response from hotel re issue

whomitconcerns

So I had cause to book a hotel for 3 nights, 2 rooms. I had an issue with the way they billed (Big international chain hotel). Basically they put a copy of the second rooms bill in their door, so they saw how much I paid and it was quite awkward. OH's mother visiting for 2nd time so she was quite angry about how much it was and wanted to give money...etc. The hotel mailed me a response last night after apologising at checkin.

Now maybe I'm pedantic but it reads like it was written by a 10 year old..the spelling is terrible...would you say anything? Bear in mind BIG international chain, english named person responds...9 mistakes that i spotted straight away..

Dear Sir,

It was a pleasure to check you in on the 5th of March and I really appriciate your patience and understancding for all the challenges we encountered with our computarized sistem at the time, I do trust that you enjoyed your stay with your family and the relaxing atmosphere of our executive lounge.

Mr. whomitconcerns I very sad to be informed that you were less than satisfied with your invoice statement and I must appologise if this has cause you any inconveninece to you and your family. I have to admit, that I do not recall the moment that we discussed your special request in regards with you VAT invoice upon arrival.

However this does not excuss me, for failing to provide you with the service you expected. I want you to know that this was not intentional and I hope that this incident didn’t influence your stay overall.

I hope to welcome you back to our hotel, therefore we can meet and exced your expectations. Please do contact me directly if you requiere any further assistance.

Miss Person
Reception Shift Leader

trishasaffron

Not an issue for you unless you are her manager!

Paulw

Sorry, what is the issue? That the email is in poor English or that they disappointed you with their service?

LucidLife

whomitconcerns wrote: »

So I had cause to book a hotel for 3 nights, 2 rooms. I had an issue with the way they billed (Big international chain hotel). Basically they put a copy of the second rooms bill in their door, so they saw how much I paid and it was quite awkward. OH's mother visiting for 2nd time so she was quite angry about how much it was and wanted to give money...etc. The hotel mailed me a response last night after apologising at checkin.

Now maybe I'm pedantic but it reads like it was written by a 10 year old..the spelling is terrible...would you say anything? Bear in mind BIG international chain, english named person responds...9 mistakes that i spotted straight away..

Dear Sir,

It was a pleasure to check you in on the 5th of March and I really appriciate your patience and understancding for all the challenges we encountered with our computarized sistem at the time, I do trust that you enjoyed your stay with your family and the relaxing atmosphere of our executive lounge.

Mr. whomitconcerns I very sad to be informed that you were less than satisfied with your invoice statement and I must appologise if this has cause you any inconveninece to you and your family. I have to admit, that I do not recall the moment that we discussed your special request in regards with you VAT invoice upon arrival.

However this does not excuss me, for failing to provide you with the service you expected. I want you to know that this was not intentional and I hope that this incident didn’t influence your stay overall.

I hope to welcome you back to our hotel, therefore we can meet and exced your expectations. Please do contact me directly if you requiere any further assistance.

Miss Person
Reception Shift Leader

That's a fair apology. Yes arguing over spelling would be pedantic really.

I'd write back thanking Mr X for a sincere apology. He will surely throw you a meal or discount or whatever.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

They apologised so what's the issue? That the persons first language isn't English? Out of interest did you specifically request that the bill for both rooms only went to your room?

total former

So they apologised at the time, followed up with an email over what is a very minor inconvenience for you and now you're considering going back a third time over spelling errors?

Seems like exemplary customer service to me, especially if they were dealing with someone who must have been a very difficult customer, based on this thread.

bucketybuck

Sounds like people misunderstand the OP. Sounds less like he is upset about the spelling and more that he feels he should give feedback on it, because fact is, thats horrendous spelling to see in an official response from a large company. It makes the company look like a mickey mouse hotel chain scribbling letters with crayons.

whomitconcerns

thanks for the responses. I dont care about whether its written in gibberish or not personally, and am certainly not offended by it..75% of the people I work with are not native english speakers..

Anyway I am concerned that this should be an official email from a Hilton (not giveing anything away with that MODs as they have 1000s of hotels )

To clarify the mailer was from the UK, and is a Herriot Watt graduate...(was curious..good ol linkedin :P) So grammer stalker nazi I guess :P

Baby01032012

whomitconcerns wrote: »

thanks for the responses. I dont care about whether its written in gibberish or not personally, and am certainly not offended by it..75% of the people I work with are not native english speakers..

