Do you know what I hate about customer service? When I can’t get it no matter what I do. I stayed at the Gaylord National Harbor for my ALA conference. It was outrageously priced even with our group rate, but OK.
During my stay the staff were all very nice, helpful and polite. You know, kind of like I’m the customer and they want me to come back and spend more money with them. But one of my friends went to her room to find someone else moved into it. It’s true she had just a few small items in the room at the time, but it was still her room for another two nights. She hadn’t checked out early or anything. It was troubling, to say the least.
The important thing is nothing bad happened to me. Until today when I took a look at my credit card bill. Let’s see; one, two…a total of 4 charges for the day after I left the hotel. Someone was living large on my credit card. No problem, I’ll just call the hotel. Well, not the hotel so much as a Marriott 800 number that rings through to the 10th circle of hell.
The first woman I spoke with was clearly annoyed that she had to answer the phone. She was doing me a huge favor. I started to describe the billing error but it was far too complicated for her. When I told her I had stayed in the Gaylord National Harbor she said Opryland. Sadly, I’ve stayed at that one too, but I repeated National Harbor, Maryland.
Annoying Clerk: Ma’am, we don’t have a Gaylord in Maryland? OK? So you probably have the wrong number
Me: You do too have a Gaylord in Maryland. I just stayed there, it’s definitely there. It’s huge
Annoying Clerk: Sigh. Gum snap. You were in Nashville ma’am. Now what is it that you need?
Me: I need you to credit the incorrect charges that showed up on my credit card. You need to go online and discover that there really is a Gaylord at National Harbor, MD.
Annoying Clerk: Umm hmmm. Yeah.
Me: Can you please just reverse the charges?
Annoying Clerk: I don’t know why you have to get smart with me ma’am. All I’m doing is trying to help you.
Me: OK, I’ll be dumb with you instead. Is that better?
Annoying Clerk:
Me: On hold for 10 minutes before I realized she was never coming back.
I took a few moments to gather myself and then called again.
Me: Hi. There are some incorrect charges on my credit card. Charges for the day after I left the hotel
Annoying Clerk #2: What kind of charges?
Me: I’m not sure, room service I guess
Annoying Clerk #2: Was it room service or mini-bar?
Me: I don’t know. I wasn’t there—they aren’t my charges
Annoying Clerk #2: Well if you don’t even know what the charges are for, how do you know they’re not yours?
Me: They were incurred the day after I left the hotel, and also, I didn’t have any extra charges
Annoying Clerk #2:
Me: On hold for 10 minutes before I realized she was never coming back.
It was kind of an unproductive afternoon.
I think this woman is probably a VP – she has figured out a way to increase revenue with no variable costs! Just frustrate people to the point where they forget about the additional, unfounded charges that show up on their credit card after they’ve already checked out.
You’re probably right–it’s the recession business model.
OMG! They have a perfect job! They just hang up when the customer gets insistant. They were probably giggling over you in the coffee room. This dumb woman (that’s you) thinks we have an Opryland in Maryland. Yeah right! It’s next to the DisneyWorld in Baltimore!
Yes! That’s the part that really hurts–they will definitely tell the story of the dumb customer. I gotta go look into discount tickets for Baltimore Disneyworld!