Why Is Good Service So Hard to Deliver?

It seems to me that delivering good service ought to be very simple to do. Yet so many service providers fail to get it right?

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting really tired of being treated so poorly by people who are supposed to be serving me. I’m not very demanding as a patron. I don’t need that much. I just want the basics of customer service. I want people to give me what they would expect if our roles were reversed.

A Recent Bad Service Experience

A few weeks ago I was up in Canada working with a client company. I was staying at the “finest” hotel in the area. Sadly this fine hotel couldn’t even get the basics right. All I wanted was a clean, safe, fully-functional, quiet, and comfortable hotel room. Is that too much to ask? Sadly, this hotel missed horribly on all five critical points.

I think some guestroom attendants must clean the hotel rooms in the dark. How else could they have missed so much when they cleaned my room? This also would explain why the guestroom attendant apparently didn’t know that four lightbulbs were out in my room. Every single lightbulb in the bathroom was burned-out. Makes you wonder!

These same guestroom attendants also apparently don’t know that their guests may want to sleep late in the morning. Since the housekeepers have to get up early, I guess they feel everyone should get up early. That has to be the reason why they stood in the hallway outside of my hotel room and talked to each other in loud voices at 6:30 in the morning. I have no idea what they thought the “do not disturb” sign meant that was hanging on my door.

But I really wasn’t sleeping anyway. In fact, I hadn’t slept all night. In order to save money (I assume), the builders of the hotel used only a single door between the adjoining rooms and the walls were very thin. The thinness of the door and walls allowed me to hear every word of the conversation of the people in the room next to me. They must have had a lot to say because they stayed up all night talking. Personally, I didn't think their conversation was all that interesting.

My next fun experience was in the shower. Probably in another effort to save money the hotel didn’t provide bar soap in the room. Instead, they had a soft soap dispenser in the shower. What a hassle! Do you know how many times you have to push the button on the dispenser in order to get enough soap to clean your entire body? Later that day I went to the store and purchased a bar of soap so I wouldn’t have to go through that experience every morning for the rest of the week. Why do I have to bring my own supplies to a quality hotel?

My hotel room also didn’t have a drain plug in the bathroom sink. Well, actually it did. It was one of those little rubber stoppers. I haven’t seen one of those rubber things since the 1800s. But it certainly works. The bad part is unplugging the drain afterwards. I had to reach my hand into the dirty, scalding water to pull the plug. Not exactly what I consider to be a fine hotel experience.

As I left my room that first morning I noticed that the door to my room was open. Apparently the door did not close fully on its own. I hadn’t noticed it the night before when I went to bed. That meant the door was open the entire time while I “slept,” while I was in the shower, and while I was getting dressed. I’m glad no one came in while I was unaware . . . or in my underwear.

Gaining a Customer Perspective

I think hotel owners and employees should be forced to spend several weeks living in their hotel rooms so they can understand the guest experience. Then they would see what I have to go through each week when I travel. Again, all I want is a clean, safe, fully-functional, quiet, and comfortable room. It can’t be that tough to get it right, can it?

Here’s another example of oblivious service providers.

The other day my wife and I went to a movie at a local theater. It was a very suspenseful movie. Just at the most intense part of the movie near the climatic end, two employees in the projection room started a loud, lighthearted conversation. We could barely hear the movie over their laughter. When we complained to the manager afterward she grilled us suspiciously about the situation. We had to be mistaken. There was no way we could have heard theater employees talking in the projection room. Then she went on to lament that other patrons had complained about the noise too. Yet, somehow she thought we were mistaken. She never offered to investigate, never said she’d take any action, and never apologized.

Why did we even bother to tell her? Because we thought she’d want to know so she could do something about it. But no one seems to care anymore.

Why Can’t People Get it Right

I avoid using drive-up windows of fast food restaurants because the odds of getting the wrong order are increasingly high. Having food delivered isn't any better. I ordered a pizza delivered this past week. I didn’t notice until after the delivery person drove away that it was the wrong pizza. I wish I hadn’t tipped him so much.

I seldom ask clerks in stores technical questions about their merchandise. Most clerks have no idea about the products they are selling. It used to be that a salesperson learned about their products and those of their competitors so they could help the patron make an informed decision before a purchase. But now it seems clerks only know how to ring up the sale on the cash register. Unfortunately, some don’t even know how to do that.

I wish when clerks asked if they could help you they really could. I wish people in the hospitality industry were hospitable. I wish service providers would provide service. I wish I didn’t have to wait for waiters. I wish I could trust that I would get good service wherever I go. I wish I had confidence when I patronize a business that it would be a good experience. I wish employees would respect the fact that I pay for their paycheck.

I would be such a loyal customer to a business if they would just give me what I want, how I want it, when I want it. I really don’t expect that much. I want my hot food hot and my cold food cold. I want what I ordered. I want things I buy to actually work. I want my bill to be accurate. I want a good night’s sleep in a hotel. Is this too much to ask? Is this so hard to deliver? §

Innovative Management Group provides two-, four- and eight-hour training programs on customer service for executives, managers and employees. Please call us at 702-592-6431 to find out how we can help you and your employees to get it right.

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Mac McIntire is the president of Innovative Management Group, a Las Vegas-based training and consulting firm specializing in strategic visioning and alignment, organizational effectiveness, management development, quality improvement, customer service, and teamwork. He can be reached at 702-592-6431 or e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.imglv.com