I got back to my hotel room tonight at the Sahara from CES to discover a flooded bathroom floor and soaked carpet. “No big deal” I thought. Things happen and nothing of mine was in danger.

Now, before I go any further for those of you not familiar with the Sahara it is one of the older hotels in Vegas. And it shows – paint peeling, older tables and machines, no big names on the billboard. They compete on price with the big guys I imagine. They should aim to maximize their opportunities to impress their guests.

When I called to report Lake Room 1530 I got transferred twice and told they would send someone up. I told three people the sink was overflowing. The first guy on scene was there with a vaccuum to get the water up followed shortly behind by the plumber. The plumber says he has to go get other tools because he wasn’t told what the issue was and had been coming from another call. Vaccuum guy leaves and plumber returns to snake the sink.

It is now 45 minutes later and my carpet is stil l soaked. I call down to see if I can change rooms. The plumber can’t believe that it hasn’t already been offered. After getting transfered again I am told that they can move me down the hall and a bellhop will be up with a new key shortly. I start packing up my bags so I can be ready.

15 minutes later the bellman show up knocks and shouts “keys”. I answer, take the offered keys and the bellman bails. Doesn’t offer to help me move my stuff to the room three doors over.

I am a little frustrates by this point so I go downstairs to complain. I hate doing this because of what I do all day, but they can’t fix an issue they don’t have. I wait a very short amount of time before the manager comes over.

Here’s where the blog post comes from. He never asked the most important question you can ask when you have an upset client: “What can I do to make this right?”. He didn’t get a chance to find out that all I wanted was maybe a dinner discount or something. I am checking out early tomorrow morning and the new room was just fine to sleep in tonight.

What he did instead was hand me keys to a “suite” in a different part of the hotel. So I get to move my stuff again to a slightly larger room with a couch (and this time a remote for the tv). Yes he tried to make things better. Yes he apologized for the staff not offering to move me on the first call. But by failing to ask me what I would be happiest with he missed a chance to wow me. Even if he couldn’t have given me what I wanted by at least listening he would have earned my respect.

Things will happen an you’ll have an angry client one day. Ask them what you can do to make things better. Even if they ask for the moon you at least allow them to release their frustration and get to offer a personal solution rather than just a generic room upgrade.

-written via iPhone

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