Anyway I am concerned that this should be an official email from a Hilton (not giveing anything away with that MODs as they have 1000s of hotels )

To clarify the mailer was from the UK, and is a Herriot Watt graduate...(was curious..good ol linkedin :P) So grammer stalker nazi I guess :P

I still do not see what the issue is. Yes it looks unprofessional coming from an employee. However I think the email is not official, I think it was sent in a personal capacity. I think the employee should be commended for caring enough to respond directly.
As another poster has said unless you are the manager it is no concern of yours how the apology is written.
Acknowledge and accept apology and m

bucketybuck

Baby01032012 wrote: »

However I think the email is not official, I think it was sent in a personal capacity.

Of course it is official.

whomitconcerns

Baby01032012 wrote: »

I still do not see what the issue is. Yes it looks unprofessional coming from an employee. However I think the email is not official, I think it was sent in a personal capacity. I think the employee should be commended for caring enough to respond directly.
As another poster has said unless you are the manager it is no concern of yours how the apology is written.
Acknowledge and accept apology and m

The issue is that this is an offical email from the Hilton group. The issues is that, the person sending it is representing the hotel locally and the group. It does not reflect well on either. I'm not for getting someone in trouble over something like this.

But a quick "Thanks for your email, much appreciated, might want to enable spellcheck before you contact customers next time." may be in order?

Also to clarify. This email was NOT from the person I was dealing with, but from their manager.

total former

whomitconcerns wrote: »

The issue is that this is an offical email from the Hilton group. The issues is that, the person sending it is representing the hotel locally and the group. It does not reflect well on either. I'm not for getting someone in trouble over something like this.

But a quick "Thanks for your email, much appreciated, might want to enable spellcheck before you contact customers next time." may be in order?

It would not be. It would be petty and nasty.

Slippin Jimmy

Just let it go. No point upsetting yourself over it.

ben.schlomo

whomitconcerns wrote: »

The issue is that this is an offical email from the Hilton group. The issues is that, the person sending it is representing the hotel locally and the group. It does not reflect well on either. I'm not for getting someone in trouble over something like this.

But a quick "Thanks for your email, much appreciated, might want to enable spellcheck before you contact customers next time." may be in order?

Also to clarify. This email was NOT from the person I was dealing with, but from their manager.

From a difficult, up their own arse customer it would, otherwise its not necessary for you to feel like its your responsibility to fix this persons grammar issues, in whatever capacity theyve dealt with you. As mods on here say "dont be a dick" and let it go.

Greenmachine

Letter sounds like lip service.

whomitconcerns

ah i'll leave it so, not a big issue for me at all, just was suprised. I would not be happy with any of my team sending a mail like that and I would want to be informed so I could review the procedure with them.

Not as suprised as I was at the tone of some of the responses here (I could understand those responses if I said I was offended/insulted/annoyed/etc etc over a spelling issue. (grammar??????)but I was quite clear this was not the case)...but sure hey thats an average day on boards.

Mods can close

noinc

Why are people who expect a certain level of grammar and a decent level of spelling called Grammar Nazi's. There is a certain level of professionalism we are entitled to expect and native speakers or not I do not want to see the level of literacy drop to suit people who have difficulty with it. Facebook is full of awful spelling, there is hardly a post where someone has not made awful typos these days. While on the subject of other sites, the best weapon patrons to hotels etc. have now against substandard service is Trip Advisor, that said, you can point out positive stuff there too (or their two as it might be written).

total former

noinc wrote: »

Why are people who expect a certain level of grammar and a decent level of spelling called Grammar Nazi's. There is a certain level of professionalism we are entitled to expect and native speakers or not I do not want to see the level of literacy drop to suit people who have difficulty with it. Facebook is full of awful spelling, there is hardly a post where someone has not made awful typos these days. While on the subject of other sites, the best weapon patrons to hotels etc. have now against substandard service is Trip Advisor, that said, you can point out positive stuff there too (or their two as it might be written).

<SNIP> NOT NEEDED HERE

This is not a thread about poor customer service. This hotel exhibited excellent customer service. Unfortunately, not everyone is a good speller and not every native speaker has perfect English. Should he/she have used a spell-checker? Probably. Does it really matter? No.

bucketybuck

noinc wrote: »

Why are people who expect a certain level of grammar and a decent level of spelling called Grammar Nazi's. There is a certain level of professionalism we are entitled to expect

Agreed. That letter makes Hilton look like a bunch of amateurs, if thats the level of competence their managers display then how can I have any faith in the quality of their other work?

