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Ok last week really sucked. So i need to vent
yelling won't help you
me- it looks like for that night all I'd have available would be a suite (goes into details on the suite)
sc- but I only want a standard room.
me- yes, but all I have available is a suite
sc- that's unacceptable, I've already got 15 rooms blocked off that week and I'll be damned if I'm paying for a suite I don't need.
me- ma'am, those are the only rooms I have left, the hotel only has the rooms that the hotel has, so at this time the choice is reserve a suite or reserve nothing at all.
sc- get me the manager
me- the only manager is at the front desk, he doesn't have a direct extension but please hold while I connect you with the front desk so they can get the manager for you.
the other variation on that
me- i'm sorry, but I no longer have any availability for that night
sc- umm, yes you do
(umm no I don't)
me- i'm sorry ma'am, but every room in the hotel has been reserved for that night.
sc- but i'm part of (name) room block, we're supposed to have rooms blocked off for those nights.
me- yes ma'am, we do have a room block set up for those nights, and all the rooms with that block have been reserved as well.
sc- well, there should have been more blocked off.
(thinking, yeah, it's my fault that the members of your group lied to your group coordinator about how many rooms they needed... that aside, even if they told the group coordinator the right amount, we only block off what the group coordinator tells us to do, we don't have a crystal ball)
me- i'm sorry, but we blocked off exactly how many your group coordinator asked us to block off, and both those and my standard availability have been used, at this point the only thing I can do is assist in finding a sister hotel nearby with availability still.
sc- fine, i'll just call back tomorrow and speak to ashley
me- have a good evening ma'am (seriously, all ashley will do is tell you what I said)
you're a travel agent, you shouldn't be surprised
I get this (or a variation of this every single
day)
sta - sucky travel agent
sta- I'd like to see what you travel agent rate at the Willard on (dates)
me- ok, and how many will be staying in the room?
sta- just one
me- and will this be in smoking or non?
sta- non
(and I'd like to point out... at least TAs know that I need that information before I can give them a quote)
me- ok, I do still have a king bed non smoking with a view up Pennsylvania Ave, that of course has (amenities) and with your travel agent discount that will be at $350 a night.
sta- do you have anything less expensive? (fair question)
me- I do still have king nons without the view that would be at $300 with your travel agent discount.
sta- that discount sucks, can't you do more off of that?
me- sir, that rooms normally goes for over $600, I've giving you over 50% off.
sta- well, why the hell is that hotel so expensive?
me- that hotel is a 5 star property, located 2 blocks from the white house, and has hosted every president sense Abraham Lincoln at least once... in case you were wondering, the Willard is the hotel that presidents stay in the night before inauguration.
sta- oh well, never mind *click:
seriously, this is your job... shouldn't you already have an idea of how much hotels cost in each area... and which hotels are which class, and at least a little bit why the hotel costs what it costs.
misquoting Richard Paul Evans
ok, I've actually met Richard Paul Evans at a book signing before... I've heard his lectures before. He is one of the best people you will ever meet.
Part of his lecture is the 7 golden words "is that the best you can do?"
he says during every lecture, ask that as nicely as you can, and be willing to accept the answer that, yes that is the best that can be done.
so why is it that every time people ask me that question they ask it in an angry tone then get pissy when they find out either that is the best I can do or my best is only slightly better?
and the assholes who haven't listen to Mr. Evans at all
and on the other extreme, the people who are so stupid to think that the first thing I quote will be the least expensive room with the lowest rate type... 99% of the time if people ask "is that the best you can do" the answer will be, "let me see" followed later by "I do still have a featured rate/ great rate/ promotional rate of..." or at the very least if it's at least a week in advance "it looks like if you are absolutely sure you will be staying and are willing to pay in advance we can do an advance purchase discount at..."
no these people are too stupid to ask the question, they just get upset at the first number they hear, yell at you and hang up.
sorry I'm only human
me- thank you for calling the (hotel) reservation desk, this is smileyeagle speaking, may I ask with who I'm speaking?
sc- yes, this is sucky customer
me- and how can I assist you today ms. customer (my most recent who is guilty of this was a woman, but I got several men and women who did this last week)
sc- I'm coming into town for the (insert name of conference)
me- ok, and which nights will you be staying with us?
sc- thursday and friday
me- ok, thursday and friday, and which dates?
sc- shouldn't you know that, there's a room block set up for that.
