Hilton HHonors - Issue with Hampton Inn and HHonors Customer Service

Well, I had some problems with a Hampton Inn that I was staying at for a few weeks during July. I had some problems the first week, but chalked it up to the just having a bad room one week. I didn't mention anything to the front desk because I was so busy and I wasn't doing much other than sleeping in the room. After receiving a satisfaction survey the following week, I responded with all of the issues that I had with the room. His response is below:

Thank you for taking the time to complete the Hilton survey we take them seriously at the property. The staff appreciates hearing from our guests, as their comments are vital for us to continue to serve you. We utilize the surveys in our weekly service meetings.

Thank you so much for your feedback it was very insightful and through; at our service meeting this week your comments were our top discussion and we went through it very carefully and from your letter have set up and implemented changes; sometimes when you are "to close to the blackboard" and reviewing standards such as placement of the "bed laptop desk" and the proper literature in room you are not looking closely at the rest of the experience your comments gave the staff a great deal of food for thought and changes have been made.

Thank you again for your valuable time to complete the survey. Please let us know if we can be of assistance to you or anyone you know upon your next visit to the Lehigh Valley. We sure appreciated your visit.

We hope you and your family are having a great week and we wish you nothing but our best this upcoming weekend!

I had also found other issues with the room this second week and responded to him saying that the same issues were still present and that I was considering looking elsewhere for a room the following week. There was no response at all from him.

Finally, same problems existed during my third week. I decided to take pictures of the issues and forward them along with a letter to HHonors customer service. Here is the letter I wrote to them:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing this letter to tell you of the experiences that I had while staying at the Hampton Inn in Allentown, PA. I had several issues with my rooms, they are listed below:

Two reading lights between the beds did not work. The switch seemed to work, so why was a light bulb not replaced?
Ring around the top of the toilet bowl. The part that was visible from a normal angle looked clean but if something was dropped on the floor and someone looked at the toilet, a line was visible along with water marks from when the toilet was flushed. This was present in all 3 of my rooms. I have enclosed a picture of this from my most recent room.
Visible stains on the ceiling and upper part of the wall. It looked like there had either been water damage or the room had formerly been a smoking room. I experienced this in all my rooms too. I have enclosed a picture of this from my most recent room.
Peeling wallpaper and holes poked in the wall. This happened in my most recent room and I have also included pictures of this.
Some kind of crust is visible around the shower head.
I was doing work one morning around 8:30 AM and heard housekeeping knock on the door. I did not answer because I was working on an e-mail. The TV was on loud enough that it could be heard from the door. After asking three times, the housekeeper proceeded to try and enter the room. I am glad that I had the catch on the door. This happened when I was in room 229.
After staying at the same place for three weeks, it would be nice to be acknowledged when checking in. So much for loyalty to a particular place. The only time I saw or had front desk staff interact with guests was when they were at the desk.

I admit that I am partially at fault for not mentioning this to management. I had been very busy during my time here and did not have time to do much besides work while in the room. I did finally talk to the general manager about my concerns, I have included his response. I can understand some of these items happening once, but most of them have occurred in all three rooms I have stayed in.

I finally received a response from customer service the other day thanking me for my letter and to choose Hilton the next time I was looking for a hotel. I know I'm mostly at fault here for not contacting the manager more, but I was beat the majority of the time that I came home from work. I even showed them pictures of the issues and they're hesitant to do anything. I will attach the pictures in a new post.

Where should I go from here? I'm definitely not using this hotel if I'm ever back in the area. Thanks for the help.

If I read this correctly one of your complaints was the location of the laptop desk? Where was it?

I also wanted to add that I used to be Hilton Diamond, but travel dropped off for work last year and they dropped me back down to Blue after my account went inactive.

Can anyone explain to me how to upload pictures? I've looked through everything :confused:

There was no complaint about the laptop desk. He was just using that as an example of the small things they tend to overlook. At least that's how I understood it.

You should have definitely complained to management the first night. I had an issue recently at a hampton and the GM wasn't on duty and I called the following monday to complain and it was a minor issue but something that needed to brought to their attention and with the Hampton satisfaction guarantee she comped the room which I didn't expect or wasn't after.

I was doing work one morning around 8:30 AM and heard housekeeping knock on the door. I did not answer because I was working on an e-mail. The TV was on loud enough that it could be heard from the door. After asking three times, the housekeeper proceeded to try and enter the room. I am glad that I had the catch on the door. This happened when I was in room 229.

Didn't they have a do not disturb sign to hang on the door?

Yes, there was a sign I could use. I didn't expect housekeeping to come knocking on my door at 8:30 in the morning. If it was 10:30 or 11, I could understand. To me, the 8:30 was too early for a day that I wasn't even checking out on. Also, shouldn't have flipping the lock on the inside of the door prevented housekeeping from getting into the room?

Can anyone explain to me how to upload pictures? I've looked through everything :confused:

Here you go:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-photography/748616-how-where-embed-your-pictures-travel-photography-forum.html

Directions are relevant in any forum.

If I heard housekeeping asking three times to come into the room, I would speak up... tough to blame them when you did not have a "Do Not Disturb" sign out and did not speak up.

