With apologies to none at all
By Vikas Mehta
About seven years ago, I planned a Europe trip for my family with a global travel agency, Indian-owned which had done a reverse acquisition of a more-than-100-year-old European parent company. The company was owned by Indians but headquartered in the UK. I took a bus tour package of 18 days covering seven countries and had paid the full amount which had run into a few lakh, got the necessary visas and were now just two-three weeks away from the departure date. The payment etc was facilitated by the agency’s office in Dehradun, where I stay.
At that point we got a call from the travel agency’s head office in India, informing us that the tour beginning date that we had chosen was not operational and they gave us two alternative dates, both before the designated date. This was not acceptable to us as on those days schools were still on and both my daughter and wife would not be able to make it. But the agency was adamant saying it had no other dates as rest of the trips were fully booked. And then the customer representative threw the rule book saying that according to terms and conditions that we had signed on the agency could change the travel dates. The arrogance and take-it-or-leave-it approach was shocking. We were caught in no man’s land and a cancellation would mean forfeiting 50% of the money.
The attitude of the travel agency was huge and crushing. Specially for my daughter. My regular readers will recall my earlier articles where I have emphasised on how we Indians do not take customer service and consumer rights seriously and give in too easily. In this case therefore, my basic instincts kicked in and I wrote an angry email to the Indian CEO of the agency in London detailing the arrogant and one-sided approach of his company.
I was completely taken aback when I got an answer within a few hours from the CEO himself. He not only apologised for our experience but also informed me that a senior executive from Mumbai will call me and sort out the issue to our full satisfaction. And within an hour I got the call. The gentleman apologised profusely and then made us an offer. We will go for the tour on the dates that we had booked. We will follow the exact schedule of the trip with all inclusions as promised. The only difference being that the trip will not be in a bus but in a private vehicle with a chauffeur driving us for the 18 days and a local guide will accompany us at each destination. Just for us. In our vehicle.
It sounded too good to be true. No? But it exactly happened that way. We had a seven-seater Mercedes van with a chauffeur for all the 18 days and each destination had a local guide, a three- or four-star hotel accommodation and we were driven to all the tourist spots. It was a royal treatment that we will never forget.
So, why am I recalling this episode in such details now?
Because I think the hospitality business in India has forgotten what hospitality is all about. We have a culture which says Atithi Dev Bhavo. A guest is like god. But nowadays a guest is treated like a lemon. Squeeze as much out of /herhim as possible and then discard her/him. In the service industry and specially in hospitality, one of the first principles of marketing is (getting a) repeat consumer. Make the consumer happy so that s/he becomes loyal to you. And keeps on visiting you again and again. It is also a fact that a loyal, happy consumer is cheaper to service and maintain than acquiring new consumers. And for that the attitude of happy, satisfied consumer at whatever cost is the uppermost priority.
Take my example. After that episode where do you think that I went for my future holidays and travel bookings? And I shared this episode with all my friends and family. Where do you think, they went for their holiday bookings. Positive word-of-mouth is the second principle in the service industry. And in hospitality, word-of-mouth recommendation is worth its weight in gold. That’s the reason almost every marketing campaign in hospitality has an element of satisfied testimonial from consumers.
I once remember at the one of the Taj restaurants, my kebabs were replaced without even asking as I had got busy talking on my mobile and these had gone cold. It was not the restaurant’s fault and yet they stepped in. Or at the Oberoi, where when we ordered a basket of bread comprising three different types of rotis, they just got a quarter each and brought fresh quarters as we finished off the hot ones. Nobody would have complained if the Oberoi restaurant had not done that. But then Taj and Oberoi are in a different league, most of the other five-star luxury hotels do not fall in the same league.
And things seem to have changed for the worse, in the last few years. Even when the brands are at fault. The focus has shifted to buying loyalties. Loyalty programmes with their digital reach have become more important. Today, we talk about digitally generated word-of-mouth which has numbers but no empathy.
