Customer Service Simplified

Back on december 3rd, 1o days ago, I asked the Hilton folks to help me out with a small and insignificant dilemma about my stays with them.

Here’s a link to my plea for customer service/saisfaction.

I emailed the post to my Hilton Honors Diamond VIP rep that day.

A week passed and I got no reply.

I then emailed that same post, with a plea for help, to one of their VP’s, Customer Satisfaction wise, and have not heard back from that either. I’ll not out him here, as he may or may not have actually seen that email.

I can’t tell what they’ve seen, since they won’t respond.

Well, I’m in need of a hotel again and I’ll have to go thru the trouble of fighting the 10 different rates at 13 locations thang again, so I’m going to the blogosphere for help.

Would all of you who have blogs related to customer service please Trackback, link to or help publicize this post in some way ?

I need to spend my time doing something besides arguing with myself, since they won’t argue back.

And if you have a Hilton Hotels contact, please send ‘em my way.

Over the last 2 years, I’ve spent about 50 nights in a hotel in Louisville, KY. Every one of those has been at a Hilton franchise, namely a Hampton Inn.

On the road in Knoxville, Hampton Inn. Nashville, Hampton Inn. Horse Cave, Hampton Inn. There have been other cities, but the one constant has been the franchise … Hampton Inn.

Over the last 2 years, my Hilton Honors account has gone to Diamond VIP, which is as high as it goes for their customers.

I’ve always enjoyed their cleanliness, their business services, the great, hot breakfasts and USA Today newspapers, the fine service, etc.

The one thing I haven’t enjoyed is their rates which fluctuate too much for my comfort.

Right now, 7:20 PM on Sunday nite, December 3rd, 2006, on their website there are 13 different hotels listed and there are 10 different rates. They range from $79 a nite to $179 a nite.

10 rates for 13 hotels is just plain crazy. Those hotels are blocks away from each other in some cases and on different ends of the same city in other cases.

I can drive for 20 minutes or less and save my company $100 a nite. That’s dumber than a box-o-rocks to make me make that choice.

Why can’t a diamond VIP get a rate that doesn’t fluctuate and consistently stay at the same hotel every week ?

3 weeks ago, I was waiting to check in and the young lady who was attempting to help me with that answered the phone, instead of finishing my check in, because she was the only one here, she said.

She told the caller that his rate would be $79 per nite. I was standing in front of her at the time. She never asked if he was a Hilton Honors customer or not, so he could have been a first time customer. It might be the only time he ever stays in one of their hotels.

She then proceeded to try to charge me $99, but I pointed out that she just gave the guy on the phone a better rate. She said that was because he was staying 5 straight nights.

I pointed out that I would stay in that very hotel for 26 to 50 times in a year, so she dropped my rate to $84.60.

This last week I called for a reservation and the same young lady wanted $109 for a room. That’s $30 more than a month ago. It amounts to a 38% increase in 30 days.

Does your industry raise it’s prices 1% a month ? Mine neither.

Same room. Same newspaper. Same bedspread. Same breakfast. Nothing new. 38% more.

No deal Hilton. No deal Hampton Inn. I won’t play.

I have a blog that reached over 40,691 visitors last month. Those people viewed 78,020 pages.

I work for a corporation that has 18 locations in 4 states. We have “several” sales people who stay in hotels each and every week.

We attend forums, seminars and training several times a year, nationwide, and spends thousands upon thousands of dollars in hotel bills.

I’m ready to make a deal and get a consistent rate for my stays … or I send out a memo and eliminate all stays at Hilton franchises.

What’s it gonna be Hilton/Hampton ?

Deal or no deal ?

I’m sending a link to this post to my Diamond rep and I’ll let you know what we agree on.

If we can’t work this out, I’ll be asking for recommendations on hotel chains.

Either way, you’ll know how it ends.

Thru Glenn Ross over at Customer Service Experience, I just read, for the first time, a blog written by Sara Cantor - The Curious Shopper.

