General Marketing

This article continues to generate quick a number of views and comments so I’ve popped it back up top again and added my latest comment at the top here:

June 11, 2010

Thanks for the ongoing comments guys.

And this nicely illustrates an aspect of social media in relation to customer service these days.

You can’t control the conversation in social media.  And the stories can spread like wildfire.

1 person can have a hell of an impact on your business.

I’ve written the blog, the Trip Advisor review and mentioned the incident in my newsletter just now, almost 3 months after the event.

As regular readers will know, I’ve only just stop writing the SitePoint Tribune after 5 1/2 – the readership of that was 1/4 million web savvy people – imagine how the story could have spread if it was mentioned in that as well.

Andrew, the General Manager of The Hermitage, has handled the issue as well as anyone could and he’s obviously very web and social media savvy.

He’s continued to engage the audience, accept the criticism and get people moving on.

The most interesting thing about all this – I have no doubt whatsoever that the little bit of publicity this has generated has been positive for The Hermitage.

# 1: Staff get a nice real life example of why they shouldn’t slag their guests off.
# 2: Lots more people are aware of The Hermitage and will soon forget the negative bit and remember the positive stuff I’ve written and that Andrew has followed up with.

Brendon – June 11, 2010

Back to the article:

Would The Staff At The Hermitage Please Shut The Hell Up?

Maintaining the consistency of your standards in a large operation is, without question, very difficult.

It’s so important to provide a positive experience in business these days because the customer now has so much power.

• Customers have Facebook accounts,
• Customers have blogs,
• Customers have Twitter accounts,
• Customers have an account with review sites.

The customer is King………… not because it’s an old cliche, but because the customer now has the power to very significantly impact on your brand.

Now, more than ever, a bad experience can be related to literally thousands of your potential customers within minutes.

One bad experience for a customer can result in your hard work being for nought.

Exhibit # 1- The Hermitage Hotel, Aoraki Mount Cook

I recently stay at the perfectly positioned Aoraki Mount Cook hotel, The Hermitage.

This hotel has the best view of any hotel I’ve ever stayed in, with a glorious vista of Mount Cook out the window.

My mates and I (5 in all) took 3 rooms.

It was $320 per room for quite a nice room, but the amazing view made it worth every cent.

After freshening up, we headed off to the bar and enjoyed a quiet beer before dinner.

The Panorama Restaurant – Well Worth A Visit

There’s a choice of restaurants at The Hermitage and we opted for the Panorama Restaurant – great choice.

A superb meal was had by all, made all the better by the service from Piers (?sp) and his team.  Piers is the Restaurant Manager and the most professional I’ve seen in years.

He matched the food with the right wine for us and the result was amazing.

After dinner the other lads all went to bed because, did I mention (??), they’re all much older than me and need their sleep.

I headed off for a stroll around the front of the hotel and to do a bit of star gazing.

As I headed back in I thought a cleansing ale would be nice.  A cleansing ale is always nice.

Let The Slagging Off Begin

I grabbed a beer at an upstairs bar and sat out on the balcony.  Soon after I was joined by 10 or so staff members of the hotel (including 1 of the staff who just served us in the restaurant).

These guys and gals then proceeded to have quite an animated discussion on what a pain in the a$$ their guests are.  They happily slagged off guests for 10 minutes or so until Piers from the restaurant walked out to where we all were.

They shut up soon after that and almost all went inside.

Piers came over to have a brief chat with me before I left.

As I was leaving I heard one of the 2 girls still left say to him something along the lines of “Why are you f$%#*# sucking up…..”

Being Discrete In Front Of Customers Shouldn’t Be Such A Stretch

Maintaining high standards when your staff are young, full of vim and vigour and ready to conquer the world must be challenging to say the least.

But being discrete in your place of employment in front of the customers shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for people.

So unless you want to stay in a place where the staff will happily take your $960 for 3 rooms and $585 for dinner for 5 and then bitch, piss and moan about what a compete pain in the a$$ you are, then I’d recommend staying at Twizel, the nearest town.

At least there they’ll be appreciative of your hard earned dollars.

The Takeaway

What’s the takeaway from all this?

• I’d be almost certain that staff get decent education on being discrete.
• I’m sure the hotel management would hammer home how important it is to treat guests well – including after they leave.

Maybe the education needs to include a bit of social media understanding and how 1 bad experience gets related to thousands very, very quickly.

But my guess is that unless it’s your job that gets cut because of the loss in revenue due to the power of social media, staff won’t care.

Cheers

Brendon

12 Comments     |     Permalink