If you happened to be one of the unfortunate souls checking into the Hilton on Saturday between 1:00 and 9:00p.m. you most likely got caught up in  what I imagine is every hotel's nightmare- the check-in system was down.

Now I have a soft spot for folks who work in hotels, one summer as a housekeeper at a Jersey Shore oceanfront hotel can do that to you. But to say the Hilton management fell a little short in their dealings with inconvenienced customers is the understatement of the year.

Ok, for whatever reason the check-in system was down. You'd think there'd be a back-up plan, especially in the case of a VERY large hotel that caters to convention travellers. After all, smooth check-in and check-out is vital to a hotel's service promise.

Early on inconvenienced customers were annoyed but understood it to be a situation beyond the staff's control. But when hours of being told "a few more minutes" or "another half hour" spun into hours on line without a clear picture of when the situation would be resolved, patience thinned and tempers flared. Some frontline staff, wearied by tongue lashings from frazzled travelers became clip or detached from the intensity of emotion swirling around them.

There's some lessons to be learned here.

1. Have a actionable plan B. What would you do if your registers went down on the day after Thanksgiving? What would you do if the ship carrying your product from China was lost at sea? What would you do if your office computer crashed taking with it all of the records of purchase orders placed in the past month? Do a "disaster" drill and test if that plan B actually works in practice.

2. Have a communications plan in place. Not only do you have to solve the problem, you need to communicate with your customers to tell them what is going on and how you are going to deal with it. Don't make excuses. Take your lumps. You need to be as honest as possible. The earlier you can tell your customers about a problem, the more time they have to explore other options. Keep your staff updated with whatever pertinent information is available so that they never have to say "I don't know" or "I can't help you."

3. Apologize meaningfully. Saying you're sorry is one thing but feeling sorry is an entirely different proposition. People were standing in line for hours, staff made fruit juices available but it took quite a while- well past dinner hour- to roll in any food. Some chairs were eventually brought in for folks standing in one long line.Ironically no chairs were ever brought for the folks standing in the VIP Hilton Honors line. Tired and hungry people get crabby. Crabby and losing patience= mean. Mean = security people standing behind the front desk.

4. Diffuse the situation as quickly as possible. When folks stand around for extended periods of time they begin to chat with others in line. That's when everyone starts sharing horror stories of past bad experiences with the company and how they will exact revenge for the inconvenience. When someone has a bad experience they tell five people and so on and so on and so on.


The bottom line is when something unexpected happens, even if no one is to blame, you need to step right up and take responsibility for the inconvenience to the customer. This will likely cost you money. It will likely expose you to some griping that frankly, you've heard 100 times already today. But your grace under pressure says something about you and your business. Handled well,
 a terrible situation does not have to result in losing a customer's trade permanently.

By the way, around 9:00p.m. when a back up system was up and running, the Hilton did do something right- they put people at every check-in computer possible and started moving those people through lines as quickly. Also, I give the more experienced managers credit for taking QUITE a bit of flak without losing their cool.

To my fellow Hilton guests... a good night...tomorrow will be a better day.-Beth