And yet some people would prefer to insult the person who received the letter. Perhaps the thread topic is cutting a little close to home for them.

dudara

POSTERS - Again, I have found myself spending time on a Monday morning cleaning up uncivil and off-topic posts. This is not putting me in a good mood. If you can't post in a constructive manner, then don't post.

OP - I can see where you are coming from. I would expect communications in an official capacity to be of a higher standard than that. We all excuse a certain amount of poor grammar and spelling in everyday communications, but a large amount in a single email is too much.

The question is, is this worth chasing up? I don't know TBH. You could try forwarding to the hotel General Manager, or to Hilton itself. It's up to you really, if you feel it's worth pursuing.

dr.fuzzenstein

noinc wrote: »

Why are people who expect a certain level of grammar and a decent level of spelling called Grammar Nazi's. There is a certain level of professionalism we are entitled to expect and native speakers or not I do not want to see the level of literacy drop to suit people who have difficulty with it. Facebook is full of awful spelling, there is hardly a post where someone has not made awful typos these days. While on the subject of other sites, the best weapon patrons to hotels etc. have now against substandard service is Trip Advisor, that said, you can point out positive stuff there too (or their two as it might be written).

Absolutely agree. It should not be too hard to write a few coherent sentences and there's always spellcheck. But it seems like a lot of people would be quite happy to see the following response:
OMG, so sorry, LOLZ! NP, be tryin harder next time, YOLO! OK, GTR, laters!

I'm sorry, that is the best I can do, because I don't speak moron.
The intent of the employee was good, no criticism there. It's not that I would expect a Shakespeare sonnet, but since spellchecker is automatic these days and flags spelling mistakes as you type them, it is not too much to ask to right click the word and select the appropriate spelling from the drop down.
I send hundreds of responses a week in my job and it's no hardship to make sure the spelling is OK. Good spelling is like good manners.

whomitconcerns

dudara wrote: »

POSTERS - Again, I have found myself spending time on a Monday morning cleaning up uncivil and off-topic posts. This is not putting me in a good mood. If you can't post in a constructive manner, then don't post.

OP - I can see where you are coming from. I would expect communications in an official capacity to be of a higher standard than that. We all excuse a certain amount of poor grammar and spelling in everyday communications, but a large amount in a single email is too much.

The question is, is this worth chasing up? I don't know TBH. You could try forwarding to the hotel General Manager, or to Hilton itself. It's up to you really, if you feel it's worth pursuing.

Nah I wont be pursuing..just suprised to receive a mail with so many mistakes...but anyway..it was no skin off my nose.

coffee_cake

While I'm up there at the top of the list of obsessive grammar nazis, I'd still just say thanks and move on. It does look unprofessional not to engage a spell check first, but I'd take the apology as intended and leave it there. Maybe have a rant to a friend . It looks well intentioned.

endofrainbow

Bad spelling and grammar are high on my list of irritants. I blame the text generation.

whomitconcerns

total former wrote: »

So they apologised at the time, followed up with an email over what is a very minor inconvenience for you and now you're considering going back a third time over spelling errors?

Seems like exemplary customer service to me, especially if they were dealing with someone who must have been a very difficult customer, based on this thread.

Apologies I only saw this post now. Im a difficult customer? Really, because i wanted one bill for both rooms? This is a new and challenging single request to a massive international hotel that makes me a difficult customer?

Im sorry but with all due respect, your post is nonesense, in the real world this is a fairly simple request for a single booking that was made for 2 rooms by one person in advance and clarified at reception at checkin.

Miaireland

I probably wouldn't bother contacting the hotel over the email to be honest.

However I must confess I wouldn't feel happy booking a wedding/big function in the hotel if a member of staff sent me a email like the one you received. It would make me feel that their may not be good attention to detail.

delahuntv

whomitconcerns wrote: »

Apologies I only saw this post now. Im a difficult customer? Really, because i wanted one bill for both rooms? This is a new and challenging single request to a massive international hotel that makes me a difficult customer?

Im sorry but with all due respect, your post is nonesense, in the real world this is a fairly simple request for a single booking that was made for 2 rooms by one person in advance and clarified at reception at checkin.

I think the reason why posters are replying to you in such a way is because of the style of your post.

