Hotel Internet
Friday, April 15th, 2005So, it appears that I tend to blog a little bit more on the road than when I’m home in the “valley.” This is probably because I tend to pay a lot of attention to marketing, customer experience, and business tactics associated with travelers. I also used to work at a five star hotel as a concierge. So, that’s probably got something to do with it as well.
I’ve been traveling this trip with my partner in crime, Kelly Davis. Once upon a time she was going to guest blog for me. Kelly, my readers are still waiting for one of your rants.
Anyway.
Ok, so I tend to stray off topic here and there, but here it is. Last night we checked into our hotel, downtown Chicago on Michegan Ave. I’ve stayed at this particular hotel a couple times when attending meetings at my company’s offices here. I seem to remember the internet working fine. This time, I was given an “access code” for the “DSL” in my room. Once I got upstairs, I plugged in my machine, attempted to connect. No dice. Blank screen.
“That’s funny.”
Nowhere to enter my code. Nothing. So, I call the front desk. She gives me a number for technical support. They run me down adding a proxy server, trying static IP addresses, releasing and renewing my IP address from their DHCP servers among multiple other things.
If all of this sounds foreign to you. That’s because it is, and it should be. No general customer, business traveler, or my mother should have to understand or know what any of these terms mean.
Which, brings me to my point. All of this was done in order to charge customers for internet in a hotel room that already costs well over $100. Internet access costs are a minute fraction of what they used to be. Doesn’t offering free internet access in your hotel add massive value to a customer’s stay? Isn’t this just an amentiy that should simply exist in most classy hotels everywhere?
I spent 25 minutes trying to get this working. I know computers. I work for a computer company. The bottom line is, I shouldn’t have had to. Nor should anyone else.
Give your customers the amenties they deserve. Don’t charge them for something that costs you virtually nothing to provide.
I’ll stay across the street at the Omni next time.
Subscribe