finally, on my last customer that did this I actually lost it a little
me- yes, I'm sure we do, but we have no less than 2 groups per week coming in, most weeks we have 3 or 4, some weeks we have 6 groups, I am only human and cannot keep track of that many groups (and I don't even have to mention that I'm doing this for nearly 100 hotels now)
sc- fine, it's (dates)
seriously, was that so hard to do. Scarily I even have had some people who don't know the dates they will be staying. They just know that they are coming for a group and expect me to divine which nights they want to stay. Also, telling me I'd like to stay this weekend doesn't help me, do you want friday, friday and saturday, just saturday, saturday and sunday, friday through sunday... help me out here
i may have recruited a new member
a definitely not sucky call. this could be a cursing out coworkers, the caller was really cool though
me- thank you for calling (hotel) reservation desk, this is smileyeagle speaking, may I ask with whom I'm speaking?
cc- yes, this is cool caller from orbitz.
me- and how can I assist you today ms. caller?
cc- I need you to adjust one of our reservations for us.
me- I'm sorry, our operator should have done a better job of qualifying you before transferring, third party reservations can only be changed by a manager and I'm not a manager.
cc- oh, so you have one of those coworkers too?
me- i seem to be surrounded by them some days
anyway, I find out the cool caller is actually in QA with orbitz, she was listening to the call and the agent misbooked the reservation so she was calling to fix it (good thing she was randomly monitoring the call... the guest would have been up shit creek had she not been listening), but she was telling me about how she had heard everything already and I said she should share her stories on customerssuck.com and she said she would probably join, so if you're reading this cool caller
morons in management post
oh yeah, to top off my week, my manager offered me a 3% raise... if I were to get perfect quality scores for the next 4 to 6 weeks... so apparently having worked for the company for a year with better than acceptable performance means nothing, I must work at least a year and get a perfect score... oh yeah, and I would no longer be able to wear business casual, I'd have to wear business professional dress... um, so not worth it for a 3%
... and they wonder why so many people are going to Qwest and RX America (I have 3 coworkers who left for Qwest last week alone and 3 coworkers who applied for RX America last week... and I'm thinking of turning in an app for both next week to be honest).
I've got more, but for the time being that's all I have the will to write.
yelling won't help you
me- it looks like for that night all I'd have available would be a suite (goes into details on the suite)
sc- but I only want a standard room.
me- yes, but all I have available is a suite
sc- that's unacceptable, I've already got 15 rooms blocked off that week and I'll be damned if I'm paying for a suite I don't need.
me- ma'am, those are the only rooms I have left, the hotel only has the rooms that the hotel has, so at this time the choice is reserve a suite or reserve nothing at all.
sc- get me the manager
me- the only manager is at the front desk, he doesn't have a direct extension but please hold while I connect you with the front desk so they can get the manager for you.
the other variation on that
me- i'm sorry, but I no longer have any availability for that night
sc- umm, yes you do
(umm no I don't)
me- i'm sorry ma'am, but every room in the hotel has been reserved for that night.
sc- but i'm part of (name) room block, we're supposed to have rooms blocked off for those nights.
me- yes ma'am, we do have a room block set up for those nights, and all the rooms with that block have been reserved as well.
sc- well, there should have been more blocked off.
(thinking, yeah, it's my fault that the members of your group lied to your group coordinator about how many rooms they needed... that aside, even if they told the group coordinator the right amount, we only block off what the group coordinator tells us to do, we don't have a crystal ball)
me- i'm sorry, but we blocked off exactly how many your group coordinator asked us to block off, and both those and my standard availability have been used, at this point the only thing I can do is assist in finding a sister hotel nearby with availability still.
sc- fine, i'll just call back tomorrow and speak to ashley
me- have a good evening ma'am (seriously, all ashley will do is tell you what I said)
you're a travel agent, you shouldn't be surprised
I get this (or a variation of this every single
day)sta - sucky travel agent
sta- I'd like to see what you travel agent rate at the Willard on (dates)
me- ok, and how many will be staying in the room?
sta- just one
me- and will this be in smoking or non?
sta- non
(and I'd like to point out... at least TAs know that I need that information before I can give them a quote)
me- ok, I do still have a king bed non smoking with a view up Pennsylvania Ave, that of course has (amenities) and with your travel agent discount that will be at $350 a night.
sta- do you have anything less expensive? (fair question)
me- I do still have king nons without the view that would be at $300 with your travel agent discount.
