Last week I was honoured to have a client fly in to Toronto all the way from Paris, France to do a week of intensive communication coaching with me. It was her first time in Toronto and so I was more than happy to recommend some places to see, some restaurants to go and a few great hotels near my office.
I’m not going to mention the name of the hotel she chose in this post, simply because this story is technically ‘hearsay’ as I did not witness the conversations myself. Needless to say it is a very recognizable name and in a very popular area. I want to share with you her story to use as a learning lesson for those of you who are managers, customer service trainers, or leaders in your company, especially if you work in the hotel or guest services industry.

Quick Background: My client is a calm, mature, friendly and polite woman. She is very optimistic and enjoys her work and world travel. Her job frequently takes her to Washington 3 times a year, as well as to other US cities.

She came in to our session on the second morning and said “Okay – today I can feel that I’m in Canada and not the US”.
“Why is that?” I inquired.
“Because I called the front desk to tell them that my internet access that I paid for is not working properly, and she (the young lady at the front desk) said “well all of our other guest rooms are working properly. Maybe it’s your computer!”
“So I said it is not my computer. I do international business travel all the time and there is nothing wrong with my computer. I’ll even bring it down to you and show you.”
“So I brought my computer down to the front lobby to show them that the internet works perfectly there. They had no choice but to agree.”
“Finally they upgraded my room to a much bigger room now, for 2 people, and the internet works fine. I couldn’t believe it. In the US, you would never have had that conversation. Right from the beginning it would have been an apology and an attempt to fix the problem immediately or a move to a new room without the 30-minute discussion that wasted my time.”

In the end she was overall very happy with her first time in Toronto, and with her coaching as well.  🙂  But this short story is a reminder to those in customer service to be careful how you challenge guests, even accidentally, and to watch your word choice and tone of voice.