Running out of excuses I see...

[slick]

More and more I find that SC's are running out of valid excuses for issues.

This one for example, happened this weekend.

Lady stays Friday and Saturday night at hotel. Checks out Sunday. At check out, she mentions to the manager (my Father) that the bathroom in the room she was in needed to be looked at. When my Father asked for more details, she told him that the caulking was getting a little moldy. He apologized for it and offered her a discount. She refused it, said that she didn't think it was a big deal and that the rest of the room and hotel were great. He liked that she wasn't out to get money from us, so he gave her the discount anyways. The same day, I re did the bath tub caulking (my fault, I normally look after this stuff and neglected it because we have been busy the past 3-4 weeks).

Fast forward to today. She called the 1-800 number to leave a complaint about us (even though we gave her a discount). She states in the complaint that the bathroom caulking was moldy (saw that one coming), that the hotel smelled too fragrant (maybe the smell of ass suits you better), but this is the big one, "The air deflector on the heater/cooler blows air directly on face!". That was the way the sentence was written.

Anyone ever see those air deflectors on the top of an in wall A/C unit (the kind of unit that sits under the window). Its to keep the air from blowing being the drapes, so the drapes don't go flying around and so the A/C unit works more efficiently.

The only way it would blow directly on your face, is if you put your face directly in front of it.

If thats a complaint, so is "the water from the shower falls directly on your face!" or "the light from the bulb shines directly on face!" or maybe "the lotion in the room is applied directly on face!"

I'm sorry, I have to go now, I need to write this twit a letter of apology for the pain and anguish caused by the air blowing directly on her face!

[MrSunshineState]

Sorry you have to actually apologize to this person.


What a piece of garbage! You addressed her concern, offered a discount, she declined, got the discount anyway, then called the complaint line?


Why exactly do you have to apologize to this piece of trash?

[slick]

Because she complained, thats all. If someone calls the 1-800 number and complains about us, as long as SOME of it seems legit, they log it and send it to us for review.

We can give our side, and depending on what is said, they will either remove the complaint, or keep it, and make us send a letter of apology.

In this case, we noted that we gave her a discount, and that she made no mention of the other stupidity. They told us to send the letter anyways as the lady "was very upset".

My side of the story : this lady sucks and is never coming back to the hotel anyways, so she can suck it for all I care.

There (corporate) side: she will never stay at this location, but we may be able to get her to stay at one of our other locations if we kiss her ass.

She's not worth it, she has no integrity, so why even keep her as a customer. People need hotels, we are not going to go under because of trash like this, there are still a ton of decent, normal people we can serve.

[chainedbarista]

corporate being the money grubbing whore that it is will continue to sell its employees to the lowest bidding trash just to keep the trashy business.

twisted logic at its worst; sell out employe + gratify egos of craptomers = $$ bonuses for corporate bottom feeders.

we figure into the equation, just not the side that gets the benefits.

[slick]

What I don't get is that the hotel is the one giving corporate there money. We pay a franchise fee every month. If we can do our jobs properly, then we can generate more revenue, and pay corporate more money.
I proposed this to corporate a couple years back at the annual conference and caught a lot of flack over it. I said that CORPORATE should handle all complaints, unless they are very bad and then, and only then, should they contact the hotel to figure out if there is indeed an issue. Instead of taking every little complaint, forwarding it to the hotel, and having us deal with it, they should.
I wouldn't care if it was of a legit complaint, but all these stupid ones that show up, plain pisses me off.

[angelicafire]

If thats a complaint, so is "the water from the shower falls directly on your face!" or "the light from the bulb shines directly on face!" or maybe "the lotion in the room is applied directly on face!"

Oh my gosh, I almost had an accident on my monitor with Pepsi.

[aurelemsrealm]

Do they keep a log of apology letters, too? I'd write a very generic and insincere copy of the letter to keep just for the record. After that, I'd just never get around to mailing a copy to that customer. After all, the postal system loses mail all of the time. Who would ever know unless the issue came up again later? A similar philosophy seems to work when a payphone eats your change, and the phone company promises to credit your next bill.

I filled in as manager at a convenience store for a year when my employer was extremely short staffed. I "took care of" many stupid customer complaints about issues of little if any importance to the company. I'm good at pretending to listen since most people like that just want to vent anyway. Then, I'd assure them that I'd look into the matter as soon as I got a chance, which usually meant that I mentioned it to my area supervisor who also gave the issue about as much consideration as I did. Management was aware of the matter, so I did my part, but it was of little to no concern, so nothing more was ever mentioned about the issue.

[PizzaBoy]

Just when I thought that I've seen everything. Does she know that most a/c units can be adjusted so that they don't blow right on your face? It's not that hard. It sucks that you have to apologize to her for her own stupidity though.

The worst part is that is seems like she was a nice person at first (ex. denying the discount) and you all went out of your way to help her, but then she showed her true colors by going over your head and making a complaint.

[greensinestro]

I just don't understand why people have to be so two-faced like this. You all did everything you could to make this lady want to come back to your hotel again, she leaves and all seemed well, then she reports this. One positive to this is she did not report you and your father as being rude and impolite to her, but even after this fact, she still reported all of these issues, which means it comes back to you for a chewing out session with the higher ups. That's not the sign of a nice person there.

[slick]

I usually always write generic, insincere letters, nothing specific. I always send them though, most people seemed to get pissed when they get some generic letter that does nothing for them.
We have to keep copies of all letters sent, as they can be requested by corporate at anytime. Thats the sucky part about it, we actually have to go through with it and file it.
I have a feeling that all she wanted to do was complain about us, which is the most annoying thing. If an issue can be addressed and solved, why bother complaining, wouldn't you rather have the issue solved? Some people baffle me.

[Rapscallion]

Two of us in our Customer Services department (the other is the chap who made a vegan cry in a reasonably popular thread in unsupportable) love to write letters that both inform and subtly insult the customer. However, we are aided by the huge swathe of misinformation that people seem to believe.

Rapscallion

[hotelnpa]

When people complain and then we fix the mistake and then they call the 800 number to complain again...that irks me. That has happened several times at the hotel I work at. We also are evaluated every year at my hotel, and the number of complaints, even ones like that, are still factored into the final score.

[Dips]

I love responding to baseless complaints.

"Dear SC,

Corporate brought your dissatisfaction with your stay to our attention. We have already addressed the issue with the caulk, but this is the first we have heard of the air conditioner issue. So few people take the time to bring matters like this to our attention, so we certainly appeciate that you made the effort to do so.

We have done extensive testing in the areas around our room air conditioners and have found a solution to the problem. You'll be happy to know that there are now no longer any chairs or beds within two feet of any air conditioner in our facility.

We apologize for your inconvenience and thank you for helping us provide a safer and more comfortable environment for our guests.

Sincerely,

The Management"

[Cia]

Dear SC,

Corporate has brought to our attention your complaint of mouldy caulking and that the A/C blows on your face. The former complaint we already offered you a discount when you mentioned it upon check out and if you remember, you refused this discount. As for the latter, we suggest that you stop holding your head over the A/C unit and take 3 large steps back.

Corporate has also said that we need to issue you an apology so here it goes:







Sincerely,
the staff at the hotel