It’s premise is to outline and define why some stores work and some don’t. Great idea, great reading, great insight from Sara.

As someone who spends time in hotels, I can tell you I’ve never seen such a great idea as the one from Holiday Inn. I actually saw the board at a Louisville hotel one time when I picked up a business dinner guest.

I didn’t think much of it, at the time, as I didn’t spend as many days away as I do now.

I can also say I’m terribly disappointed in the promo from Marriot. That’s incredibly cheesy and cheap.

The worst part is you know that Marriot knows what Holiday Inn is doing and still doesn’t match their ingenuity or their effort.

That spells lack of caring, lack of love, lack of direction from management, and last but not least, lack of pride.

If you’ll knowingly let your competition outdo you with something as simple as that, you’re really not much of a competitor … are you ?

If you’re going to be a player, you’ve got to play.

If you can’t run with the big dawgs, stay on the porch.

Either go big, or don’t go at all.

Lukewarm companies are worse than a cold company.

If you didn’t even try that kind of campaign, say like most discount motels, nobody would blame you. But if your last name is Marriot or Hilton and you don’t match that campaign with your own campaign that’s at least equal to, if not better than, then you are not very interested in your image, in my simple opinion. And you know I like simple.

What can your company do today to make your customers feel special, loved, appreciated and best of all, like you showered, shaved and put on some Victoria’s Secret for them ?

PS - Image above courtesy some really brave BMXers.

Back in May I wrote about how I wished that my bank, Chase, would remember my preferences for the amounts I usually withdraw, the language I use and all those other tedious actions that never change and slow down an ATM transaction.

Tomorrow is finally here and all is well in the bankosphere. Chase has come thru by making ATM transacations faster, more intuitive and simpler. You know I like simple.

I just went in and set my preferences to English, because they didn’t list Kentuckian as one of the available languages. English is close, but lacks a little color when compared to Kentuckian as a language.

I also set it to always print a receipt and set some of my favorite amounts for withdrawal.

Now I’m out the door to test it out by grabbin’ some QuickChoice cash and heading to Cracker Barrel. I did say I was Kentuckian, didn’t I ?

Thanks to Chase for leading the way or for giving me my way. I really don’t care which it was, I just want what I want.

How about you guys, does your bank do this ? Do they plan to ? If not, hop over to the Chase corporate site and find your nearest location. Then go open an account and tell ‘em Mike sent you.

Recently I’ve gotten some great feedback and comments from two people who have great info to share on their sites/blogs.

In the spirit of Link Leaks, since I coined that phrase several months ago, I’m going to leak some links and spread a little link love on two people who’ve linked to and spread the love towards me.

First we’ll travel to Florida, I think, to visit Doug, who writes Service Untitled.

” Know the power of “Yes.” Saying yes is so important to customer service. The advice the articles gives (when you get a request that is at least somewhat feasible, say Yes and then figure out how to do it). This is going the extra mile, and your customers will appreciate it. Say no as little as possible and do what you can to fulfill your customers’ requests and make them happy. “

There’s a lot of good info about customer service over there and I suggest you check him out.

Next, we’ll travel to St. Louis, where my Cardinals play, to visit Dr. Kim DeMotte, the man behind The Power of No. One point of real interest for me over there is Catch and Release Prospecting.

” It is a program that teaches companies that all prospects are not equal, and shows salespeople how to quickly identify their best and worst prospects. CATCH & RELEASE creates a filter system that keeps costly sales resources from being wasted on marginal prospects while identifying MORE quality prospects. “

Doesn’t that sound like a winning strategy for every salesperson ? It does to me and Kim says it’s scalable, so it’ll work for one-man-shows, as well as multi-national corporations.

Give these guys a visit and let me know what you think.

PS - Use your favorite search engine, mine is Google, to see hoe many instances of “link leak” are out there. I see 15,300 when I use quotes.

PS2 - Which do you like …. Yes or No ?