More phone answering problems

I blogged a while ago about hotels not answering their telephones. Yesterday I was trying to place a £10,000 booking and half of the hotels I tried to contact did not answer their phone, or didn't have anyone available who could help me. It just doesn't make sense.

I Tweeted about the problem and was immediately telephoned by a venue finding agency and a hotel group. Pretty impressive. There's the thing, really. You can divide the market into two types of business. The first type just doesn't seem to care, or isn't very switched on. The second type is right there on the pulse, reacting immediately to the changing world not only by answering the phone but scanning proactively for opportunities.

I don't have any data to prove the theory, but I can be fairly confident that the latter will be more successful.

Doing business with hotels

I can see that this is going to become one of my pet subjects. Why do hotels make it so difficult to do business with them?

Take my interaction with Crowne Plaza hotels today. I used Google to find a contact telephone number and I think we can probably assume that most people would do the same thing. So, we're talking about the main communication avanue between them and new business. I'm given an 0871 number and told that it will cost me 10p per minute. I haven't studied call charges for a while so I don't know if this is better or worse than normal rates, but I have the feeling something cynical is going on.

I telephoned them with one simple question: 'what is your day delegate rate?' After a fairly long message (at 10p per minute) going on about a customer satisfaction service that I'm not interested in I spoke to someone who told me I'd have to speak to the hotel and who gave me another 0871 number. I get this a lot, the sheer frustration of dealing with central reservations.

I then called the new number and was put through to an extension number that didn't answer. I was returned to the switchboard who put me through to someone else. Don't forget I'm feeling edgy because I know this is all costing me 10p per minute.

Finally I'm speaking to a person but they're reluctant to give me the rate I need to finish my proposal until they've taken my address, telephone number and email address. Even then I have to go through a whole discussion about how and why rates might change.

So, the event part of my proposal took me five minutes and the one piece of information from the hotel took me about 10 minutes to get and a whole load of frustration and stress.

I don't know how much these venues spend on marketing, exhibitions and whatever but why on earth do they make clients jump through hoops to get a fairly basic bit of key information?

Why don't hotels answer their phones?

It's very strange. Hotels are multi-million pound businesses and, if what you read in the press is true, the market is pretty tough at the moment. And yet here I am with a bluechip client wanting to book 40 rooms for an event in March and the first two venues I have called haven't answered their phones.

Are receptionists much more expensive than one would think?

Hotels preying on corporate budgets

Compare that last experience with the hotel I work at yesterday and stayed overnight at. It's situated on a huge run down industrial estate and that would make it either a 'hidden gem' if they got it right or add to the general disappointment.

As the corporate event manager I was given a room at the 'special rate' of £50 without breakfast so you can image my disappointment when I discovered that the room didn't even have a coffee tray with biscuits. There was a minibar, in which a small Toblerone was on offer ... for £4.50!

I turned on the television to find the option set at 'special offer' which I clicked to find a warning that the films that I was about to be offered were extremely grown up in nature - classy. I'm choosing my words carefully because I don't want to ruin my blog. This special offer included internet access for 24 hours and cost £24.99, or I could just have the internet for £4.99 for 60 minutes. Aaaargh!

I wandered down to the bar where I saw a sign at around 4 foot from the floor which told me that the bar only served doubles unless you asked for a single.

It's clear that this organisation sees its clients as a production line to extract cash from at every turn. The staff I interacted with were efficient enough, if a little cold. Why would you be any different when you work somewhere with such a cold and calculating culture?

I did at least get one laugh out of the whole experience. The complimentary body wash claimed to contain something called Oligoeelements. I'm of an age where we studied something called The Periodic Table at school and I don't remember every seeing an Oligoe amongst the elements. That's the thing about education; the less we do it properly the more guff and nonsense we're going to see out there masquerading as science.

So, lots to reflect on there for any hoteliers reading. The £4.50 Toblerone is bad, but my real beef remains charging such ridiculous rates for internet access when you're marketing your services to businesspeople. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. Would you charge £4.99 for 60 inutes of hot water? Hang on, these people don't need ideas.

Corporate sailing events

Solent Events in Lymington deliver excellent corporate sailing events. These days are challenging some times and relaxing at others and give teams the chance to really get away from the office and bond while partaking in a fantastic experience.

They usually work in The Solent, which is a fantastic stretch of water between the south coast and The Isle of Wight. Although day trips are possible teams usually stay at one of the many luxury hotels close to Southampton or Lymington.