In my previous post, I posed a question with respect to how to handle a customer service problem at a great hotel - the Balmoral, in Edinburgh, Scotland. What should the night manager do, if anything, on the day after the fire alarm roused guests from their rooms after midnight? The several folks who commented on this posting all suggested appropriate measures. The correct solution would be to offer a small gift or rebate - something nominal, nothing very expensive - and to do this in as personal a manner as possible.
The Balmoral's management, however, has obviously never taken customer service as seriously as the readers of this blog. The morning after the fire alarm went off, I found a typed note of apology slipped under my door. It was unsigned, headed simply "Dear Guest," and it consisted of an apology for the inconvenience, followed by an explanation that the hotel takes all fire alarm activations seriously in the name of guest safety. While it sounds reasonable to slip an apology note under guest doors, I found it to be almost insulting. Why?
First, there was no attempt at all to personalize. I mean not even the faintest attempt. In fact, the last sentence of the note wished "those guests departing today" a safe onward journey, and "those guests staying this evening" a pleasant stay at the Balmoral. Come on, you idiots, your own registration records will show which rooms belong to guests who are checking out and which rooms belong to guests who are staying.
Second, while this was an apology, there was no acceptance of responsibility whatsoever. No hint that the fire alarm system might in fact be faulty, and that this was being looked into. No suggestion that the hotel would even try to prevent this kind of highly disruptive false alarm in the future. We all knew it was a false alarm. Some one or something was responsible, but apparently the hotel has no interest in finding the source. (As a matter of fact, the following afternoon, the fire alarm went off AGAIN, but only very briefly, while I was in the building - so obviously there is some kind of problem that needs fixing.)
Third, there was no benefit or gift offered to the inconvenienced guests. I don't think every apology for every customer service problem actually requires some kind of compensation, but in this case compensation would clearly have made a big difference, and what's interesting is that all of the commenters on my previous post suggested some kind of gift, perhaps some type of complimentary spa service. The cost of a compensatory gift doesn't have to be very large - in fact, it could be in the form of a coupon for some future service, so it wouldn't really cost anything at all, but be revenue-generative. But a gift indicates sincerity, and it denotes that the company is taking its customers' feelings seriously. And that's most likely why it was omitted from the Balmoral night manager's note of apology.
As my daughter is a student at Edinburgh University, my wife and I travel to the city once or twice a year. We'll be staying at a different hotel next time.