Originally Posted by
sbtinme
That's 6750 paid room nights per month. If the average consumed stay is just over 1.2 nights, we're talking nearly 6000 or so distinct customers, per month, checking into and out of an average property. If 3% of these consumers chose to e-mail the GM, that's 180 e-mails a month. What percentage of those do you suspect couldn't have been handled through protocol methods?
Goodness, 180 emails a month. That's a whole six emails a day from customers! Wherever will he find the time to hit the forward button on the five that can be handled by his staff? This is a non issue.
The other cornerstone of my position is that I feel sure that the bulk of incoming e-mails would be nothing more than requests for special services, upgrades, and the like. SPG has a system in place to treat SPG members fairly and in ranked order. It's my fervent wish that GM's simply ignore these sorts of requests.
Your confidence, I suspect, is false. Many special requests made of hotels aren't people asking for something for free, but rather nontrivial things that guests need assistance with. E.g., arranging for the delivery of packages, arranging for refrigerators for those with special diets or medications, arranging for connecting rooms when they are required, etc. Many of these could indeed be handled by other staff, but unless the hotel has designated someone to deal with them, the GM is often the only reliable contact when you need assurance that something will get done.
More importantly, though, the GM needs to be accessible to customers to address issues with staff, including other management. The advantage of email is that the message is almost certain to be delivered; I have felt in many cases leaving hotels where I've had problems that I can't really trust the staff to properly route a written letter to the GM, as the staff would rather keep the issue quiet from their superiors. So a direct contact is essential.