After a fruitless conversation where I attempted to explain the concept of "customer satisfaction" to a recalcitrant motel manager in Winnemucca, NV, Super 8 made good on refunding me a reasonable portion of my bill. Or at least it would have been reasonable, had it not involved three separate phone calls to make right... So I will deign to stay at a Super 8 again (although NOT in Winnemucca), though cautiously. I'm not *entirely* sure anyone at the company really gets it either, but I am satisfied enough to give them another chance.
Although like I said, not in Winnemucca. As I tried to explain to the manager there, for someone who's not a trucker I drive the I-80 corridor rather a lot. It may arise again sometime that I will want to stay in Winnemucca, and because they insisted on keeping every penny of my $67, they've guaranteed that it's the last one they'll ever see from me.
Edit: Maybe I should explain better why I'm so annoyed. When I drove back east I stayed in a string of Super 8s, but the first one ended up being a big mistake. Starting before 5am the ceiling started creaking under a lot of footfalls. At first I thought they'd stop as soon as the person(s) got done doing what they were doing. But eventually I realized they weren't stopping. (It's also possible that the reason for this was that it was actually people in the stairwell walking, and not someone above me.) After a wasted hour of tossing and turning and failing to get back to sleep, I gave up and fully woke up. At which point I just packed up and left, since there was no point in staying there anymore.
I complained at the desk on my way out, but the manager was out and the clerk wouldn't do anything. I had to call Super 8 to file a complaint. But they didn't do anything either, and referred the matter back to the manager. Who eventually wrote me a letter apologizing, but doing nothing else. Even more irritated by this point I called her back to say this wasn't good enough, and engaged in a battle of wills. Her argument: because I didn't call the desk to complain and give them a chance to fix the problem, it wasn't their fault and I was on my own. My argument: by the time I was awake enough to have the presence of mind to call the desk, I was already irretrievably awake and there would be nothing they could do to fix it. Furthermore, for the rate I was paying, it wasn't too much to expect that I'd be able to get an undisturbed night of sleep. They failed to deliver, however, and I expected some compensation for that - particularly because for a motel, it was pretty expensive.
To the manager, however, my position was unreasonable. (To me, the fact that I was even required to have this argument was unreasonable. They really care so little about customer satisfaction that they're willing to go to the mat on this?) Fortunately Super 8, when I called them back, saw the unreasonableness of the situation and refunded me a reasonable portion of money.
True, this isn't one of my rants about inequitable conduct by companies. I suffered no great injustice because of the hotel. It was just frustrating and amazingly dumb on their part of blow off my concerns. If the manager - or Super 8 itself - had just given me back the $35 from the outset everything would have been fine. It's a small amount to them, but a big amount to me, but their adamant refusal to make the situation right because *I* failed to follow "procedure" was ridiculous. And just wasted my time.
So in the end she won her battle - the manager never gave me any money back - but she lost her war because she also lost her customer. Stupid.
Comments (2)
If you were a low end motel manager out in the middle of nowhere, would you give a refund to anyone who complains on check out about a problem that wasn't the motel's fault, of which the motel wasn't aware, and which the motel wasn't given any opportunity to address?
Such a policy would open up the motel to a lot of fraud. Furthermore, if I were the owner of the motel, I would rather have the $35 and loose the possibility that I might get some return business at some point in the future from the client (especially since, from their point of view, this is now a client whose expectations are expensive to meet). Remember, the motel owner is almost certainly a franchisee, so the fact that you stay in other super 8's elsewhere doesn't affect her bottom line.
I think you should have called the front desk when you realized that the noise wasn't going to stop. They could have called the offending room and asked them to stop, or offered you a new room. That's really the best they can do to fix this type of problem, and you should have given them the chance.
Posted by Sombody | August 23, 2005 2:43 PM
Posted on August 23, 2005 14:43
I assume this comment was posted before I made my update. But with regard for the fraud possibility, given that I had to make three phone calls just to get a partial discount makes me think that people aren't going to make a sport out of ripping off Super 8 gratuitously. Furthermore, once I explained why calling the desk wasn't an option (having to fully wake up in order to be able to go back to sleep is hardly a solution), she should have been willing to make the price adjustment, even if she hadn't been before. But by stubbornly clinging to so little, she risked losing so much.
Yes, the Super 8 is a low-end chain, but hospitality businesses are all about the comfort of their guests - that's what they're selling. This incident, however, suggests that Super 8, or at least this one, doesn't care about mine sufficiently to justify my further business.
Posted by Cathy | August 24, 2005 7:44 PM
Posted on August 24, 2005 19:44