Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

Affinia Manhattan Gets It Right: Customer Service is Superior

 

If you are looking for a deluxe hotel, you will be disappointed. It's not luxurious. It does not offer a comfy bathrobe. The bathroom is so small that you bump into yourself when you are trying to navigate where to put your cosmetic bag. And if the room is hot before the season, you can't turn on the air-conditioning. However, since this 500 plus room hotel is old, you can open the windows.

Nevertheless, I love this hotel. And, I love it not for the decor but for the people. They get it right.

#1 Honored  A Reservation I Didn't Have
When I walked up to the check in counter I thought I had two reservations --one for the BlogHer Conference at the end of the week and the "sale" reservation that I had made the Thursday before for the early part of the week. Turns out the hotel didn't have my BlogHer reservation. I didn't have the confirmation code (I suspected it was in the inbox of my Microsoft Office that died along with my HP laptop. That was in January) Did I mention it was the weekend of the Final four and the hotel is across the street from Madison Square Garden?  And that the hotel was sold out ( the term they used was oversold) Instead of booting me out-- they issued a new reservation at the conference rate. I was grateful

#2 Allowed Me To Keep My Upgraded Room
The deal was supposed to be that on Wednesday I would pack up my suitcase and move into a more modest room because the conference rate booked the smaller rooms. When Wednesday came I called down to the front desk and asked if I could keep the room I was in. They said yes.  I was a very happy guest.

#3 Tip Is Included In The Room Service Receipt
Need I say anything else?

#4 Room Service Manager Calls To Check On My Satisfaction
I ordered poached eggs and asked for an English Muffin. The person on the other end of the phone thought I was asking for an "extra English Muffin." It was the kind of misunderstanding that I didn't plan to make a big deal about and would have kept to myself except that about 30 minutes after my breakfast was served, the room service manager called to make sure everything was okay with my meal. Since she called, I shared the miscommunication with the extra toast. She promised to take it off my bill. As it turns out it wasn't on my bill in the first place.

There are other reasons why this is a great hotel. It has lots of outlets. tons of outlets. I love me a hotel with outlets. And it offers the TravelSmart Program

• 24/7 Technology Butler Powered by iGo®– Chargers and adapters delivered to guest room.
• Luggage Free – Shipping luggage service
• Airline Restriction Relief – Expanded selection of toiletries
• Print and Sprint – Printing of boarding passes
• Paperless Checkout – Hotel folio emailed to you after your stay

While I didn't take advantage of TravelSmart, it is comforting to know if I forget a charger--and goodness knows I do from time to time -- they have one I can use. It can get expensive when you have to replace that stuff as Susan Getgood found out.

If you are keeping track, I've now spent $130.00, and about 3 hours on my "power trip." On top of the time that David spent on the phone with the iGo support techs while I was on the train. Because a $130.00 product that I've had for about 2 months broke. If you are still keeping track, that's $260.00 all in.

Attention all Naked Sleepwalkers: The Travelodge Hotels in Britian are ready for you!

If you check into one of the 300 Travelodge's around Britian and need a towel late at night, you don't have to call housekeeping, just go to the front desk.

They'll have lots of them -- that's because having towels on hand is one of the new training tips to help staff deal with the 70% increase in sleepwalking naked men who stay at Travelodge.

"We have seen an increased number of cases over the years so it is important that our staff know how to help sleepwalking when it arises," Leigh McCarron, the chain's sleep director, said in a statement.

One tip in the company's newly released "sleepwalkers guide" tells staff to keep towels handy at the front desk in case a customer's dignity needs preserving.

The company said naked wanderers often ask receptionists such questions as "Where's the bathroom?," "Do you have a newspaper?" or "Can I check out, I'm late for work?"

Studies have found that sleepwalking can be brought on by stress, alcohol, eating cheese or consuming too much caffeine. It generally takes effect an hour or two after going to bed, when people are first slipping into a deep sleep. Asked Thursday why she thought 95 percent of its sleepwalkers were naked men, a Travelodge spokeswoman said: "We have more men staying with us than women, so that could be a factor."

