Well, I am down in the Bay Area for some soccer with my daughter and some vacation for a couple days of vacation with my wife. As usual, it is hard to go anywhere or do anything without seeing what experience you are getting and how they compare to what you expect – just a way of life when you do what I do.
So this trip was no exception. This one involved the Sheraton Four Points in Pleasanton. After being in San Francisco for the day, I headed out to Pleasanton later that night and checked into the hotel. It didn’t start out well. Tried to check into the room that had a patio overlooking the pool and was told we can’t have that room for all 3 nights – only one night. But it was late and I figured it would be OK so I took the less desirable room.
Let me step back and talk about the difference between “satisfaction” and “loyalty” for a minute. My definition of “satisfaction” is “someone who is satisfied for the moment but is ‘looking for the next best deal’ as they continue to do business with you” – meaning as long as you are the lowest price or have the best terms or product they will give you their business. But once someone else comes into the picture that beats you in any of these categories, you defect. “Loyalty” on the other hand is someone that will “give you a second chance if you mess up during the experience and won’t defect just because of what happens during one of your experiences.” That gives you, as a business, the opportunity to make things up and show them what you can really do. Pretty simple definitions but when you boil down all the language from people, this is what it comes down to anyway.
Back to the story. I have been a loyal customer to Sheraton Four Points in Pleasanton as I have stayed here about a half dozen times and enjoyed the experience – thus I came back again. You might consider me to be a loyal customer to this property. That first night we were there was the night from you know where. Not only was the room substandard to what I was used to, without the patio or any view, other than that of my rental car. I was tired from being up very early to catch a flight and so hit the sack around 11:30pm. Around midnight it all broke loose. A wedding party had ended and now the party moved to, you guessed it, my wing of the hotel and the parking lot out of my door. It was loud and very noisy with lots of people running around and yelling.
Like most normal people would do, I called the front desk and asked them to send someone to quiet them down so I could get some sleep. 1:00am and nothing happened and it was just as noisy – so I called them again. 1:30am and nothing happened and I called them again. Finally around 2:00am they disbanded and went somewhere else. So finally got to sleep around 2:30am, back up at 7:00am for a soccer game – wiped out and not in a good mood. But I stayed calm and called the front desk to talk to the manager to see what could be done – manager doesn’t get in until 3pm I was told. So at this point my loyalty to this place was waining to say the least. But because I came in loyal, I was going to see things through to conclusion.
Manager called me around 2:30pm and asked to hear the story and said she wanted to “make things right” for me – that was a great start. I explained the story and she said she was very sorry and asked if I wanted to move rooms – to a larger suite, with the patio and out of the wing for the last two nights and they would move my luggage while i was gone. Of course the answer was YES and I was very appreciative that she didn’t give me a bunch of lame excuses about what went on – i hate that when people do that. Somehow they seem to forget that the customer really DOESN’T CARE about their internal issues – only their experience. She obviously understood this and made it happen quickly and to my satisfaction.
Needless to say I am still a loyal customer of Sheraton Four Points in Pleasanton and will continue to stay here because of how I was treated. I know I won’t always have a great experience but that is OK because I know they have done their best in the past and worked with me to earn my loyalty. It would take a few more bad experiences where they didn’t do anything to fix it before I would defect. That is the difference between being “satisfied” vs. “loyal” in my experience.
I know all of you have been in this type of exact situation and can relate. Take a minute to decide whether you are merely “satisfied” or if you are a “loyal” customer with the businesses you deal with. We work with companies all the time in helping them build “consistent” and “repeatable” experiences for their customers that create “loyalty” and move them beyond merely “satisfied” customers. From this simple example, you can see that the differnece is huge and this particular one will get them thousands more dollars from me when I travel to Pleasanton. It also gained them attention on my blog. Regardless of the outcome, they were going to end up on the blog – this way they get raving reviews and positive recommendations from me – the alternative would have been disastrous. They made the choice, do we risk having him tell hundreds (or thousands through the blog) how rigid and uncooperative they could be or how wonderful and pleasant they can be to their customers – they chose the right answer. Way to go Sheraton Four Points – you still have a LOYAL CUSTOMER and hopefully many more after the way you treated me.
Blaine