It’s not about the bang for your buck but just your buck is what matters. As a result, short term profitability, immediate targets and lack of empathy seems to have become the norm. Arrogance has crept into the hospitality sector. Humans have been reduced to just a number. Let me give you three experiences that I have had in the past few weeks.
We had a family get-together in Doon where my sister-in-law had come down from the US. We decided to throw a three-in-one party to celebrate three landmark birthdays which all were happening within a few months of each other, for my daughter, my mother-in-law and my wife’s niece. We chose a five-star hotel brand rooftop for a celebration with about 40 invited friends. Incidentally, we had a horrible dining experience at a premium property of the same brand last year. But since this was a different property, we went ahead with the event.
And it was quite a sad experience. The service was slow and poor. The place leaked like a sieve when it rained, so we had to shift our tables two-three times. And worse was that a senior staff member who volunteered to help out was actually suffering from conjunctivitis. When I confronted him, he quietly disappeared. But can you imagine this happening in a premium hospitality brand? And the arrogance of the F&B head had to be seen to be believed. Inspite of all the troubles, we paid and cleared our bill in full immediately after the event. From the property there was no apology or even contrition.
Next day, I sent a detailed mail to the property GM and also to the brand’s India CEO. There was no reply for 48 hours. I then sent another strongly worded mail and that’s when things started to move. The VP operations called. Apologised. Promised to look into the matter. Made the right noises and then landed in Doon four days later, on a routine trip. He invited us over to the premium property. Became a gracious host. Fed and hosted us in a yet-unopened-to-the-public bar. Again, made the right noises. Apologised, but threw up his hands in despair as the property where we were hosted was a franchised property and he claimed that they cannot do much with that management. Bewildering, as the brand name is of the hospitality chain. And as a consumer, I care two hoots if your business model prevents you from taking someone to task. Instead, we were introduced to the GM of the premium property and were told that he will take care of our any future interaction with the hotel. The GM promptly handed us his card which had his email and the hotel telephone number. I wrote to him on the email address thanking him for his hospitality. There was no response. Would you want to make Hyatt your destination after reading this?
Then, two weeks ago we went on a short holiday to Goa. We have been Club Mahindra members for more than 15 years and enjoyed the new river resort at Assonara. The place was good but lacked in service and the food had some issues. We complained to the executive chef but the same problems persisted. I am not getting into the details, but the resort did fall short of service levels, compared to other resorts we had been to. In fact, we bumped into the CEO of Club Mahindra at the resort who was trying to travel incognito. He asked us to write to him with our experience which we did. And he responded very graciously. He mentioned the name of a senior executive who would look into our feedback. Well, that was two weeks ago. I have been getting messages and mails from Club Mahindra asking me to refer some friends or relatives. Do you think I will?
The lack of action or any corrective step is glaring. Don’t get me wrong. I am not looking for any freebies or my expectations are not at all what happened during my Europe trip. It’s just that the hospitality industry seems to have strayed away from the core of keeping the consumers happy. Mistakes will happen. It’s how the brands bounce back after the mistake to keep the consumer happy, is what matters. A mere acknowledgement and mouthing of platitudes is not the solution. The tone, the action and the follow up is what matters.
Finally, we flew back from Goa with Indigo. I need not get into the arrogance of Indigo but when I asked for a Cappuccino as part of my pre-booked meal, I was curtly told that no coffee was available. The reason? It seems Indigo is changing its menu from September 1 so it had run out of stock of some existing menu items. This was on August 20. And the arrogance is that the airline has no compunction or shame in telling me that. When I protested, I was curtly told to send my complaint via the link which I will get after the flight to rate my experience.
Compare all this with my experience seven years ago. In all the cases involved now, the brands involved needed to maybe show contrition with some simple acts. But they chose not to. And served some platitudes which were right off some training manuals. The lack of intent in hospitality was very obvious.
Has Atithi Dev Baha become just a tagline?
The extent to which the current administration controls the media is clear in the reactions to the announcement that a special session of Parliament has been convened in September. Of course, the rumour mills are rife with grain being pounded. But given that what used to be political correspondents have become pap-fed babies, it is very hard to separate the chaff from the wheat.