sta- that discount sucks, can't you do more off of that?
me- sir, that rooms normally goes for over $600, I've giving you over 50% off.
sta- well, why the hell is that hotel so expensive?
me- that hotel is a 5 star property, located 2 blocks from the white house, and has hosted every president sense Abraham Lincoln at least once... in case you were wondering, the Willard is the hotel that presidents stay in the night before inauguration.
sta- oh well, never mind *click:
seriously, this is your
job... shouldn't you already have an idea of how much hotels cost in each area... and which hotels are which class, and at least a little bit why the hotel costs what it costs.misquoting Richard Paul Evans
ok, I've actually met Richard Paul Evans at a book signing before... I've heard his lectures before. He is one of the best people you will ever meet.
Part of his lecture is the 7 golden words "is that the best you can do?"
he says during every lecture, ask that as nicely as you can, and be willing to accept the answer that, yes that is the best that can be done.
so why is it that every time people ask me that question they ask it in an angry tone then get pissy when they find out either that is the best I can do or my best is only slightly better?
and the assholes who haven't listen to Mr. Evans at all
and on the other extreme, the people who are so stupid to think that the first thing I quote will be the least expensive room with the lowest rate type... 99% of the time if people ask "is that the best you can do" the answer will be, "let me see" followed later by "I do still have a featured rate/ great rate/ promotional rate of..." or at the very least if it's at least a week in advance "it looks like if you are absolutely sure you will be staying and are willing to pay in advance we can do an advance purchase discount at..."
no these people are too
stupid to ask the question, they just get upset at the first number they hear, yell at you and hang up.sorry I'm only human
me- thank you for calling the (hotel) reservation desk, this is smileyeagle speaking, may I ask with who I'm speaking?
sc- yes, this is sucky customer
me- and how can I assist you today ms. customer (my most recent who is guilty of this was a woman, but I got several men and women who did this last week)
sc- I'm coming into town for the (insert name of conference)
me- ok, and which nights will you be staying with us?
sc- thursday and friday
me- ok, thursday and friday, and which dates?
sc- shouldn't you know that, there's a room block set up for that.
finally, on my last customer that did this I actually lost it a little
me- yes, I'm sure we do, but we have no less than 2 groups per week coming in, most weeks we have 3 or 4, some weeks we have 6 groups, I am only human and cannot keep track of that many groups (and I don't even have to mention that I'm doing this for nearly 100 hotels now)
sc- fine, it's (dates)
seriously, was that so hard to do. Scarily I even have had some people who don't know the dates they will be staying. They just know that they are coming for a group and expect me to divine which nights they want to stay. Also, telling me I'd like to stay this weekend doesn't help me, do you want friday, friday and saturday, just saturday, saturday and sunday, friday through sunday... help me out here
i may have recruited a new member
a definitely not sucky call. this could be a cursing out coworkers, the caller was really cool though
me- thank you for calling (hotel) reservation desk, this is smileyeagle speaking, may I ask with whom I'm speaking?
cc- yes, this is cool caller from orbitz.
me- and how can I assist you today ms. caller?
cc- I need you to adjust one of our reservations for us.
me- I'm sorry, our operator should have done a better job of qualifying you before transferring, third party reservations can only be changed by a manager and I'm not a manager.
cc- oh, so you have one of those coworkers too?
me- i seem to be surrounded by them some days
anyway, I find out the cool caller is actually in QA with orbitz, she was listening to the call and the agent misbooked the reservation so she was calling to fix it (good thing she was randomly monitoring the call... the guest would have been up shit creek had she not been listening), but she was telling me about how she had heard everything already and I said she should share her stories on customerssuck.com and she said she would probably join, so if you're reading this cool caller
morons in management post
oh yeah, to top off my week, my manager offered me a 3% raise... if I were to get perfect quality scores for the next 4 to 6 weeks... so apparently having worked for the company for a year with better than acceptable performance means nothing, I must work at least a year and get a perfect score... oh yeah, and I would no longer be able to wear business casual, I'd have to wear business professional dress... um, so not worth it for a 3%
... and they wonder why so many people are going to Qwest and RX America (I have 3 coworkers who left for Qwest last week alone and 3 coworkers who applied for RX America last week... and I'm thinking of turning in an app for both next week to be honest).
I've got more, but for the time being that's all I have the will to write.
I rarely get nice call like that, that's awesome.
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