What is the Guest Bill Of Rights?

February 24, 2010 at 9:26 AM | by MsRebecca | Comments (2)

We know better than anyone that hotel guests love to vent about the good and bad after a hotel stay�whether it�s on TripAdvisor or Twitter or right here on HotelChatter. But the ease of airing one�s complaints these days has many hotels scrambling to address the quality of their customer service. GuestRights is a new membership program that can help them. And of course, us, the guests.

Anchoring the whole thing is The Guest Bill of Rights, a list of ten customer service principles that all GuestRights member hotels must agree to uphold. As you can see from the first five here, the rights are all pretty standard and should be no stretch for the committed hotel. You can see the full list here.

So far most of the hotels who have signed up are boutique hotels from across the U.S. and Europe but to help the program grow, GuestRights will offer a limited number of complimentary hotel memberships for properties willing to honor and uphold the Guest Bill of Rights.

Since he�s built a company around hotel customer service, we asked GuestRights founder Carl Schneider for his list of Top Five Hotel Customer Service No No�s. Here�s what he said:

1. Cutting back on essential services to save a buck: Money is tight and hotels need to cut back on expenses just to survive. Cutting back on landscaping costs or eliminating value-adds makes sense. But in recent months, we�ve heard of hotels that cut back on housekeeping services and only cleaned the bed sheets after every other guest stay. That is totally unacceptable!

2. Untruths in marketing: Has your hotel ever promised five-star service and only offered two-star? Have you been marketing your three pools, two hot tubs and fabulous amenities, when only one pool is in working order, the hot tubs are more like lukewarm-tubs and the amenities are too worse for wear? This is definitely a customer service no-no. By misleading the consumer, hotels are setting themselves up for complaints and negative reviews.

3. Just Plain Rude: Good customer service is more than just providing customers with a particular service, whether it be booking a reservation or cleaning a room. Every hotel should train its staff on the basics of customer service�friendliness, politeness, patience and the ability to listen.

It�s also important to note that hotels cannot always please every guest. When something is beyond your control or when an issue cannot be resolved to the guest�s satisfaction, it is important for hotel employees to know how to deliver the message in an effective way�one that will calm the guest down while making them feel that their concern was important to you and your team.

4. Disappearing Reservations: This one is pretty simple�when guests make a reservation (and have a confirmation number to prove it), but your system doesn�t recognize it, take the guest�s word for it and find a solution. If you�re completely booked, it is very important that you go out of your way to make it up to the guest because, more than likely, it was your reservation system�s fault. Is there a sister property nearby? If not, call around to a few nearby properties and ask if they have availability.

5. Hidden Fees: Hidden fees are the ultimate customer service no-no. Nothing will upset a guest faster than a surprise on the bill at the end of their stay. We know that hotels have to charge fees to help cover their costs, but the fees should never, ever come as a surprise. When booking, hotels should provide guests a full explanation of all fees so that they are prepared when checking out. Also, if guests are incurring additional charges during their stay, hotels should inform them and ask for approval on these charges as they arise.

What do you think? Got any more Hotel Customer Service No No�s? Gripe away in the comments below.

Comments (2)

Return to » What is the Guest Bill Of Rights?

From a desk clerk's perspective, I can already see that it will only be 4-5 star hotels that will honor this bill of rights. I've worked for too many people at the economy-hotel level that will argue over hill, hell and dale about having to honor this agreement.

In 2009 i was traveling to some city's that had nicer Marriott's than Hiltons. Hilton had peered back there consierge room to cookies, coffee in the evening and in the morning just cereal and frozen muffins. so i tried Marriott and got to platnium status pretty quickly. Due to favorite vacation hotel (Hilton Clearwater Beach Florida) i switched back to Hilton on March 1st.

I started looking into the Clearwater Beach property again in January, called to use my points. I had not stayed as much at Hilton in 2009 so i did not have a ton of points.
The Honors desk told me the Clearwater Beach was a 50K point property and i had 88K points so enought for 1 night, so i book it and i will pay for the remainder of the stay.

3 weeks before the trip i was checking the hotel out online to see what they had going on that week and what do i see? That the property is a 40K property not a 50k. I had 88k points so enough when i originally called for 2 nights. I email the Honors desk figuring this is a slam dunk, they will see this was there error and straighten this out asap.... 8 emails and 2 hours later; one hour was on my vacation at the Hilton in their busness office after i checked in. I finally got to someone in there Honons Dept in Dallas that admitted it was there error and i should have been able to book 2 nights at the property.

Still Diamond with Hilton, i scheduled my travel 4 months out, booked about 30 nights all in the southeast. Signed up for a Hilton promotion stay 10 nights, 4 stays by March 31 and you get a free night automaticly. I had the 10 nights easy, the 4th stay i checked in March 30th and checked out April 2nd, i figured that commonsense would prevail that certainly they would not want me checking out on the 31st of March and risk me going accross the street to the Marriott just so i would adhere to there fine print in there promotion that stated "your trip had to be finished by March 31st". While i was fighting to use my points for my vacation (on the above mentioned Hononrs error) i brought this up to the same person Monique and she flat out told me that if i wanted get the free night i should have known to check out and end my trip by the 31st of March; mind you i was staying a week in Orlando at the Embassy and Checking out and going straight to Clearwater Beach for a full week with my wife and kids and we do the full monty, breakfast, lunch, kids clubs, beach chairs and some dinners at the Hotel for the week.

I find no "Honor" that a company seemingly trying to wait me out in just saying no... Hoping that their customoer will just give up. Wasting my time; 8 emails and 2 hours on the phone to get there error corrected. and then to pull the fine print rule to keep me from getting a night on their "stay 4/10 promotion".

You know when you travel over 180 nights a year you expect good customer service... and at least no insulting email back from their perfered customers desk; they actually told me i was wrong about the points multiple times until i emailed them there own web page to show them it was 40K and not 50k and then made the call on my vacation at their property while i was paying for it!

We had a GREAT time at the HILTON Clearwater... Talk about a Hotel that gets it! They treat you like they want you to come back, a couple of the staff remembered my wife and kids names from the week we stayed a year before; they treated us like family!

I got back to an email telling me due to my stays not being what they were the 7 years prior to that i had been dropped back to Gold status from Diamond...

Wow i guess the Hotel busines or at least Hilton Hotels Honors must not be feeling the economic pinch; or maybe they are and this is there way of saving money and not paying off there promotions or giving faulse information to there customer not allow them to use there points.

I sent the Honors desk an email requesting a conversation with a Directors level or above to discuss the recent challenges i guess i will wait and see if someone calls.

I have been an Honors Customer for over 21 years, i am sure from the tone and lenth of my complaint you can tell i am extremely disappointed in Hilton.

I guess i will have to find a good Marriott family proptery on the Beach in Florida.

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