I have to be honest, I do not look at the toilet when I drop things on the floor... so not sure how much I would be upset at that... can only imagine what might be under the bed if I was on the floor... :)

Did they replace your burnt out bulbs? If not, then a valid complaint... if you did not report, tough to hold them accountable. I am guessing they do not turn every light fixture on each day to ensure they work.

In all honesty, I have a difficult time complaining about something that I was not willing to try and address in the moment. Very difficult for management to try and improve a situation on the spot if they are not made aware of the situation.

Yes, there was a sign I could use. I didn't expect housekeeping to come knocking on my door at 8:30 in the morning. If it was 10:30 or 11, I could understand. To me, the 8:30 was too early for a day that I wasn't even checking out on. Also, shouldn't have flipping the lock on the inside of the door prevented housekeeping from getting into the room?

Sorry, the housekeeper did EXACTLY as she was trained. Most housekeeping starts between 8am and 8:30am in non-resort locations. She knocked on the door and you were too lazy to get your duff off the chair and ask her to come back later. BTW, I leave my tv on when I leave the room to discourage thieves. :rolleyes:

In addition, I can't believe how many people don't flip the regular lock AND the safety lock on their hotel doors. It's just a regular safety precaution, but I guess you don't lock your deadbolt at home either!!!:td::td::td:

Finally, I request early housekeeping most of the time. I'm usually up at 6am and out of the room by 8am at the latest. My preference is for the housekeeper to come early. As for housekeeping procedures, I'm willing to give Hampton a little slack -- after all you're not paying for the Ritz. I do bring disinfectant wipes to clean the surfaces.

Where should I go from here? I'm definitely not using this hotel if I'm ever back in the area. Thanks for the help.

What do you mean by this? You already said you're not going back to the same hotel.
I'm always amazed at how much time and effort people put into trying to get some sort of compensation. Life's too short. Pick a different hotel and move on.
As for the housekeeping issue, as mentioned before, if they knock and you don't answer, they are going to come in. I'm surprised that a regular traveler wouldn't know this. You couldn't even call out a "come back later??"

Ring around the top of the toilet bowl. The part that was visible from a normal angle looked clean but if something was dropped on the floor and someone looked at the toilet, a line was visible along with water marks from when the toilet was flushed. This was present in all 3 of my rooms.

The last time I saw a toilet from that angle, three times in the same month, I was in college.

The last time I saw a toilet from that angle, three times in the same month, I was in college.

Hahahaha, good one!!!

I was doing work one morning around 8:30 AM and heard housekeeping knock on the door. I did not answer because I was working on an e-mail. The TV was on loud enough that it could be heard from the door. After asking three times, the housekeeper proceeded to try and enter the room. I am glad that I had the catch on the door. This happened when I was in room 229.

even i think 8:30am is early but i have to agree with wharvey below as well....

If I heard housekeeping asking three times to come into the room, I would speak up... tough to blame them when you did not have a "Do Not Disturb" sign out and did not speak up.

I'm always amazed at how much time and effort people put into trying to get some sort of compensation. Life's too short. Pick a different hotel and move on.Yup. If I receive unacceptable service etc. at an hotel I give the manager one chance to make amends after which I invoke the 100% thing.

No satisfaction = no future business from me.

I know I'm mostly at fault here for not contacting the manager more, but I was beat the majority of the time that I came home from work. I even showed them pictures of the issues and they're hesitant to do anything. I will attach the pictures in a new post. There's no need to attach pictures, we know what peeling wallpaper looks like.

I do think service issues are best solved at the lowest level possible. Margins are thin and times are hard at HI-type hotels in this era and most of the problems you enumerated point to deferred maintenance or a thinner housekeeping staff trying to cover more rooms, and having to get rolling early. (I will assume you didn't actually complain about the placement of the lap desktop thing within the room.) Complaining about housekeeping starting at 830a is silly, especially as you declined to communicate with the maid; when I get a too-early knock, I always go to the door and let the maid know when the room will be available for cleaning.

If the physical stuff really bothers you, ask to switch rooms, but I tend to want to give local management the benefit of the doubt and a shot at fixing a problem before involving the HHonors machinery.

I broke my own rule along these lines earlier this year and regretted it.

I had a quick one-night stay at an HI in northern New England that was pretty unremarkable: long wait to check in, no Gold recognition or amenities, cold room, chaotic breakfast room with several foods missing, etc. Not worth the $40 (+/-) premium the HI was charging over the Choice / Clarion / etc. place down the street.

I drove off early without saying anything to the (overwhelmed and clueless) staff, but when I got an auto-survey in email I did take the time to complete it... and within two days I had such a nice, heartfelt personal note from the property's GM, I felt bad about possibly affecting his scorecard with Hilton. We ended up agreeing that Hilton corporate is crazy to strip down HHonors at a time like this, when program benefits may be all that steer a customer toward choosing an HI over a Clarion that costs $40 less. Nice guy, trying hard.

So I won't complain to HHonors again unless I've first tried resolving service issues face-to-face, non-passive-aggressively.

Where should I go from here? I'm definitely not using this hotel if I'm ever back in the area. If you've already decided you're definitely not using the hotel again, there's noplace else to go, as Hilton is not going to invest in service recovery gestures with no ROI. I guess you should just stay elsewhere.