Truffles & Customer Service
A week ago I spent 4 days at The St. Regis Deer Valley hotel in Park City, Utah while attending the 2010 MediaPost Search Insider Summit. Let me begin by saying how amazing The St. Regis was in both attention to detail and physical beauty. Simply put it was an amazing destination and I will be definitely looking forward to going back there in the future.
When I travel I’m pretty easy going and will often put up with little annoyances without complaining. However, as I approached my room one night after 10 PM I found that the door to my room was open. I cautiously entered the room and luckily found that no one was in it and that none of my personal belongings had gone missing. (Especially since my iPad and laptop were sitting out on my desk.) Upon closer inspection of the situation I noticed that the deadbolt on my front door had been turned so that the door could not close fully thus allowing anyone who wanted to the opportunity to enter without a key. My only conclusion, since nothing was missing, was that the turndown service staff had accidentally left the bolt turned and did not realize they left my room open when they left.
As I stated previously I’m pretty easy going so I decided not to call down to the lobby and complain. I simply locked things up and headed to bed. The next morning I decided to swing by the reception desk and let them know what had happened just in case I discovered something missing at a later date. The front desk attendant was horrified to hear about my door being left open and apologized at least 3 or 4 times before finally recording down my information to put into their log books. I made sure to explain that I wasn’t upset but merely wanted them to know about it should I discover something missing later. Once I was done talking to them I put it out of my head and considered the whole thing a closed case with nothing else to be done.
Later that same evening as I was settling in for the night in my room I received a knock at my door from room service. Upon opening the door I was greeted with a bottle of red wine, 4 amazing truffles and a handwritten note from the Director of Housekeeping apologizing at great length for what had happened the night before. In the note she apologized for the inconvenience and promised to retrain her staff to ensure something like this would never happen again. It was an unexpected and unnecessary gift – but a wonderful one nonetheless.
In looking back at what happened regarding my room and how The St. Regis responded I’m reminded at just how important it is for companies to be open to client comments and feedback. If they had simply stopped at listening and recording my issue I would have been more than satisfied. But instead of resting on what they did The St. Regis took a huge additional step by sending me a nice gift and personalized note. They crucial thing here is they did something they didn’t have to do and as a result I’m telling everyone I know about it and helping to further strengthen their brand’s reputation for amazing customer service and attention to detail. So what did it cost them to make this all happen?
A bottle of wine ($10-15) + 4 chocolate truffles ($2) + a handwritten note ($1) = less than $20.
What did they get out of the investment?
Positive word of mouth + a repeat customer in the future = way more than $20
My advice to everyone is to always remember that doing your job is just the beginning. Look for the opportunities to go above and beyond and make an experience (even if it’s a bad one) into an amazingly positive and memorable experience. In the end it will reap dividends far beyond what it took to make it happen in the first place.
Social Media Revolution
I came across this video today on a friend’s Facebook wall and thought it did an excellent job of driving home the reality of social media, and the role it will play in our lives moving forward. Enjoy!