Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Hairy follow-up

Do you remember my story from a few weeks ago about finding a human hair in my breakfast at a hotel in Mississippi?  When my photo was taken to "prove" that the offending hair did not come from my head, etc?  If you recall, I was told that I could call the risk management folks in a few days to find out the disposition of the case.  The security guard left me with this card:

I had a few free moments, so I called yesterday.  The gentleman reported that the head of room service had been told about the situation.  I asked what they might do to keep it from happening again to another guest.  He said that he expected they would reinforce with the staff the need to keep hairs out of the food.

My regular readers, familiar with hospital process improvement, will immediately recognize that the systems problem was not solved.  You also know that when it comes to apologizing for an error, one of the things that people value the most is learning that the organization has learned from the experience and has made changes to prevent it from happening to another person.  So, while the Gold Strike Casino Resort gets a good grade for courtesy, it earns a failing grade on those other points.

Remember, too, that I suggested that I suspected that the folks at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, FL, would handle things differently.  Sure enough.  Look at this note that training manager Richard Caines sent me in response to my initial blog post:

We would have immediately apologized by expressing to you how sorry we are and how embarrassed we are that this happened at all.  Our entire focus would have been on making it right for you and genuinely making you feel that we care and truly value your business.  Our mission statement is “A Flawless experience for every customer!”  Once we have ensured that you were satisfied, we would then focus on our processes to find out what broke down.  We would fix through training and coaching!  In our company, our STARS know that it's ok to admit to making a mistake as long as we take that opportunity to learn from it!  

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