This is the sole reason I wanted to blog.
It is in the bed and breakfast / hospitality industry that I make my living and with that business comes friends and acquaintances both in the field itself and in the business community both local and distant. Contacts made through the Chamber of Commerce, industry associations, internet discussions and group gatherings often evoke stories of customers and their abuse of such websites like TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, Yelp and others.
With every upside to these sites (and there are many) there are downsides that are often not mentioned or written about for several reasons. When you react to a dissatisfied guests comment or defend your business, you promote a "he said / she said" dialogue and, while you might succeed countering their allegations, it's tough to defend one's self against lies, misconceptions and even libel. It is instilled into us in the hospitality industry that the guest is always right. To point the finger at someone is, well, counter intuitive to our beliefs. Others armed with the information to counter a guest complaint might not do so since there is such a fine line between defamatory statements and facts. For instance, the guest that complained about being cold despite there being 5 unused blankets in the room was high on over the counter cold medicine and couldn't function properly to get them. But you really can't write the truth now can you?
Sometimes it just is not worth it to counter a ridiculous complaint and you hope that the majority of the rational readers can look through the rhetoric and make an informed unbiased decision.
But have we empowered the wrong people? That is the true question here.
Has the recession made us so price conscious and value driven that posters, unhappy guests or even"posers" are seeing things that are a tad bit nit-picky? Do we trust a few people with determining what value means to us? Is a total strangers viewpoint to be considered credible? Do we trust the posters at all? Are they really our guests? Are they our own competition? Are they looking for.... What is it they are looking for? Posts I have read that are less than stellar are stating they are saving others from making the "same mistake we made".
What was that the starting off point for making their entire day or night bad? Was it really the innkeepers or hoteliers fault that when signing in you think you paid to much for the room when it was YOU that agreed to the price and the room you wanted? You just got here! You have no idea what the hotel or lodging house is even like. Or the meal you ordered was to expensive? Didn't you look at the menu and see the cost? It is after all empowerment and you have the ability NOT to book a reservation be it dinner (it you think the restaurant is to expensive) or a hotel room. Nobody is forcing you to do something you don't want prior to coming into the doors! Is paying to much or seeing the wrong decor on the walls the catalyst for nit-picking the rest of your experience? It seems to go down hill from somewhere? Where does it go downhill and at what point do you bring it to someone's attention? After all value is subjective.
We all want value and we certainly don't set out to upset guests or diners with trying to make their stay uncomfortable or their meals lousy. We don't want unhappy people but ....
The truth is, many customers come to the door with issues to start with. Be it the first getaway with hubby or wife since the kids were born and you miss the kids and can't relax because you are worried. Maybe it's the business owner who is in a tough business and can't stop thinking about his or her job while they are away from the business for a day? Maybe it's the spouse that just doesn't want to be away and the slightest thing sets them off? I had an Innkeeper friend relate a telephone call that a woman placed to him in which she said "if you don't let me cancel my reservation I'll write a bad review on TripAdvisor"! We have seen it all and it is the guests that keeps surprising us and brings it to us!
Many external circumstances appear at our businesses, inside our doors and in our faces. Many issues happen in life and are beyond our control. One cannot help when a faucet pipe decides to leak when you run the faucet or when a toilet that someone clogged doesn't flush right. What does matter is how the manager deals with those unforeseen issues. What the business owner can't control is the external circumstances that the guests bring to the breakfast table. The downer guests at the breakfast table when other satisfied and enjoyable guests can hear in disbelief as well. Is it the innkeepers fault that you're not a happy person in life and you expect to be happy away from home, away from your comfortable surroundings and thrust into a place where you are expected to enjoy yourself with others?
Abraham Lincoln once said "You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time."
All we say at the Crocker House Inn is, "We can try"!
