This weekend, my family and I stayed at the Hyatt Place Hotel in Reno, Nevada. If you are ever in Reno and need a great place to stay, I highly recommend the Hyatt Place. The service was excellent. The minute we hit the door we were greeted by a friendly staff associate that was ready to check us in. The rooms were new, large, clean, and well furnished. Our room had two queen beds, a sofa, desk, iron/board, free Internet access, free coffee at 5 am, free breakfast at 6 am, free airport shuttle, and the largest flat screen TV I have ever seen in a hotel room. We got all this for $89 – a tremendous value.
If I ever need a room in Reno, I won’t even consider anyplace else. If anyone ever asks me for a recommendation, I won’t hesitate to recommend The Hyatt Place. I will use this hotel as an example in my management classes, so I will end up singing the praises of Hyatt Place to over 100 students every year (students love examples). I gave the Hyatt Place an opportunity to impress me, and they made the most of that opportunity.
But it is not where I wanted to stay.
I wanted to stay at John Asquaga’s Nugget. I’ve booked a major social media marketing conference with this hotel in December 2010, so I am going to be sending lots of customers and tens of thousands of dollars their way. I was impressed with them when I vetted venues for our conference, but I wanted to see firsthand what type of experience my customers can expect when they try to book a room and stay in the hotel this December.
This hotel has two towers. The east tower is recently upgraded, so rooms in that tower go for about $20 more than rooms in the west tower. On the night I needed a hotel, the west tower room rate was around what I paid at the Hyatt Place. At their website, they advertise a special upgrade to a room in the east tower for the same rate as a room in the west tower. I tried to book the advertised special upgrade, but although rooms were available in the east tower, the special was not available online on the night I needed a room.
So I picked up the phone and called the hotel.
The person I spoke to was very friendly and courteous. She explained to me all the different nights in February when I could stay at The Nugget and get the special. But as I explained to her, that did not matter to me because I needed a hotel room for only one night – January 30, 2010. She apologized, and then she let me go. I was dumbfounded.
I was a pre-qualified customer. I was going to spend my money somewhere on 1/30/10, it was just a matter of where. I was motivated enough to pick up the phone and call the hotel when I ran into a roadblock at the website – so they had ample reason to believe that I wanted to spend my money with them. But for essentially $20, they lost $100 in revenue that night and any future revenue that I might bring to their hotel via my own needs and recommendations I will make to others. I am convinced they had empty rooms in the east tower that night. Is that good business?
I consider that a service system failure. The worst part is management at the hotel will never know that they lost revenue they could easily have had that night, and they will never be able to measure the negative impact letting me go will have on future revenue streams. Sure, it is probably small, but your business lives and dies in a tough economy with how it handles the little things.
I went out of my way to give them an opportunity to impress me, but they squandered it.
Why wasn’t the reservation’s agent trained to say “We want your business, what would it take to get you to stay with us?” Not much, and this story would have turned out entirely differently.
After hanging up with The Nugget, I found the Hyatt Place website and they advertised a price of $89. I had a problem placing my reservation online, so I picked up the phone and called the hotel. Over the phone I was quoted a price of $99 for the room. When I told them I had seen it online for $89, they did not hesitate to book me at that rate.
I consider that a system success. It is a success that I hope will reap future revenue streams for the hotel because in my opinion they earned it. I work hard for my money, and I am very happy to spend it with a business that has smart systems and people trained to use those systems to impress customers.
Are your service systems disabling your employees from impressing your customers? Do you even have a system to know how many sales you lose as a result of the design of your service systems? If not, you deserve what your customers are going to say about you.
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Reminded me of my favourite hotel service system failure of all time – http://www.tk421.net/humor/soap.html.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:40 am
I’ve seen that somewhere before, Bruce. Very funny! Thanks for sharing. Bret
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Oh boy! The John Asquaga’s Nuggett clearly doesn’t understand the impact of its bad service on its brand.
Someone like yourself who uses hotels for both work and pleasure is going to be able to influence a lot of people. Here I am in the UK and I’ll make sure to go to the Hyatt if I’m ever in Reno. Pity, as your first choice was the Nuggett.
And you’re right – the Nuggett would appear to need to take a look at its systems as they don’t seem to be allowing its employees to succeed.
Thanks, Bret!
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 am
I think they see themselves as giving good service, and for the most part they would be correct. But their service is incomplete and that is costing them money. Thanks for the comment! Bret
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Bret, I had a similar experience when trying to book a one night stay for my wife and I at the Harrah’s in Reno for an event. I saw on their website that they had the room for $20 less only a few days later, but I really wanted to stay on that one night. So I called and got a person on the phone to see if they can give me the rate in exchange for my business and extended business at the restaurants on their property. No such luck. She told me she could not change the rates in “the system” (read: the computer). I too thought that was a failure of customer service when you let an opportunity to impress a customer slip through like that. The business they lost by not having me in their property and my word-of-mouth marketing is more than the $20 difference in room rates. I could not believe that they were all now slaves to “the system” without any process to go outside of it when needed. That is one way they could’ve been fabulous. Now, they are just like everyone else.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Totally concur, Ajo. How can you put a price on word-of-mouth marketing? Surely it’s worth $20. The sad thing is the room probably sat empty that night, so the total opportunity cost was much higher. I don’t get it. Thanks for sharing! Bret
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This story is not about a hotel. And it’s not about a failure either. But your story reminded me of a recent experience with the same underlying message for management: Empower front-line employees to make instant price adjustments so you don’t lose the business today, and possibly for many days to come.
My husband and I were at Best Buy just before Christmas looking for a cover for his gift, a new Zune. I had my Christmas gift in hand, an Android phone. I used an application ShopSavvy to scan the bar code with my phone, and found the same cover was $10 cheaper at Amazon, and actually cheaper on Best Buy’s website than in the store. An employee asked what I was doing, and I explained ShopSavvy. I was thinking we were about to leave the store and buy the cover online at home. Without any prompting from us, he said, “Oh, just show the web page on your phone to the checkout person, and we’ll give you an instant price match.” So we saved $10 on the spot, and Best Buy’s reputation for service was cemented.
As more shoppers start scanning and checking prices online at the point of purchase, businesses will need to learn to be much more flexible about this. I’ve already read on ShopSavvy’s website about people leaving bookstores because they could save $80 buying from Amazon!
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Welcome, Kate! That is an AWESOME story! I’ve never heard of shopsavvy before but you are right that businesses that don’t empower their front line folks to act quickly are going to lose. It would have been stupid of them to let you leave the story without winning your business. Now, you just told a positive story about them and that has value. I got to get me one of those phones! Thanks for sharing. Bret
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