Customer Service with a… nasty attitude?
Roy and I are lucky enough to be able to do some traveling. We’ve gotten away for romantic weekends a few times in the past couple of years-now that Corey is old enough to watch the little boys. We’ve gone on cruises alone and with all the boys. We do amusement parks, camping, etc. In a few weeks we are going to Charleston to see Joe, and then in August we are taking the little boys to Disneyworld. And one thing has remained constant on many of our travels-The Marriott chain of hotels.
We’ve had excellent luck with them-great hotels, warm receptions and fabulous customer service. Even when there is an issue we are treated with respect and the issue is promptly resolved to the best of their ability.
And then I made the mistake of booking elsewhere. Only Roy and I are heading to Charleston-Addi will be in Alabama, and the two little boys are going to stay home with their biggest brother for some weekend fun-probably a movie, but whateves! Since we have a big trip to Disney coming up, I thought why not try to save some money and just find a decent hotel. After doing a lot of searching, booking.com had a good price for a Best Western. about 105 cheaper than the Marriott-it got decent reviews, so why not?
I made our reservation for JULY (that’s very important!) and submitted it. About 20 minutes later I got a confirmation email and breathed a sigh of release-hotel taken care of, now I just need to decide which of the delicious sounding restaurants to go to! Well, a few days later, I’m getting ready to run a few errands with Roy when my phone dings-it’s a fraud alert from AmEx! Seems I used my card at home on the same day we were charged for a hotel in Charleston. I had to call AmEx and assure them I had my card, and that I would get to the bottom of this.
It seems someone at the hotel put our dates in wrong-they had us arriving in June, and so we were charged as no shows. Ok, I figured simple mistake, let me call the hotel and get it rectified. Well, the young woman that answered the phone was rude from the get go. When I tried to explain the situation, I apparently offended her when I said, “You charged us…"Now, I wasn’t accusing her, rather the hotel she works at.
"Look Lady, I didn’t do nothing!” she said to me, “You need to stop saying, YOU, cause it wasn’t me.”
When I explained that I know it wasn’t her-though, could have been, who knows?-but rather the hotel, she interrupted me.
“That’s right. So you say that, don’t say YOU.” she told me again.
I sighed, but tried to explain the situation further. She claimed they had no reservation for us in July. When I said I understand that, that is when we were supposed to be there, can you look at June and see if there was a mistake, she said they didn’t have us in June either, and proceeded to hang up on me! Now, maybe she was having a bad day, I don’t know….but that was ridiculous. I called back a few minutes later.
“Ok, is this the Booking.com lady?” She asked, “Because I’m so nice, I went back and looked. You didn’t even bother to show up, so we charged you as a no show.”
Again, I sighed, and launched into my explanation again, this time she spoke to someone next to her, or maybe on another line, and then would ask me to repeat myself. I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, so I thought perhaps she asked someone to give her a minute. I repeated myself, and as soon as I opened my mouth, she started talking to someone again. She asked a third time for me to repeat myself, I said no, I would like to speak to her manager as I just want my money back.
“There’s no one here but me, and I can’t give you your money back.”
So apparently, she has no authority, but the manager isn’t around on the weekends. What if a guest has an issue on property?
And now for the kicker, when I asked her why she can’t do a simple refund, she told me I was too stupid to listen, threw out a few more insults and laughed. I told her I was done and hung up, my intention being to just call corporate.
Well, Best Western’s corporate office was just as rude, and about as helpful. The first young woman did make an effort-or I’m assuming she did-she tried to call the hotel, but then just told me I had to wait for the manager and that they would be back MOnday or Tuesday. At this point, I’m annoyed. They took our money without authorization, but apparently I need to wait until it’s convenient for them to rectify the issue. Ok, I asked to speak to her supervisor, and this is where once again, things got ridiculous.
The woman I spoke with was supposedly a member of their customer service management team. She was condescending, spoke over us, told us we needed to listen to her, but she failed to offer us that same courtesy.
“It’s only one hundred and twenty two dollars, it’s not like it’s thousands.”
That’s what she said to me. Really?!
Ok, on the one hand, if it’s such a paltry amount give us our money back. On the other hand, no matter how much it is, it wasn’t owed to them/their money in the first place. I don’t care if it’s five dollars or five thousand.
This woman told Roy that Best Westerns are franchises, and corporate can do nothing. When Roy tried to tell her that isn’t quite right, that franchises operate under a corporate entity, she hung up on him.
There were a a few more little digs here and there, but ultimately, nothing was done until we posted to their FB and twitter page about the horrible customer service we received. And in the end, had the first young lady just said something like, “Yep, we made a mistake. I’m sorry and we will get it fixed first thing Monday morning.” I would have been annoyed, but that would have been that. Instead, we were passed from one person to the next, each person rude and belittling, and unwilling to help.
“Stay with People Who Care.”
Apparently that’s their motto-after that bit of ridiculousness my question is, “Exactly who do they care about? Because it sure as hell isn’t their customers.”