So here's what I've learned: a lot of men in Britain sleep au natural and they shouldn't eat pizza on business trips.

The number of naked males sleepers  is  very surprising and in direct conflict with the findings of some research reported in Psychology Today .That  research ,which compares male/female behavior,found that
17% of men sleep in the nude while 83% of women say they sleep in the nude.

The study also looked at how many people clean their belly buttons every day so I am sure it meets the highest academic standards.

Some of the headlines for this story:

Travelodge Pulls the Covers Of Naked Sleepwalking Trend

Nearly Naked & Nude Sleepwalkers

Zombie Alert!

Travelodge and the plague of naked sleepwalkers

Some of the observations of bloggers:

From Changing Places: "I asume they just let the naked women sleepwalkers continue wandering around, then?

From Lost Weekend "Perhaps unsurprisingly, and certainly disappointingly, 95 percent of these midnight ramblers are men.

And from Curly'sCorner Shop,the Blog

Travelodge has a “sleep director”

Yes, it sounds like an odd post, but the budget hotel group has been having increased problems caused by naked sleepwalkers, mainly stressed out men! They are even having to train their staff to deal with them.

Which reminds me that I knew a South Shields based policeman who suffered with this problem on an infrequent basis during the early part of his career, and was found by his colleagues wandering naked during the early hours in our town centre. They returned him to his home with little more than a traditional police helmet to cover his modesty.

Must have been an arresting sight!

Notes FromThe Road: There's No Free Lunch

  Until 8:30 last night when my server brought in my room service order, I was feeling like the poster child for bargain traveling.

Airline ticket on Sun Country - round-trip from Minneapolis to Dulles $163.00.

You name your price  on Priceline and  I ended up with a room at the Hyatt Regency in Reston   for $100.

All that joy was squashed when I looked at my room service bill. Here's the order for myself and my 17- year- old daughter, Berit.

1 Fruit plate
1 Apple Cobbler
1 Sauteed Calamari
1 Loaded potato
1 Stinson  Merlot

Now this bill had two items that seemed redundant. A delivery charge and a room service charge.
If you take away the delivery charge and the service charge it's about  $40. With those two items it's  $50.14

When I called the front desk to explain the difference between the delivery charge and the service charge  I was asked, " were you happy with your server?"

Calling the woman who knocked on my door and brought in the tra, is a lot like calling the Dominos pizza guy a server,." Do you mean did she do a good job of putting the tray on the end of my bed? Sure, she did that just fine."
If a hotel wants to call delivery people servers then bring in a table, tablecloth and a lovely flower would be nice as well.

I'm not the only person who feels like this service charge/delivery charge is double dipping. A couple of months ago, Bill McGee,writing for USA TODAY shared his frustration over the extra charges.

A "service charge" includes the tip. But a tip is not included in a "room service charge" or the more commonly used "delivery fee" or "delivery charge." So in the case of my burger, the $3.00 delivery charge was not a tip but the $3.78 service charge was (calculated as 18% of $21.00). Then the tax was added. Throw in my additional $3.00 tip, and this server was well compensated for the ten minutes spent carrying that tray to my room.

That is the same explanation they gave me last night. I still don't understand it. Aren't they charging for the exact same thing? Is this just a Washington, D.C. custom? Being a frequent room service orderer I think this is the first time I have seen this creative billing arrangement.

Is it new? Is it widespread? Are the hotels just trying to make up revenue because we no longer use the phones in the room?

Credit Image: Niemette

Yin and Yang of the Airlines' Ban on liquids

Except for H2O ,there are solid substitutes for our favorite sundries. Check out my post at Blogher.

On The Road at Blogher06 -- Signal Strength Low

If you can get over the fact that the hotel doesn't have an elevator and you have to drag your oversized suitcase up the stairs (yes, I could have asked the bellman for help), the rooms are fine. In fact, they are lovely.  The bed is comfy. I have a bathrobe and slippers. There's a  balcony.The air conditioning works. It's San Jose. It's delightful.

