ldsant
May 3, 06, 3:25 pm
Perhaps people are tired of working this week, tired of dealing with customers, or some other such thing but the following is the experience I have had this week with *wood Customer Service and the Platinum Concierge line via email and telephone. To say the least, I am highly disappointed. I don't want to sound like a "whining customer" in the least but here is my experience that I thought I'd share with all of you. (Your lucky day! :D)
Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of *wood. I have rather low expectations when I travel - I like to get what I pay for. If I reserve a particular room, follow all of the rules of the program, etc. then I expect that I receive the benefits as outlined by the program. I stayed at the Sheraton Boston for five nights a week ago. The stay posted, they posted my 500 points, but they didn't post any of the points for the $ spent. I booked the stay directly with the hotel (not through any third-party). The cost per night was normal for the time of year/the hotel. At the bottom of my folio it states "you will receive at least. . xxxx # of starpoints. . " The post posted 14 starpoints. I emailed per the sticky at the top of this forum. Here's what happened next:
I received a response asking for me to fax in my folio since it was a "high amount"
I emailed back asking "don't you have access to my folio?"
I received a response with the complete folio as a .pdf attachment
No points posted
I waited 3 days
No points posted
I emailed again - "we are sorry, that mail domain no longer exists. . " (this was a REPLY to the original email address)
I called the Plat Concierge line
The concierge said "you need to fax your folio in"
I said "I have an email where you sent it to me as an attachment"
She said "well customer service isn't the right department to post points that are missing; you need to send it to the Research Department."
They will research it (I repeated - I have a copy of my folio received from YOUR office that shows the amounts) and let you know their decision within 14 days.
HUH?! are you kidding me?! Let's see - I PAY for the stay, I FOLLOW all of the rules, I email an get a copy of my folio, I pay cell minutes to call the Plat Concierge line, and NOW I have to fax it to the RESEARCH department?
Talk about a hassle factor!
I do not for the life of me understand why *wood who can SEE the stay, see the folio, and see that points have not been processed, force me to continue to jump through hoops. Why aren't things made easy and moreover, why can't people apologize and say "I'm sorry, I see that we made a mistake, let me take care of that for you. . ." after the customer has obviously made a huge effort?
More and more it appears that *wood is thriving on the hassle factor rather than the "let me see what I can do to make the customer happy" factor. There are definitely exceptions to this and I have written notes/letters/emails concerning those individuals who really seem to understand that *wood is in the HOSPITALITY industry and makes people feel welcomed; but this latest incident just is irking to say the least.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but as another example, when I asked the supervisor at the Plat Concierge desk for the Corporate phone # for *wood so that I could talk with somebody at that level, she said "well I have no idea what that would be. . after 3 minutes she said "I'll put you on hold" I said "never mind; I've googled it and found it immediately." How can somebody at *wood NOT have access internally to what their general corporate # is? :confused: This to me is just indicative of how the service level continues to decrease overall (again, there are EXCEPTIONS to this, so please do not flame me as I recognize that MANY employees really are amazing e.g., the front desk supervisor at the Sheraton Boston (Todd), the night manager at the Westin Bellevue (Mr. K), Chris, the bellman at the Westin Bellevue, the entire staff at the W in San Francisco, etc. and that not everybody can be "on top of their game" all of the time, but it would seem to me that it should be a very simple act of taking care of a customer when you a) have the folio in front of you; b) see that the hotel posted the amenity points and the dates of the stay.
IMHO, *wood should adopt a mantra that is along the lines of "what can I do to make a customer's life easier?"
<rant off> :)
Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of *wood. I have rather low expectations when I travel - I like to get what I pay for. If I reserve a particular room, follow all of the rules of the program, etc. then I expect that I receive the benefits as outlined by the program. I stayed at the Sheraton Boston for five nights a week ago. The stay posted, they posted my 500 points, but they didn't post any of the points for the $ spent. I booked the stay directly with the hotel (not through any third-party). The cost per night was normal for the time of year/the hotel. At the bottom of my folio it states "you will receive at least. . xxxx # of starpoints. . " The post posted 14 starpoints. I emailed per the sticky at the top of this forum. Here's what happened next:
I received a response asking for me to fax in my folio since it was a "high amount"
I emailed back asking "don't you have access to my folio?"
I received a response with the complete folio as a .pdf attachment
No points posted
I waited 3 days
No points posted
I emailed again - "we are sorry, that mail domain no longer exists. . " (this was a REPLY to the original email address)
I called the Plat Concierge line
The concierge said "you need to fax your folio in"
I said "I have an email where you sent it to me as an attachment"
She said "well customer service isn't the right department to post points that are missing; you need to send it to the Research Department."
They will research it (I repeated - I have a copy of my folio received from YOUR office that shows the amounts) and let you know their decision within 14 days.
HUH?! are you kidding me?! Let's see - I PAY for the stay, I FOLLOW all of the rules, I email an get a copy of my folio, I pay cell minutes to call the Plat Concierge line, and NOW I have to fax it to the RESEARCH department?
Talk about a hassle factor!
I do not for the life of me understand why *wood who can SEE the stay, see the folio, and see that points have not been processed, force me to continue to jump through hoops. Why aren't things made easy and moreover, why can't people apologize and say "I'm sorry, I see that we made a mistake, let me take care of that for you. . ." after the customer has obviously made a huge effort?
More and more it appears that *wood is thriving on the hassle factor rather than the "let me see what I can do to make the customer happy" factor. There are definitely exceptions to this and I have written notes/letters/emails concerning those individuals who really seem to understand that *wood is in the HOSPITALITY industry and makes people feel welcomed; but this latest incident just is irking to say the least.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but as another example, when I asked the supervisor at the Plat Concierge desk for the Corporate phone # for *wood so that I could talk with somebody at that level, she said "well I have no idea what that would be. . after 3 minutes she said "I'll put you on hold" I said "never mind; I've googled it and found it immediately." How can somebody at *wood NOT have access internally to what their general corporate # is? :confused: This to me is just indicative of how the service level continues to decrease overall (again, there are EXCEPTIONS to this, so please do not flame me as I recognize that MANY employees really are amazing e.g., the front desk supervisor at the Sheraton Boston (Todd), the night manager at the Westin Bellevue (Mr. K), Chris, the bellman at the Westin Bellevue, the entire staff at the W in San Francisco, etc. and that not everybody can be "on top of their game" all of the time, but it would seem to me that it should be a very simple act of taking care of a customer when you a) have the folio in front of you; b) see that the hotel posted the amenity points and the dates of the stay.
IMHO, *wood should adopt a mantra that is along the lines of "what can I do to make a customer's life easier?"
<rant off> :)