Service – what is that?

Could it make any difference to your experience?

Can service make or break an event or an occasion?

Can service prolong or shorten your experience?

Service in whatever shape or form it comes in, is important – is it not?

Important, yes, yes, yes and yes!

Last weekend me (Aunty Lush) and my well-traveled other-half (Steve), headed off to Melbourne with another couple and planned to spend 2 nights in a city hotel.  We had tickets to Mary Poppins (which I must say was fabulous) to celebrate our friends wedding anniversary.  The night before we were due to leave, I rang to confirm our accommodation and to my horror found that only one room had been booked.

I had a rather heated (read ballistic) conversation with the receptionist and asked him to make sure that there were TWO rooms booked for tWO nights.  I went to bed, resplendent in silk pink PJs, wondering at my own ability to sway the ‘help’. Upon arrival the next day, there was total confusion in regards to our booking and appears that two of our Scoopon receipts were required and not one, as confirmed with them by phone.

After waiting about 1/2 an hour, they advised us that we could have TWO rooms for ONE night and this would require a further $30 per room upgrade fee. “WHAT?” while arguing that one they asked for a payment of $199 x 2 for the second night.  Well that was waving a red flag to a bull, not that I’m calling myself a bull mind you. Cow? maybe!

Eventually  I confirmed that we would stay ONE night and we would think about the second one. Eventually they told us they would waive the $30 upgrade fee and we were to let them know in the morning as to whether we would stay a second night! Guess talk about making it an easy decision. Not!

We checked into our room, and then headed off to the theatre and had a wonderful evening.  Then we decided to have a late supper because we didn’t have time for dinner.  Things went from bad – red wine slopped it all over the tablecloth with no apology – to worse – the pasta was cold (microwave job I reckon) – to worser – waitress asked us to hurry up because they wanted to close – to worst – we were not allowed to order sweets or coffee, because the kitchen staff had gone!

The next morning while out for breakfast we decided a quick trip home was in order, after a little flutter and a nice win, at the casino. We headed, reinvigorated, back to the hotel to checkout. After being told that our $30 upgrade fee was waived, they tried again to charge us the extra $30 x 2 for the upgrade…. WTF?

I put on my ‘quiet but deadly’ face and advised them that we had spoken directly to the Manager and that the computer should have been flagged as such. Another eternity later they said that the fee would be waived.  We’ll never darken their hotel-step again.

It took us over 34 hours to get home – where did we get to? A place where the service was impeccable and reviewed in my next post. Service can prolong or shorten your experience and the exceptional service we encountered on our way home certainly prolonged our little adventure. Waaaahoooo.

cheers

Aunty Lush

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