I feel terrible about writing that headline — I actually really like Sheraton Hotels (and Starwood in general) but I’m trying to make a point. When I speak about the power of web 2.0 and the need for companies to understand the effects of the changes that have happened in how information is communicated, I have a favorite example I use.
I tell the suits to go back to their offices and type “NAME OF MY COMPANY” “SUCKS” in a Google search and see what comes back. I suggest that they just might be surprised to see that someone was pretty unhappy with them and shared the experience with the world. Just like I am, here. This morning I’m in the Sheraton Crystal City in Virginia — and asked at the bell desk if there was a Starbucks nearby. “Oh, no — long way. Only coffee here in shop.” So I paid $5.75 for an awful cup of hotel drip.
At lunch, I walked a block down the street and found a lovely Starbucks — and then another. The cynical part of me assumes the Sheraton staff was told to lie, to keep business in house. The warm, supportive part of me assumes they’re just dumb or poorly trained.
But the key learning for hotel management here is that one annoyed guest has now shared out his opinion that their hotel is sub-par, and somewhere around 1,000 people per day have the opportunity to hear about it. People who search on “sheraton” “virginia” “crystal city” “special” “suite” “discount” “low price” “suite” “vacations” “pentagon” “quantico” “bargain” “cheap” “last minute” “great time” “honeymoon” or other key words will hear all about it.
Here’s the slide I use in my presentations. I wonder if anyone from Sheraton has a Google Alert running for “Sheraton Sucks” — what do you think?
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