CHICAGO (FAXX/jGLi) – The touchstone of success of a business is the continuous patronage of repeat customers. Or referral to others to patronize that business.
If a customer does not come back to buy the same product or secure the same service, chances are the customer was not satisfied with such product or service the first time. Nor will he ever refer them to somebody else.
In the hospitality business, like hotels, restaurants, rent-a-car or airline service, customers’ satisfaction is number one.
But sometimes, inconsistent and absurd policies of some of these hospitality enterprises are a big turnoff.
Some years ago, I booked a flight for Delta Airlines from Chicago, Illinois to Detroit, Michigan to attend a journalists’ convention. When I changed my schedule before I took my flight, the Delta Airlines fined me $100. When I complained, I was told that was part of the fine prints that I agreed with them. So, I kept quiet.
A couple of days later, the Delta Airlines suddenly changed my flight schedule without letting me know in advance. So, I made some noise. I told the Delta since they fined me $100 when I unilaterally requested for a change of schedule, they should likewise refund me the $100 they debited from my credit card. I told Delta the people, who were meeting me at the airport, would be inconvenienced by their change. After a series of give-and-take, I was able to get even with Delta.
Now, in the case of a friend, Jun Ilagan, editor of California Fil Am Star,which subscribes to my Fil Am Extra Exchange news agency, he has another hospitality business sob story to tell.
Mr. Ilagan told me a friend of his, a successful Filipino American businessman and a big spender, was fuming not because he did not want to pay a hotel surcharge of 875 Philippine pesos (US$21.87) but because he was thrown a curve ball.
The businessman was already in the confines of his home in San Francisco when he got an email from Makati Shangri-La Manila, one of the more luxurious five star hotels in the Philippines, after he checked out. The email from Gino de Guia said the businessman needed to pay a surcharge of P875 because the hotel staff failed to check that four sodas were missing from the minibar of his hotel room after he checked out. Some enterprising hotel employees could have drunk those sodas but the thought of “internal pilferage” did not occur to the businessman either.
“SPEAK NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE”
The businessman would just have paid for the P875 if the bill were presented to him before he checked out. I agree with him because by the nature of the hospitality business where breakneck speed like catching a flight is a given, I believe a customer checking out of a hotel is like a priest officiating at a wedding, telling the front-desk clerk “to speak now or forever hold your peace”before presenting his cash or credit card to pay the bill.
When Jun asked me if I could circulate hiscolumn (http://tinyurl.com/a9fwkhk) to my outlets, I thought of writing a column out of his column instead. But before I write anything, I usually try to contact the people I would like to write about.
So, I routinely sent Jun’s column to Shangri-La’s website’s “comment” page to make sure that somebody else other than Mr. De Guia got Jun’s column. I did not want Mr. De Guia to take time to answer or ignore it altogether.
When I did not get a response soon enough, acknowledging Jun’s column, I followed up with another email, this time using the email address provided by Mr. De Guia to the Fil Am businessman. But I gave him a way out of his predicament. I told him that penalizing a guest after a hotel staff failed to check the room and after the guest had checked out was the fault of the hotel, not the hotel guest. He should have been more creative by taking a short break himself and going to a nearby supermarket and buying the four sodas himself and returning them in the minibar. It is just like billing a customer a few dollars more if the hotel is sure that a customer was taking the hotel towel as a souvenir.
And I told him about the way a California governor handled a similar situation when the governor’s secretary forgot to remind the governor of the bill the governor wanted to veto. The bill became a law as a result of the lapse in memory of the secretary when the deadline for the veto passed without the governor returning the bill to California legislature.
THE FAULT OF THE SUBORDINATE IS THE FAULT OF THE BOSS
And I told Mr. De Guia because the secretary was just human, like your hotel staff, the governor did not fire the secretary because the fault of the secretary is also the fault of the governor for hiring the forgetful secretary.
True enough, I got an email from Mr. De Guia’s big boss, Reto Klauser, Area Manager/General Manager of Makati Shangri-La, Manila, thanking me for my email to Mr. De Guia. Mr. Klauser asked my permission if he could reply on Mr. De Guia’s behalf.
Mr. Klauser said, he earlier responded to the Filipino American businessman, (who requested from me that his name be withheld,) “directly and extended our most sincere apologies for the severe misjudgement on our side. I would like to assure you that we view this situation most seriously and firm corrective action have (sic) been taken. Clearly, the email should not have been sent and was a mistake on our side for which I accept full responsibility.
“We conducted a detailed investigation and implemented additional control measures that will ensure that such misjudgement can not happen again here at Makati Shangri-La.
“I fully understand that (the Fil Am businessman) is upset but we hope we will have an opportunity to make amends when he visits Manila the next time and for me to meet him personally.
“Thank you and best regards.”
$3,000-A-DAY VILLA 8”
The Fil Am businessman, it turned out, had called Makati Shangri-La, Manila as his“vacation home” for the last 15 years. In his last stay for 12 days, he spent 600,000 (US$15,000). The businessman would not have complained with the P875 surcharge by the hotel if it were presented to him up front before he checked out. But what made the businessman’s blood boil was his powerlessness and helplessness to stop the hotel, like in my case the Delta Airline, from docking the surcharge as the hotel held hostage his credit card information.
For that same trip, the businessman also stayed a couple of days at Shangri-La’s Boracay Resort and Spa at a two-bedroom, $3,000-a-day “Villa 8” and paid for it. Unlike PAGCOR chair, Cristino L. Naguiat, who occupied the Wynn Macau’s“Villa 81” for US$6,000-a-day, but did not pay for it but courtesy of his host, Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada, who is planning to build a casino resort known as “Entertainment City Manila,” the Fil Am businessman paid for his“Villa 8,” using his own hard-earned money.
By stopping Mr. De Guia cold from billing the Fil Am businessman a surcharge, Mr. Klauser merely gave substance to the truism that the customer is always right. I hope the businessman will drop by to meet Mr. Klauser next time around. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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