Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Hilton and Hampton Inn Get Social

While I have been on site at a client the last few weeks, I previously wrote about the comparison of the 2 hotels I have stayed at. This week, I am finishing at the client and had a Social Business interaction.

While watching the Dolphins watch the Brady show, I tweeted that the Air Conditioner is so loud I can't hear the TV, even at full sound. A slight exaggeration, but I seriously have to crank the volume WAY up when the A?C kicked in.

Within a few minutes HamtopFYI had responded, asked me to follow them and direct message the details. I did.
About 10 minutes later the front desk was calling me to let me know they were sorry about the A/C and would have maintenance have a look. Also the hotel being full they could not swap my room.

Didn't bother to let her know that last week the same problem existed in another room and the likelihood of being able to fix it is low. Having spent some years traveling for work and pleasure, this is the downside of this level hotel. It happens.

I applaud Hilton/Hampton for getting proactive and looking to increase their customer awareness and the secondary feedback routes. It is not easy, the hospitality industry is almost as cut throat as the IT industry, and every little bit helps.

You could say the Hospitality industry understands customer service and social media fits them well. The truth is customer service is very hard to get right, Hilton has always tried to get it right and that is the key to social media adoption. Understand why you use it and for what benefits and make it work for you.

Keep up the good work Hilton, for the rest of the businesses out there still trying to get their head around it, ask, we and others are here to help you.

2 comments:

  1. I had the same problem with the noisy air conditioning, so I asked them to send someone up to turn it off ( as the controls on the wall didn't do the job ).

    So far, so good. Mind you, without the noise of the air conditioning, I can now hear the noise of I495 instead - which I'm guessing the hotel cannot turn down :-(

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  2. I guess with the heat comes A/C units in need of cleaning and maintenance more than they had planned.
    Central air in a hotel is much preferred over those big old mounted units on the floor.

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