A friend of mine works at one of the nicer hotels in Boston. He’s worked there for 15 years. Over the course of those 15 years I have stopped in to see him dozens of times.
It is a busy hotel in the heart of the city. There is a mall across the street. Traffic around the hotel is heavy day and night. People cut through the lobby continuously – ducking out of a chilling wind, or finding relief from the heat.
When I have stopped in – more often than not, wearing jeans or shorts and a T-shirt – rarely has more than a couple of minutes passed before at least one employee is offering some kind of assistance. You simply can not walk through the lobby without someone extending a helping hand. And there isn’t a question you could ask the concierge that would go unanswered.
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Which T do I take to get to Quincy Market, or to the Museum of Science? Can you recommend a place to hear live jazz? Is it possible to get Bruins’ tickets at the last minute?
Simply put, it is a first class operation. ‘Cater to the customer’ appears to be the mantra by which everyone there operates.
You would think that customer service would be a lay-up, a tap-in putt — a changeup right down the middle. Especially, in the hotel industry.
But according to the folks at the Automobile Association of America, it’s a lack of customer service that has caused the Westin Hotel in Providence to be downgraded from a four-diamond hotel to a three-diamond rating.
When a representative of AAA visited the downtown Providence hotel late last year, customer service was found to be generally lacking.
Officials at the Westin and the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority — the agency that oversees the hotel – have been expectedly defensive about the whole affair. The first line of defense was to loosely blame the AAA downgrade on the fact that they had recently blocked access to a pedestrian skybridge connecting the hotel and its neighbor, Providence Place.
Hotel officials said the skybridge was contributing to a loitering problem, and that it was attracting teenagers – and even the homeless.
But AAA shot holes in that story. They were quick to point out that the skybridge and the controversy surrounding it had little, if anything, to do with the lost diamond.
It’s customer service, they said, plain and simple. Bellhops had failed to make eye contact with guests as they entered the lobby. Telephone calls placed from guestrooms to the front desk rang more than they should have, by AAA standards. If the skybridge was the root of any problems at the Westin, the AAA representative hadn’t picked up on it.
So now the Westin has a problem on its hands. And we all have a stake in it. The Westin, after all, is a taxpayer-subsidized building.
The criticism being leveled at the Westin and the media attention that the loss of the four-diamond rating has created is called payback. It’s payback for relying on a public subsidy to get off the ground.
In the end, the public pressure and media scrutiny will be a good thing.
Westin officials should approach these recent events as an opportunity – an opportunity to improve.
Changes will be made at the hotel. In time, an AAA representative will return. There will be an opportunity to roll out the red carpet – to pick up the telephone by the second ring, to offer directions and even a warm smile, to suggest a nice restaurant.
Customer service should not be complicated. It’s a pretty simple business model, really.
Rhode Islanders can be tough. There is no question they demand a return on investment. But Rhode Islanders are also fair. Improve customer service, regain that fourth diamond and the public at large will embrace the hotel.
The folks at the Westin and the Convention Center Authority need to figure out a permanent solution to the skybridge dilemma. That could take time – and money. And they need to improve on customer service. That shouldn’t take long at all — or cost a dime.
