I recently blogged about arriving in San Diego while my checked bag did not. Southwest had no clue where the bag was, but they promised to deliver it to the Marriott Marquis later that night. Before I left, I made sure they had the correct address, 333 Harbor Drive, because in that checked bag were my clothes and golf paraphernalia I needed for my corporate golf outing the next morning. So, when I checked into the hotel, I spoke to the bellman about getting my bag. He told me that after 9:00, they don’t automatically bring the bags to the room, but instead turn on the message light on the room phone to indicate the bag is available for pickup. I went up to my room, and since I needed to be in the lobby at 5:30 am the next morning to head to the golf course, and there was no need to wait around for my bag, I set my alarm for 5:00, and went to bed. I figured I would get up, dress in the clothes I had worn on the plane, grab my bag, return to my room, and be dressed and ready for golf by 5:30.
Too soon, 5:00 came, and I got up. There was no message light on the room phone, which was a bad sign. I went down to the bell stand anyway, and sure enough, there was no bag. So, wearing the same clothes from yesterday, I met up with my party in the lobby, got in the car, and headed to the golf course. While we were driving, I checked my email and found a message from whereismybag.com that said they had attempted to deliver my bag to the hotel during the night, but the hotel had claimed there was no guest by my name.
Now, I am a Marriott Elite member, and have consistently had a great customer experience during my many stays at Marriott properties. So, my first thought was that the bag delivery company had made an error and attempted to deliver my bag to the wrong hotel. It could have been their fault, or maybe Southwest had given them bad information. In any case, I was pretty bummed because my bag could have been delivered if not for that error. I ended up having to rent golf shoes, buy clothes, a hat, and socks, and play in the pants I had worn on the plane. In the end, though, we had a great day on the course.
During the round, I received another email from whereismybag.com that said I had to sign for my bag, and I could authorize them to deliver it without my signature. Now this was something totally different. Did they not deliver my bag to the Marriott because I hadn’t been there to sign for it? No one at Southwest had mentioned anything about having to sign in order to receive my bag. It doesn’t even make sense–would they wake anyone up at 3:00 am to sign for a bag? I signed up for the “no signature required” option, and before I had left the golf course, received another email that my bag had been delivered to the hotel. When I got back to my room, there was my bag waiting for me. Oh well, I thought, chalking it up to a bag delivery fail; it really wasn’t all that much of an inconvenience.
Later that afternoon, my co-worker Kathy called me to discuss the schedule for the evening. In that conversation, she told me she had tried to call my room from hers, but the hotel operator had told her I was not a registered guest. She had my room number, and after giving that number to the operator, she got an, “Oh, yes, there is a David Peterson registered here…” in response.
Wait a minute–if Kathy could not call my room from hers, it stood to reason that when whereismybag had attempted to deliver my bad the previous night, Marriott had also told them I was not a registered guest. I had to mentally apologize to both Southwest and whereismybag for my ill thoughts towards them. Marriott, for whatever reason, was not showing me as a registered guest, and because of this, caused me to use borrowed golf equipment and purchase new clothes. Yet Marriott had no explanation why I was not showing up in their system.
Most businesses have systems in place that hold repositories of information. They are accessed to provide customer service when necessary, and when those systems are not working properly either due to faulty programming or human error, there are real costs associated with the malfunction.
How are you evaluating your ability to have reliable information available to provide a great customer experience?