In my experience attempting to resolve my issue with the Conrad Rangali (Maldives), I had a lot of interactions with Hilton's (US) Guest Assistance Center. While I have to give credit to this department that my issue is now resolved, I found the process clumsy and full of errors and problems (for example the person who took my original complaint filed it with the wrong hotel. I had to call back and get it refiled).

The GM has posted here on FT (and this was reinforced in a private email between the Front Office Manager of the hotel and myself) that Hilton's Corporate Customer Service played a significant role in retarding my issue and compounding it. I find this disturbing, and a complete erosion of my faith in doing business with Hilton affiliated properties.

While I travel enough to know that problems happen, I have also learned that a true test of a company is their ability to rectify problems in a professional, expedient, and fair manner for all parties involved. I did not experience this with Hilton. I am so disheartened at the complete breakdown in customer service, from just about all levels, that I no longer have confidence and trust in Hilton affiliated hotels to quickly and fairly resolve problems.

I'm creating this thread in an attempt to have a constructive dialogue about problems we, as guests, experience in dealing with Hilton's customer service, with proposed solutions of how to fix them. I am well aware that my one experience is not statistically significant of anything, but it was handled (from my perspective) so poorly, that it highlighted several problems.

Please feel free to weigh-in with your thoughts on how Hilton Corporate can better assist their customers and guests without letting issues spiral out of control.

• Empower "elite" (Diamond / Gold) agents to take complaints and file them on behalf of guests. It's ridiculous that you have to call the elite line then be put on hold for (on average) 15 minutes to get through to someone in the Guest Assistance center. This does not start the process off on the right foot.
• If you're going to transfer calls to another call center, make sure the folks answering these calls are knowledgeable and professional. They should be the customer service stars within the organization and empowered (and trained) that if they don't know something to research it. Saying things that are a little outside the realm of reality seriously erodes your customer's trust.
• Triage problems based on their severity. A burned out light-bulb should be treated differently than, for example, the displacement of a guest. While every guest and their problem should be dealt with in a fast and professional manner, bigger problems should have a higher degree of attention placed on them.
• Triage problems based on the brand / property involved.
• Hilton currently pings the hotel to ask for their side/resolution within 72 hours. This is fine. The fatal flaw is that the hotels are expected to contact the guest directly so Hilton has no idea whether anything was resolved or not and if all sides are happy. It's up to the guest to follow-up if they aren't happy. Hilton should take ownership of the problem and be proactive.
• If the problem is not resolved after the initial 72 hour period, and it's a legitimate complaint, assign it to one person who will own the problem and be the direct point of contact for all parties.
• Place that person in the time zone of the guest, and make them accessible. The person assigned to my file worked midnights. Presumably this made correspondence with the hotel, 10 time zones away, easier. But it severely hindered my interaction with the person who was attempting to resolve the problem and mediate the issue. For issues that involve large time zone gaps, perhaps assign two individuals. One to interface with the hotel and one to interface with the guest.
• If a resolution is not reached within the promised amount of time, or if the property is being uncooperative (or if the guest is not happy with the process) escalate it.
• Give the guest confidence that their issue is important and Hilton Guest Assistance is doing the following things (list them) to work on their issue (it's currently a black hole).
• Hilton decided to devalue HHonors points to the level of Zimbabwe currency. Offering a trivial amount of HHonors points (in my case 5,000) to make a serious problem go away is insulting.
• Never. Ever. Ever. say "as a one time exception" -- especially when you're following the rules of your own program.
• The reliance on the Be Our Guest certs is too high. Yes, these are good for the majority of complaints, but customer service employees should be attuned to when they are not appropriate. No two problems are alike and it seems like Hilton tries to offer the same resolution for every guest (square peg / round hole) syndrome.
• Give your guests confidence that not only was their problem resolved, but the following steps are being taken to help prevent a repeat.
• Always treat your guests like customers. Not inconveniences.
• When a guest is so frustrated with a process, give them an outlet to provide this feedback. Don't make them feel their only way to get something accomplished is via a public internet bulletin board.

Hilton's Guest Assistance department is vital to the long-term success and health of the organization. I hope that Hilton recognizes there are areas for significant improvement within this department, and takes action.

Thanks in advance for your contributions to this thread.