The price is definitely right .Since I am here to attend Blogher 06, I am paying the conference room rates. They are very reasonable. I'm happy  with everything--except the one thing that really matters -- THE SIGNAL STRENGTH..

At times very low , at others non-existent, this is the most unreliable Internet  access that I have experienced in years.

Did I mention that there are 700 women bloggers attending this conference--that would be 700 women with laptops who expect to use them  on a regular and frequent basis?

I wouldn't call it a disaster-- people are having way to much fun to allow a little thing like technology ruin the conference, but it's definitely a strain particularly for the women who are trying to "live blog" the conference.

Signal Strength Matters.

Even before the random access, I was less than pleased with the wireless setup at the hotel. They still charge for Internet access.  I am  not amused .My expectation is that free Internet  access is an amenity. I am not alone in my expectations.

 Last October, Wi-Fi NEWS reported on the situation, sharing links to articles in both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. The two papers had different takes on the situation. While the WSJ ( subscription required -when will they ever learn?) reported on the trend to offer this as a free service.....

"Robert Mandelbaum of PKF Hospitality Research, an industry adviser, estimates that from 2000 to 2004, hotels lost 55% of the revenue they used to make from telecommunications. One of the only areas where they're turning profits on in-room technology is from Internet fees.

In an attempt to win and retain customers, hotels have recently pushed hard to upgrade their rooms with everything from flat-screen television sets to pillow-topped mattresses and 350-thread-count sheets. Complimentary high-speed Internet access is just the latest move in the hotel industry's amenities arms race.

The NY Times (subscription required --when will they learn?)  business columnist Joe Sharkey wrote about the tendency for the "big hotels" to charge for wireless access.

...the pricier the hotel, the more likely you are to pay an extra fee to check your e-mail from your room, said Bjorn Hanson, the head of the hospitality and leisure division at PricewaterhouseCoopers. That is because three-star chains like Hilton's Garden Inn, Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites and Marriott's Courtyard, Residence Inn and Fairfield Inn cater to price-conscious travelers, while the swankier names figure you won't much care about the extra few bucks.

Corporate travel managers are now trying to negotiate with four-star and five-star hotel brands to include Internet access in the room charge in future contracts, Mr. Hanson said

If the hotels are smart, they will concede the point. While baby boomers still outnumber them, Generation Xers spend more per capita on business travel, and have little patience for either dial-up connections or the general idea of paying for high-speed Internet access, which they have been accustomed to having free since college.

Moreover, with two-thirds of business travelers now using computers in their hotel rooms and with those in sales and training jobs often juggling big download files, the fees are becoming more of an irritant to just about everybody.

After a day of getting kicked off the Internet at the most inopportune times, I went to the front desk to discuss the fees. The women at the front desk indicated that they could not remove the charge from my room because it's billed to an outside service. She agreed to leave a message for the manager.

This morning, living by the motto that "hope runs eternal"  and thinking that the hotel technical staff had to have spent the entire night figuring out what was wrong, I again paid my $9.95 for a day of access. I was just getting ready to hit the submit button for my reservations at the Metropolitan Doubletree in NYC for a trip next week when I lost signal strength--again.

So instead of making my reservations on line, I called and talked to a very friendly reservation assistant Parochial for sure, but it worked.

 Oh, and it looks like I will have to pay $10.77 for Internet  access in New York....unless I go to a coffee shop or park--it seems like you can get free access just about anywhere you want--except where you need it.

Powered by QumanaTags: Hyatt, Blogher, Wi-Fi, Internet, Blogher06, business, travel

A Tale of Two Restaurants: Au Bon Pain & The Good Earth

As anyone who studied the rivalry between McDonald's and Burger King will tell you, it's not the quality of the food that creates loyal customers: it's the experience. This is the tale of one customer, two  restaurants and how managers can either taint or enhance customer loyalty.

