The Conference Coach™

Yesterday was the beginning of the Channel Partner’s Show in Miami.  We started out with reservations at the Royal Palm, which was one of the two hotels in South Beach recommended by the show organizers.  Frankly, it’s just this side of being a ghetto.  Everything is old, stained, scarred and tired.  We walked next door to the bright and shiny Lowes Hotel and got one of the last rooms available.

We checked in at about 10:00 on Tuesday night and were so excited about our good fortune.  The room was modern, newly renovated and perfect, even with a view of the ocean.  That was until about 7:45 this morning when the jackhammers and air compressors roared to life.  Apparently the hotel is undergoing a transformation and you can hear that activity as if it were right in the room with you.  Had we known this in advance, we may have stayed in the “ghetto”.

I finally got in touch with Rick, the front desk manager, to explain just how inconvenient it is to try and work in a hotel room with a jack hammer in your ear.  He tried to make this all about the fact that it was my mistake –  that I was probably told in advance about the construction and I booked the hotel anyway.  When I let him know that nobody informed me and the room was only 50% useful to me because I couldn’t stay there during the day, his attitude was – “Oh, well”.

Now Rick failed what I call a customer service “moment of truth”.  He could have at least acknowledged why I might be frustrated, apologized to me, offered to move me or get me a new hotel, but he didn’t do any of those things.  What Rick doesn’t know is that I’m a really motivated consumer.  If I like something, I tell everybody.  If someone fails to meet my expectations, I tell everybody and all their relatives.  So, I’m telling everybody that unless you like jackhammers, don’t stay at the Lowes Hotel in Miami Beach for the rest of 2009!

If we fail our customers at Copper Conferencing for whatever reason, we apologize.  We acknowledge their frustration with us, and we do whatever it takes to make it right.  We don’t blame the customer.  We either failed to instruct, failed to perform or failed to satisfy.  Our customers rarely if ever try and take advantage of us and we want to keep them coming back.  They don’t have to prove they are right, just that we didn’t meet their expectations.  We want them to tell everybody how great our service is and if we don’t perform, how hard we work to make things right.

Rick, the front desk supervisor, of the Lowes Hotel in Miami Beach should take a lesson from Copper.  He had the chance to have a good customer service “moment of truth” and in that moment, he left an impression of his hotel that will last forever.