Ah hah! Hilton and the Customer Experience

In the Wall Street Journal last Thursday, there was an article in the Personal Journal section (page D4) on the Hilton Hotel's (hilton.com ) new computer system that will help it meet the needs of its customers across all of the 2,100 hotels. Specifically, this new system will apprently set it apart from the other hotel chains in that it will collect and store customer interaction information to be used in customizing the future visit with the chain.

Excuse me, but isn't this happening already? Isn't this what all of the hotels (and the CRM gurus) have been preaching as the best example of CRM in action? To this, I say, "Ah hah! Caught you FINALLY telling the truth."

I've figured for sometime that this wasn't going on, but I could never get the hotels to admit that it wasn't happening. Know one seemed to know me when I stayed in the same chain in different cities. They didn't know what was most important to me during my hotel stay. Nor did they seem to care, although I am a member of most every hotel chain loyalty program.

The problem, as I see it, is not so much that they information doesn't connect across the chain's various properties; it's the inconsistency of service. Granted, information about my preference might help there, but good old-fashioned attention to the details would suit me just fine.

Let me give you an example or two. In the last year, I don't know how many times I've stayed in a hotel where I was given a smoking room, when a non-smoking was requested (and part of my profile); two double beds when a king was requested (and part of my profile--I'm a tall guy and my feet hang over anything smaller); or a room that was already occupied by someone else (when an empty one was part of my profile).

I've been given keys to rooms where I found people still asleep in their beds, or dressing in the bathroom (I exit quickly, but it makes STRONG case for deadbolt and the safety latch). I've been given keys to rooms I couldn't get into (faulty locks) and rooms where the bed linens weren't changed. Perhaps one of the most interesting (are you listening Hilton?) was a recent trip where I was first given a room without bed and a disassembled toilet, then given a replacement room with two double beds. It was only on the third trip to the front desk that I ended up with an acceptable room--and an apology.

It seems to me that less money ($50mm as reported by the WSJ in Hilton's case) should be spent on integrating customer information across the properties and more energy (and money if necessary) should be spent to take care of existing flaws in the customer service process. Of course, that would be too easy, wouldn't it.

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