My personal philosophy is that the true mettle of a person or organization doesn't show WHEN something goes wrong. Things WILL go wrong. It's an inevitable part of the world, and angrily railing against a problem isn't a way to effectively solve it.
To me, the true mettle is shown when a problem arises and an individual or organization is called upon to resolve it.
How do they react? How effective is their response? How quickly do they implement that response, and how effectively do they keep the customer apprised of their plan and success?
Failure is tolerable if you simply tell me about it, and the failed course of action seemed like a good plan at the start. At least you HAD a plan, rather than letting the chips fall where they may and awkwardly -- or even defiantly -- shrugging about it. And keeping me in the loop during your effort just means I'm not sitting impatiently wondering what is going on.
Flight delays, if communicated, are annoying but understandable. Hotel room problems, quickly addressed, are inconsequential. Train delays from events involving the rail line. Ships which go adrift but are quickly put back on course...it happens.
It's when a situation occurs and goes badly handled from the start I get unhappy. My perception of uncommunicative or obstructive employees/organizations may rapidly go from being potential problem solvers to being the captain of the Costa Concordia in my mind. And that's not good for any of us.
Recently...as in a week ago...I was unfortunate enough to run across one of those incidents which not only bears repeating, but encourages me to drop a brand after several occurrences over the last year -- across multiple properties -- which attitudinally resemble this one.
Doubletree Hotels by Hilton has been one of my mainstay brands over the last year. I'm a fan of Hilton Brands at large, and this certainly doesn't change. But Doubletree has experienced far too many situations in which they failed to rise to the occasion and, in fact, did the opposite.
The most recent took the cake.
We checked into the Doubletree Metropole in Manhattan, and we're told that because the booking had been done through Hotels.com I would not be awarded any Hilton Honors points for the stay. Fair enough, but a simple check of the computer shows that I'm still a Hilton Gold member, regardless of how the reservation was booked. Shrugs.
So we make our way to the room, which is not on the Hilton Honors floors, but again, understood. But upon checking in we note that the water pressure in the shower is poor, and there appears to be a black mold -- not Black Mold, but a dark something -- growing in the shower grout.
We're exhausted, but report it the next morning and are assured by the desk staff that both issues will be handled. We return to the hotel that evening and nothing's been done. Again we report the issue, and are assured that it will be handled the next day, though we're going to need to use the shower in the morning. (Which we did, carefully keeping our distance from the area in question.)
The next day came and went with no progress. We returned that evening to dark mold on the grout and poor water pressure. Again I notified the desk and took the extra step of contacting Doubletree through their Twitter feed. The Twitter team indeed seem to have contacted the front desk, but to everyone's disappointment all that seemed to happen was a generous dosing of disinfectant in the air. There were still very vivid black lines on the grout, and no water pressure to speak of from the shower head.
Finally, and in frustration, we asked that a manager come up to the room.
Unfortunately, he arrived while I was IN the restroom, assured my wife that all was well, and left. I came out moments later, noting nothing had been done. I called down again and this time a supervisor showed up. I led her into the bathroom, turned on the water. Clearly no pressure. Then I swiped a hand towel across the grout, putting a thick and dark black line across the white cotton.
In her support she certainly handled things well, agreeing this was completely unacceptable and arranged for us to transfer to another room.
Moments after she left, a maintenance man showed up, and within three minutes diagnosed the shower head problem and fixed it. A small disc -- a washer -- in the pipe was blocking the flow. Fixed. Water pressure was fine.
Still, with the mold we decided to move to another room.
SIDE NOTE: I enjoy Hilton Honors membership. I am Gold status. As I noted above, this didn't seem to matter to the front desk. To them we were Hotels.com customers and that's that. However, on the final night -- the night we were sent to another room -- we WERE staying as Hilton Honors members. The room was booked that way from the start, and therefore our night should have been treated as an HHonors reservation.
However I was informed that no HH rooms were available, and in order to get us moved to a mold-free room it would mean a room on the 18th floor...a smaller room, right next to the elevator shafts, which, of course, were running all night.
I don't feel I am an entitled person. That's not the source of my issue here. it's that our concerns were not only valid but deserved immediate attention. Not as a Hilton Honors customer, but as a PAYING customer. And three days worth of comments to the front desk ought to have been sufficient.
As a resolution, the property has said they will reimburse us for the final night -- I have yet to see it, but assume it's in the works somewhere.
I am still a fan of other Hilton Brands. In fact, two other brands' Twitter teams offered helpful advice during the entire ordeal. THAT is stepping up, and was sincerely appreciated.
So while I am finally and publicly done with Doubletree, I will enthusiastically continue to patronize Embassy Suites, Hilton and other sub-brands.
I post this here simply as an advisory, and to note that customer service is truly the most important part of the hospitality industry.
It's not WHEN problems occur, it's how the company handles them when they do.
And in that regard, this one's a fail.
(Side note: two days after we left we were contacted by Tripadvisor and Hotels.com to rate our experience. On the Metropolitan's behalf, we have not done so.)
