Hilton Horrors and Its Link to Social Media

Eric Groves
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:45:00 +0000

By that headline alone you might think this post is about me getting trapped in a hotel elevator with Paris Hilton. But alas, that's not the case. My post today is about a recent trip I took to speak at the Association of Small Business Development conference in San Antonio and the great insight it provided into the power of social media marketing.

My story: I arrived at the Hilton Palacio del Rio hotel at 11 p.m. and was greeted by a gentleman who seemed to be the night manager. When I attempted to check-in, he informed me that my reservation had been cancelled that evening at 6 p.m. when I had not yet arrived at the hotel. I mentioned that I had the reservation set for a late arrival, but was told the hotel was in a sell-out situation and that its computer system had an automatic setting that ran in such situations to reduce the number of reservations. The system checked the credit cards used to make reservations and made what it thought were appropriate decisions to cancel some reservations. My experience seemed right out of a Seinfeld episode.

I shared with the manager that my reservation was one of 10 that my company made with our corporate credit card and that each one of us actually paid with our own cards upon arrival. I was told that, while unfortunate, my reservation had been cancelled. The kicker: The manager added that the hotel had tried to contact me at 6 p.m. by calling my office number, but no one answered. I asked him if he noticed that I was flying in from Boston. He replied that he did notice and was not really surprised when no one answered the call. Well, he at least used the phone.

As my blood boiled, it hit me: On the way down to the conference I was trying to come up with a good example of how one should turn to social media sites if he has a horrendous customer experience. And there it was, gift-wrapped for me upon my 11 p.m. arrival. So I turned to the manager and said, "I forgot to mention one thing: I'm in town as a speaker for a conference and tomorrow I'm going to be addressing a crowd in the hundreds on how a great customer experience is the first step in going social, and this experience is something that I intend to share with everyone as an example of how a bad experience can go viral, too."

Lo and behold, within 60 seconds a room was found and I was on my way to sleep.

While my trump card was the speaking engagement, any poorly treated customer can vent about his bad experience to an audience of tens, hundreds, or thousands through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube (see: United Breaks Guitars). These personal horror stories can get quickly passed around and shared, making for a public relations nightmare for any business as the story gets rippled across the internet.

The moral of the story (and subject of my talk in San Antonio) is that businesses and organizations must strive to offer great customer service with every interaction and transaction. We know people are going to tell their friends when they have a bad experience. Social media amplifies this and can result in millions knowing about the problem in a matter of minutes. No business wants that. If your business offers great experiences to customers, then when the few inevitable complaints do pop up, your loyal customers will be there to defend you, helping you wage the public relations battle.

Good customer experience takes hard work, but it can pay off and help you avoid your own version of a Hilton Horror story.