Written by Dick CarlsonI 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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Ha! I actually found your posting by doing a search for “Sheraton Sucks” after a bad experience I had at a Sheraton. Google has your title as one of the key terms. I wanted to find other poor souls to commiserate. Not that there aren’t gripe sites for other hotels, but I also experienced wallet-angst at a Sheraton due to their ‘no fee-free cancellations -no matter how far in advance’ policy. The Sheraton I stayed charged me a 1 night fee for a cancellation done a week in advance. Well I ended up staying there another day, and I didn’t notice the charge to my card for the cancellation the week before because I assumed it was for the night I actually stayed!! Only later after I had been charged for two stays did I see that one was for the reservation I had cancelled.
BTW, I used to work right across from the Sheraton you stayed at. There are actually three Starbucks within a short walking distance of your hotel (The one by the EPA building is the longest walk, the one next to Chipotle is next closest). We used to joke about our side of Crystal City having so many Starbucks. Sorry to hear the staff were so ignorant of the place they worked, or so unhelpful.