in
room 301. If there is any bill send it to my company as your head office has
agreed. Who knows? Old man Marriott may invest in some staff
training.’
By the time I got back to my room it was all back on. This
scenario happened two more times over the next few days. The minibar had sensors
inside that could tell what you had taken out of it and automatically notified
the bar to replenish it and reception to charge you for it. I made their life
difficult by taking all of the bottles out one evening and putting them back in
the morning. As I went down to the car to drive to Dundee on Thursday morning I
passed a waiter carrying a box of small bottles of booze on his way to replenish
my minibar, only to find it fully stocked.
One evening I was sitting
watching TV in my suite eating my dinner when the phone rang. It was a pal of
mine whom I needed to speak to, hence the room service. As we spoke I absent
mindedly opened the drawer in the bedside cabinet. In place of the usual Gideon
Bible was old man Marriott’s book ‘Marriott’s way’. The subtitle of the book is
‘The Spirit to Serve’ and if ever there was a case for trades description it is
that statement. I took the book and have it today still. It is a catalogue of
how great he thinks Marriott hotels are.
Well, Marriott, I don’t think
you are great at all. I don’t think you are good enough to be called mediocre.
Your customer service stinks and from what I hear, it hasn’t got better since I
stayed in one of your hotels last, which was in Newcastle a few weeks after the
above incidents. They had a credit card fixation too and made people feel like
criminals.
When I told the Sales prevention officer in the Dalmahoy that
I didn’t think service was high on their priorities she made a noise. It was,
‘Hmmph!’
That was a very expensive grunt she made. Expensive for you, old man Marriott, and
each day that passes is another one that costs you. Neither I, nor my staff and
friends have ever spent a penny in a Marriott since and you have missed a lot of knock
on business from my courses.
Over the years I have stayed in a lot of
Hotels and I have run seminars and training sessions in them and in my terms and
conditions I actually state ‘not a Marriott hotel’. I would rather cancel the
job than stay in one of old man Marriott’s hotels. I made a calculation that
over the years, the treatment I received on those two occasions have cost old
man Marriott over one hundred thousand pounds. I could have hired conference
rooms on numerous occasions. That would have made other people, delegates, stay
there. That would have put hundreds of people at a time in the hotel restaurant
and bar. Instead, now they avoid the place too.
‘We are dedicated to your
service’. Hmmph!
Marriott’s way is not my way and, boy, am I glad about
that!