Firstly does it matter whether its a "Big International hotel chain" or as above "massive international hotel" (many of them are actually local franchises btw)

Secondly, the receptionist could have passed you issue to "head office" and then in 2 or 3 weeks you could have got a reply in "good english". But no, the recptionist took the responsibility himself/herself to reply to you directly and immediately. You would have been aware (as you checked in) that the receptionist was not a local person and therefore I think that the level of grammar in the letter was actually quite good, and none of the apology was lost in the small grammatical or spelling errors.

So, yes you are being pedantic as others have pointed out and it is your post that has made the main issue being the letter and the spelling error.


In fact, a small local independent hotel would ahve no issue with doing what you requested, but "Massive" hotels have a lot of automation and if one bit of the entry is wrong, then a mistake can be made.

We all make mistakes - the person apologised in writing immediatley and you should be congratualting the staff member for being so straight up with accepting the error, but instead you castigate them!

(i've checked this post for grammatical and spelling erroirs junst in case! ) :P

whomitconcerns

delahuntv wrote: »

I think the reason why posters are replying to you in such a way is because of the style of your post.

Firstly does it matter whether its a "Big International hotel chain" or as above "massive international hotel" (many of them are actually local franchises btw)

Secondly, the receptionist could have passed you issue to "head office" and then in 2 or 3 weeks you could have got a reply in "good english". But no, the recptionist took the responsibility himself/herself to reply to you directly and immediately. You would have been aware (as you checked in) that the receptionist was not a local person and therefore I think that the level of grammar in the letter was actually quite good, and none of the apology was lost in the small grammatical or spelling errors.

So, yes you are being pedantic as others have pointed out and it is your post that has made the main issue being the letter and the spelling error.


In fact, a small local independent hotel would ahve no issue with doing what you requested, but "Massive" hotels have a lot of automation and if one bit of the entry is wrong, then a mistake can be made.

We all make mistakes - the person apologised in writing immediatley and you should be congratualting the staff member for being so straight up with accepting the error, but instead you castigate them!

(i've checked this post for grammatical and spelling erroirs junst in case! ) :P

Yet again missing the whole point of my post...I was not insulted/disgusted/upset. I was surprised..that they would send such a mail and not spellcheck it..is not too much to wonder. I only posted here to see if anyone thought it worth mentioning to them subtly to check first..certainly not castigating. And sorry I certainly wont congratulate someone for that email, its very badly written no matter what your views are..

Anyway...the answer is a definitive no, so Im not losing sleep over it.

bucketybuck

delahuntv wrote: »

I think the reason why posters are replying to you in such a way is because of the style of your post.

Firstly does it matter whether its a "Big International hotel chain" or as above "massive international hotel" (many of them are actually local franchises btw)

Secondly, the receptionist could have passed you issue to "head office" and then in 2 or 3 weeks you could have got a reply in "good english". But no, the recptionist took the responsibility himself/herself to reply to you directly and immediately. You would have been aware (as you checked in) that the receptionist was not a local person and therefore I think that the level of grammar in the letter was actually quite good, and none of the apology was lost in the small grammatical or spelling errors.

So, yes you are being pedantic as others have pointed out and it is your post that has made the main issue being the letter and the spelling error.


In fact, a small local independent hotel would ahve no issue with doing what you requested, but "Massive" hotels have a lot of automation and if one bit of the entry is wrong, then a mistake can be made.

We all make mistakes - the person apologised in writing immediatley and you should be congratualting the staff member for being so straight up with accepting the error, but instead you castigate them!

(i've checked this post for grammatical and spelling erroirs junst in case! ) :P

Should have checked for factual errors as well, the letter was from the manager and not the receptionist who dealt with the OP.

BuffyBot

The issue is that this is an offical email from the Hilton group

It probably isn't. Most of the big hotel chains don't own or manage the properties which bear their name, but franchise.

total former

whomitconcerns wrote: »

Apologies I only saw this post now. Im a difficult customer? Really, because i wanted one bill for both rooms? This is a new and challenging single request to a massive international hotel that makes me a difficult customer?

Im sorry but with all due respect, your post is nonesense, in the real world this is a fairly simple request for a single booking that was made for 2 rooms by one person in advance and clarified at reception at checkin.

Hang on now. This thread is not about the billing error. You got an apology in person and a follow up email from a manager. That's excellent customer service in my book.

You started this thread because of the spelling errors in that email. You want to respond to them to embarrass some hotel duty manager over his/her poor grasp of written English. If you want to pretend that you're doing it as a favour to them and not out of pettiness, then grand.

We're still waiting to hear how poor spelling constitutes a consumer issue btw.