They did a bad, bad thing

For the past several years my cousin Paulette has met her daughter Michelle and grandson Erik at their local mall. As part of their weekly routine they go to the Au Bon Pain for coffee.

Every single Friday. At least 150  times Paulette, Michelle and Erik have gone to the very same Au Bon Pain.

On one particular Friday, Paulette left her "bag" at the table. When she returned five minutes later, it was gone. She contacted the manager, mall security. The police were called.

Paulette canceled her credit cards and based on the advise of the  police began the 'trash can search". As the police told her, purse snatchers often just take the money and dump the purse in the trash. Paulette went through every single trash can in the mall.

After she came up empty handed she decided to go back to Au Bon Pain --just in case. While she was there she went into the ladies room. As she washing her hands and getting ready to throw the paper towel into their trash can, she noticed something odd about the plastic bag lining the trash can. Sure enough, underneath the plastic bag were two Au Bon Pain bags  and in those bags were Paulette's purse. Everything was there. The cards. The cash. Everything. Nothing--not the lipstick. not her palm pilot. Not even a pen was missing.

Given the circumstances Paulette came to the conclusion that it was probably someone working at Au Bon Pain who had stashed the  purse underneath the trash bags until they got off work.

When she shared her theory with the manager, his response was,
"It couldn't possibly be anyone who works here."

Huh?  Paulette was astounded. She called corporate headquarters. They listened to the situation, said they would check into it. They never called her back.Paulette vowed to never go to an Au Bon Pain again.

She didn't for several months. But after awhile she missed her cup of jo and found herself once again going to the Au Bon Pain. Maybe that's what Au Bon Pain was counting on.

As far as their bottom line is concerned, they have their customer back.But sometimes you can't rely on the numbers. Paulette  is no longer a loyal customer. She is a disgruntled one.A customer who is very willing to tell her story whenever she has the opportunity.  If the mall had another place to get a good cup of coffee she would be there in a coffee bean minute.

They did a good good thing.

Paulette and Iwere having a late lunch at The Good Earth Restaurant in Edina, Minnesota. We ordered our food. We got our drinks. We chatted. We watched everyone around us getting served. Finally after 25 minutes or so we mentioned that we hadn't received our food.Another 10 minutes passed.

When our server returned , she said our food was on its way but because it had been so delayed, the restaurant was treating us to our lunch. Now, The Good Earth could have simply apologized. Orders get lost in restaurants all the time. They could have offered us a complimentary dessert or offered to pick up one of our meals.  They didn't have to comp everything.

That's the point. Their act of "unexpected  generous customer service" was so appreciated that my  loyalty to The Good Earth has now reached a new level .

Will this mean I will go to The Good Earth more often? Absolutely. And that is a good good thing.

Image Credit: Flickr Image from La Familia Brophy

Chicken or the Egg; China has Hooters--Chinese Women Getting Bolt-Ons

While the Hooters in Shanghai, China has been in business  since 2004 --it seems that some are saying the restaurant is having a major impact on China's plastic surgery industry.

Last week it was reported that women in China ,who traditionally been small breasted women, now seem to be exhibiting the benefits of 'better nutrition".

"It's so different from the past when most young women would wear A- or B-cup bras," Triumph brand saleswoman Zhang Jing told the Shanghai Daily from the Landmark Plaza of China's commercial hub.

"You...never expect those thin women to have such nice figures if they are not plastic."

The article in the Australian Courier-Mail goes on to say that the Beijing Institute of Technology has its own explanation for everything busting out all over in China,

"This phenomenon, it said, was due to women eating more nutritiously and taking part in more sport.

Similar growth in the average height of children prompted a rethink last year in Beijing on the height allowance for free bus "

Call it good old American cynicism but  The Dread Pundit Bluto believes there is a Hooters connection.

