If you’ve ever left something important behind at a hotel, you know that sinking feeling that overcomes you when you discover it’s missing. At 4:30 pm yesterday I arrived home after an excellent two days of learning (and presenting) at the Michigan Nutrition Network CHOICES Conference. At 4:31 pm after removing my prescription sunglasses, I discovered that my regular eyeglasses were missing.
I’m very near-sighted. My glasses are basically a part of my face, so when I realized they didn’t make it home with me, I immediately called the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the conference was hosted. Luckily, the hotel is in my hometown. Here’s a rundown of my customer service experience, which was outstanding.
Service contact #1: Reception desk. I explain my plight and am immediately connected to Lost and Found.
Service contact #2: Elizabeth answers, listens carefully to me explain that I think they’re in the ladies room.She says she’ll check with Housekeeping and call me back.
Service contact #3: Elizabeth calls back within ten minutes. “I’m sorry Ms. Miller, we didn’t find the glasses.” I wonder out loud if they could be in the parking garage? “I’ll send security to check.”
Service contact #4: Elizabeth calls me a second time (again, within 10 minutes) to tell me they’ve located my glasses. She will hold them for me at lost and found.
Service contact #5: Valet parking attendant at the hotel’s circular drive. “No problem, ma’m, I’ll go get them for you.”
Service contact #6: Concierge comes to my car and personally hands me my glasses. Relief washes over me and and I blather on and on with thanks. The young man graciously listens to me and says, “Not at all; it’s my pleasure.”
Six points of customer contact. Six times that people calmed my worries and never once gave the impression of being inconvenienced by a customer. And one unmet security guard who walked through the skybridge, into the elevator, up to the top floor of a parking garage and back again with my eyeglasses.
Whoever says customer service is dead hasn’t left their eye glasses at the Amway Grand Plaza.
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