This week I’ve been traveling with my family across the midwest to the East Coast. Along the way, we’ve been staying at Hampton Inn every evening because we like the price, the consistency of quality, friendliness of staff, and the great continental breakfasts. Any hotel chain that can provide a breakfast spread that delights each of my three children deserves my business.
The point of this post is that we did have one issue this morning that dampened our experience, but the customer service in an unrelated incident more than made up for the original guffaw.
This morning, at 8:00 am, we were awakened by the housekeeping staff asking us if we were ready to have them clean our room. They literally woke all five of us up. In all of the years that we have stayed at Hampton Inns and especially on this trip, we have never even seen the cleaning crew until past 9:00 am. When we told her we weren’t even close to being ready, she proceeded to knock on each of the rest of the doors on the floor asking the same question.
My husband, who is really a reasonable and accommodating person, was really riled up about this. His feeling was that we were on a family vacation and this was one of the few days we had available to sleep in since we had planned to leave later in the day. He called the front desk to let them know of his irritation that we had been awakened by their cleaning crew. The front desk staff advised him that we should have put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. While he was professional in his tone, my husband perceived it as a bit condescending. It really got under his skin to the point that he wanted to complain to a higher level to let them know that if it is common practice to awaken everyone on the floor to clean so early, guests need to be advised when they check in to put the sign on the door.
Needless to say, we went down to enjoy the breakfast and then proceeded to enjoy a day of sightseeing. Now, there is a heat wave in the Boston area with heat indexes over the 102 degree mark. When the five of us dragged ourselves into the lobby and it was apparent to the new front desk clerk that it was more than just a bit humid and hot outside. She immediately went into the back room and approached us with five bottles of refrigerated water and insisted that we start drinking it soon to avoid dehydrating. She was so kind and sincere about it, we really felt like she was a friend looking out for us.
So, when we got into the car to proceed to the next Hampton Inn from which I am writing this post, my husband looked at me and said “Okay, I guess I won’t complain since she was completely unaware of the issue this morning and went out of her way to make sure we were comfortable. That’s why we stay here – because we like it, the breakfast is good, and she won me back with her service.”
Hmmmm…… maybe my husband has been listening to me after all 😀