"It comes as no surprise to me that a world-famous Hooters Restaurant franchise opens in China at the same time that it's being reported Chinese women are becoming more bosomy.....In my estimation, this shouldn't be a big problem to resolve. Furthermore, the 'pressing demand' could likely be a sales opportunity for American manufacturers who have been known (probably NSFW) to market F-, G-, and H-cup sizes.  Improved nutrition is considered responsible."

Meanwhile, back in Shanghai, there is a fascinating interview with one of the Hooter Girl's who applied for the job upon her parents suggestion who "liked the happy atmosphere" in the restaurant.

According to the Shangalist, her American name is Quasar

Had you ever heard of Hooters before? No.

What did they tell you about Hooters? It's a famous American restaurant established in 1985 in Florida. And it is famous for its unique sports style and hot girls.

So they told you about the hot girls? Yes, but we know we are different from the native Hooters girls.

"In what way? Not as open as them.

What do you mean, not as open? Well, at the begining, there were several native girls. They came here to train the girls here and I have been told they were very energetic and hot. Because of the Chinese culture, sometimes we are still very shy.

When you say native girls, do you mean American? Yeah.

So maybe you aren't as outgoing as the American girls ... but are the Chinese Hooters girls just as hot? Maybe some of us are. Hooters is a large family and everyone has her own character, so we can attract different customers."

To watch to  the Chinese Hooter "Hot Girls' doing the hokey pokey, click here.

Hat Tip  to:

Carnival of the Capitalists

And, a Shout Out and best wishes to Carnival of Business that published its second edition yesterday..including a post from FunnyBusiness.

 

 

Notes from the Road Seattle Day 3 - ALA CARTE

For the past five days the Watertown Hotel in the University district of Seattle, has been my office away from my office. It's not the first time I've stayed here. It won't be my last.

And, I'll come back even though they don't offer wireless in their rooms ( usually a deal-breaker for me). Yes, they offer free high speed via an Ethernet connection, but not having wireless means I am tied to the desk when I would rather have the flexibility to sit on the couch, chair, or work in bed.

Still the pluses of this hotel outweigh this huge negative.  When the Watertown says its unique, it delivers -- and that is something that as a business traveler,I not only appreciate, I want to support and reward.

Of all their interesting amenities, the most intriguing are the guest carts.Absolutely free, you can request a 'themed cart' for your use during your stay.I'd recommend requesting one when you make your reservations but you can also request at cart after you arrive. Beware, they are popular.

So what can you get? There's the Art Cart which includes colored pencils, an intro to Art book, glue stick, calligraphy set, souvenir beret and more.

A Baby on Board Cart which includes a rubber ducky, socket protectors, tear-free shampoo and diaper bags.

The Games Cart which includes a deck of cards, board games like cranium, Yahtzee, trivial pursuit , Scrabble and Monopoly.

The Library Cart . As it is billed,
" We'll give you an assortment of 20 books or so. If you start one that you don't finish, just trade a book that you've already read, and well consider it all square!! "

The Movie Cart -- complete with a 20' flat screen TV and DVD Player. you can bring your own movie but of course the front desk as a collection.

There's a grumpy cart, a spa cart, a relaxation cart and a party cart that offers up a bartending book, CD player, Various CDs, corkscrew, a jar of olives, a jar of onions , toothpicks and beverage napkins.

While I didn't get a cart this trip, I have carted before and they are absolutely wonderful.

Of course its not the carts themselves that has captured my imagination, it's the fact that the hotel has these carts. They are just a little thing --but its a huge thing that sets this hotel apart, and allows it to say with authenticity that it is a unique urban hotel.( Did I mention that it is  also reasonably priced?)

In  a business sector where homogenization seems to reign--can you really tell the difference  when you stay  at a Hampton Inn or a Courtyard by Marriott ? ( other then  the points you earn for a free stay)-- it is absolutely refreshing to stay some place that feels different.

Sometimes earning reward points is not enough of a motivation. Sometimes supporting a business that wants to break through the clutter is reason enough. The free wine tasting, fitness center and microwave in the room doesn't hurt either.

Now, if they would just get that wireless cart