I had the pleasure of spending yesterday in Pittsburgh with an incredible company that owns and operates restaurants and food service for universities, corporate dining facilities, sports teams, and many other locations.
It was truly a pleasure. The company is run by individuals who recognize the importance of exceptional service and have made it their core mission to bring joy to their guests.
Immediately after leaving these good folks, I heard from my business partner, who is unfortunately dealing with a company unlike my client in every way.
It’s a company that is behaving unprofessionally, unethically, and stupidly:
Holiday Inn Express, owned and operated by IHG Hotels & Resorts.
Here is what happened to my business partner during his visit last week:
On day two of a four-day stay at the Holiday Express in Newington, CT, he returned to his room in the early evening to find it empty. All of his belongings were gone.
He assumed he had been robbed.
He immediately went to the front desk to report the robbery and discovered that the hotel staff had emptied his room earlier that day. They had thrown his belongings into trash bags and placed those bags in an electrical closet.
We are still not entirely sure why this happened, except to say that a mistake was made. For some reason, a staff member thought he was supposed to check out that day and cleared his room when the check-out time passed, even though the hotel had plenty of unoccupied rooms at the time.
This was later confirmed by a hotel employee.
Instead of violating his privacy and rummaging through his belongings, the hotel staff could have simply disconnected his key card and awaited his return later that day.
Instead, they threw his belongings, including his refrigerated food, into trash bags and placed them in a closet, which seems crazy to me. Less than six hours after they thought he was supposed to check out of a hotel filled with empty rooms, they entered his room and took his things.
Can you imagine how it would feel to discover that a random staff member collected your clothing, undergarments, toiletries, passport, personal documents, technology, food, and other personal items, then stuffed them into garbage bags and shoved them into a closet?
I would’ve lost my mind.
Still, mistakes happen. Even galactically stupid ones.
As I often explain to clients, mistakes like this are often a gift to your business. They are an opportunity to apologize and overwhelm your customers with shockingly unprecedented levels of restitution.
Yes, you made a mistake, but now you have the chance to impress your customer beyond belief, and it often costs you very little to do so.
The Holiday Inn failed miserably in this regard.
First, they claimed to have called my partner before emptying his room. A quick look at his phone showed no missed calls, so they lied.
Other lies were told about possible room switches, falsified notes, and timeline inconsistencies. When he demanded to speak to a manager, the staff members said he was acting belligerently and threatened to call the police.
My partner suggested and then asked the staff to do so. He still hadn’t seen his belongings and had no idea if anything had been stolen. He thought the police would be helpful, so officers quickly arrived at the hotel and handled the situation brilliantly, acknowledging the terrible position my partner had been placed in.
Finally, he got the manager on the phone and was assured the situation would be handled in the morning and restitution would be made.
At this point, the manager should have said, “We apologize. Your entire stay is complimentary. Additionally, I’d like to offer you a gift card to a local restaurant for dinner on us, as well as two complimentary nights at our hotel the next time you’re in town. We really messed up.”
This would have been an ideal resolution to a terrible mistake and the blatant lies told about it by staff members.
It may have even earned them a lifelong customer.
Instead, he left town with no resolution. No restitution. No response from anyone in charge.
So far, he has:
Contacted IHG Corporate three times, without resolution.
Filed two complaints with Expedia, which attempted to contact hotel management on his behalf. Both attempts were denied.
Repeatedly asked hotel management to take responsibility and was met with silence and deflection.
He is now pursuing formal complaints, a credit card dispute, and legal options to seek justice.
Holiday Inn has managed to turn an egregious error into something even worse as my partner explores his options with attorneys.
It’s not hard to do the right thing when you make a mistake, and when you fail to do so, it can often cost you a lot.
Lost revenue. Bad publicity. Legal snafus. A tarnished reputation.
I recommended the Holiday Inn in Newington, CT, to my business partner, and I have recommended it to many people in the past who visit the Hartford area.
I will never do so again.
This post will reach tens of thousands of readers, including many who live locally to this particular location.
When someone mentions the Holiday Inn to me in the future, I will have a story to tell.
Tell it, I will.
Mistakes are going to happen regardless of how hard you try to avoid them. Although this mistake and the subsequent lies were especially egregious, the situation could have been made right. This was an opportunity to impress.
When you can’t even manage the simple act of apologizing and offering restitution of any kind, you don’t deserve my business.
I don’t think they deserve your business, either.
