Friday, May 4, 2007

Dear this fucking hotel chain,

(A little background for you, dear reader: I work *at* this hotel, but not *for* the hotel. I work for a separate company that rents out space in this hotel for AV and the business center. I am not employed in any way, shape or form by the hotel or the company that owns the hotel.)

Dear this fucking hotel chain,

You are a bunch of fucking idiots. This lady is here, and her mom died yesterday, and she's in town to settle her mom's affairs and make arrangements and all the stuff you have to do when your mom dies. The only hotel she could get was this one. So, the front desk told her about the rewards program offered by your hotel. She came back to use one of the computers in our computer room to sign up for it. And so we get to the first point:

Everywhere else you go, they can sign you up for their rewards program at the counter. Either by getting your name and phone number/email and entering that info into the computer, or by having you fill out a registration form by hand, and having the person behind the counter enter your information for you. Making a customer go find an internet connection to sign up is fucking DUMB. This is all part of customer service. A customer shouldn't have to go out of his or her way to sign up for your fucking frequent customer rewards program. It's almost guaranteed that this will make that person not be a customer in the future.

-Back to the rant-

The woman kept getting an error page when she tried to register. Her confirmation email never came. She was beside herself, rightfully so. Your sign-up process is obnoxious (have to click six or seven different links just for the privilege of getting spammed by you) and to not even have the satisfaction of being DONE with it is enough to annoy anybody. Which brings me to my second point:

Your website blows. It's all in tiny type, the links aren't the same from one page to the next. I'm talking anchor links here - reservations, location, about us, etc - it's hell of difficult to navigate. Fucking obnoxious. This is 2007, get with the fucking internet already.

-Back to the rant-

When your 800 number spells out the hotel name, it is hell of helpful to have the actual numerical number next to it. Nobody wants to be hunting and pecking at the fucking phone trying to spell out your stupid hotel name when they're already pissed off at your web site. Which brings me to my third point:

I was on hold for 16 minutes on your damn phone system. Every 90 seconds or so, after telling me how important I was, the fucking line would ring like I was being put through to somebody. Do you know how disappointing it is, what a cheap fucking shot that is, to make me think I'm being transferred and it turns out I'm just going back to the damn recording? Yes, I know this happens everywhere. But I can't remember the last time I spent 16 minutes on hold. That's quite excessive.

-Back to the rant-

You people suck. I get blamed for all the bullshit around here - no heat, no signs for the meeting rooms, price of parking, all that shit. And now you're making it so that I am completely unable to actively help one of YOUR fucking guests.

Thanks for nothing, assholes.

Sincerely,
M

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