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It Is Your Money!  |
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When I first became involved in the hotel business in North America, I was totally amazed how easily guests were satisfied with mediocrity. I remember an occasion when I was the Manager on Duty on a Saturday Night, in what would be considered an upscale hotel.
The hotel was humming and many social events, including two weddings, took place that night. I made it my business to pay particular attention to the wedding party in one of our smaller ballrooms. If a large banquet takes place often times the priority of the banquet manager is the larger function, even though all other parties pay good money.
Anyway, as suspected when I checked up on the wedding party I noticed a number of things that I felt were substandard both from a service and food presentation point of view. I actually became quite frustrated made mental notes, jumped in where appropriate and planned to follow up with the management team.
At the end of the evening the bride’s father paged me and I was fully prepared to get an earful regarding the wedding party. Surprise, surprise – he went on at some lengths to compliment the hotel and the staff about providing the best banquet service he ever had and asked me to pass the good word on to all involved.
I was amazed. Obviously while the hotel sets service standards and delivers customer service, the customer determines whether or not he or she is satisfied. And over time I noticed that North American customers in general, were not as demanding as their counterparts in other areas of the world.
It is your money! You should be demanding of the hotel or for that matter, whatever establishment provides a service to you. If they do not deliver what you consider to be value – complain! Give them an opportunity to rectify your problem, but if it isn’t, demand fair restitution.
A hotel that deserves your patronage and money will respond. If they don’t, take your business elsewhere and let people like myself know. We maintain a database of both positive and negative feedback we receive from travelers and it influences their listing in our directory at Hotel Insider.
In the coming weeks I will talk about hotels overbooking policies, the manager on duty, how to effectively complain at hotels and how to get managements attention.
In hospitality Thomas
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 Hotel
Thomas Wahl
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