Our Whine Wednesday topic this week is about hotels not answering the phone when a guest room tried to get in touch with a specific department, using the in-room telephone.
Especially in times of short staffing it’s quite common that calls placed through the service buttons are ending in an ever lasting waiting loop, sometimes not being answered at all.
The most annoying is when you try to get something urgent resolved and whatever department of the property you’re trying to reach simply isn’t answering.
Immediate assistance includes having someone collect baggage, ordering room service or having housekeeping attend to something at the room.
This week I stayed at a Hyatt resort trying to place a room service order and nobody was answering the service buttons no matter which one I dialed (they probably all route to the same recipient anyway).
In the end I decided to actually place an order with a local delivery service that actually had the hotel outlet listed as one of their partners for delivery and self pickup.
In the end the pickup order from the restaurant was also about 30% cheaper compared to what the hotel would have charged directly via room service or by eating at the restaurant.
I guess everything is a first at some point. I’ve never before ordered food from a hotel restaurant outlet through a third party vendor but if nobody answers the phone to take the order then this is the next best thing.
Previously I did order delivery to certain hotels, especially select service that don’t offer a restaurant to serve the guests.
Conclusion
Hotels often don’t pay proper attention to pick up phone calls either from outside but also in-house guests. Most of this is due to peak times in properties where the front desk is responsible to respond to the phone rather than a dedicated call center somewhere in the back office.
When only a few employees are responsible for the entire load of phone calls while at the same time having to deal with the front desk then this is quickly becoming a problem, especially at large properties.
What if it is a real major emergency? One can only know when picking up the call, in 5-10s all can be cleared.
(don’t mind my stalker Rodrigo below, he makes himself present in any of my posts any-/everywhere, just keep ignoring and pitying him)
I don’t understand your last para referring to me as a stalker. What’s that all about?
If you read it properly, Austin, you can see I refer to a someone named Rodrigo, is that you???? No, therefore…
“It’s because of Covid” :))
I thought Covid is why the coffee machine was out of all the rooms! Oh wait! That’s why the spa is closed. Oh wait that’s why the gym is closed. Oh wait that’s why he glasses are plastic, no no… That’s why there are no valleys. Wait a minute… That’s why there are no bellboys. Wait a minute that’s why they don’t want a late check out… They have to de-Covid the room..
I can see the hotelier convention title come up:
“Cost cutting with Covid.
How are you can stick it to your customers and blame a virus”
Actually my favorite thing is European hotels who have static phones. Their sole purpose is to make noise in your ear.. sometimes I go to hotels, just so I can enjoy having my eardrums split apart but the massively loud sound or static is I bring the phone to my ear.
These phones that are specially designed to pop your timpanic membrane like an egg when you pick them up… And they have a great trick —-every hotel has a different front desk access number… Some are zero, some nine, somefour, summer six… so uou can try the “guess what number you dial to get a human being who can help you as you bleed out from the ears you will never hear with again…
A pepperoni pizza with all other toppings removed? Was there at least cheese and sauce?