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A Hotel Owner (Franchisee) Response to 
100% Guest Satisfaction Program
 
Submitted to Hotel Online Viewpoint Forum - October 6, 1999

Get your heads out of the sand folks, this is the real world. Anyone, who loves l00% satisfaction program, has not sat down and wrote a mortgage check lately. 

The executives who think these things up for Hampton and Holiday Inn are patting each other on the back, and having their staff write up reports to justify anything they do. This satisfaction program assumes that everybody that stays at these hotels are honest, trustworthy, and would never stiff a hotel, think again. 

Hampton is proudly saying they gave away $6 million in rooms. No, the operators, franchisee, gave away the rooms because Hampton made them do it. That loss did not come out of the Promus pocket. Not one of those hotdogs had to write a check for a franchise fee or pay the electric bill. We do that for them. 

What Hampton and Holiday have done is to create a whole group of people out there who are laughing at us and getting free rooms. 

There is a manual on the streets �How to Travel America Free on Hampton and Holiday Inn�. It explains the programs in detail, and lists all the ways to get a free room. From bringing a bug in a jar and putting it on the bed, to placing a dirty bar of soap in the shower and claiming the room was not cleaned, in all there are 86 sure fire ways to complain and get a free room. This manual gives away all the tricks. How and when to make your complaint, late in the evening after the GM has left, so you can intimidate these junior employees. It states that if you do it right, the employees will always give you a free room, just to keep you from calling the customer service number. 

So don�t believe $6 million...double that. $6 million is just the number turned in to Hampton. 

Holiday now charges $100.00 to take a complaint, plus you get a bad GTS score. Yes, it is cheaper just to let them win. 

The manual on the streets says to stay away from Days Inns, Comforts, Super 8 etc. because many of those properties are managed by the owners, and they are not as likely to give up a room and fall for all that crap, as a hired manager working for a large corporation and just trying to keep their job would. It says that those companies do not pressure the franchised units to give up free rooms, as does Holiday and Hampton. No matter what, the guest is always right, no matter how trivial the complaint, give the guest compensation. Compensation translated in the Holiday Inn terms is a  �Free Room�. 

What l00 % satisfaction has done for us is make us very unsatisfied. We will sell our Holiday this year and we will be set free. But some of my friends will have to grin and bear it, because there is always an inspector coming soon and if you don�t play the game, your property will fail.

Submitted by [email protected]
 

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Also See: $6 Million in Free Rooms Provided by Hampton Inn's 100% Satisfaction Guarantee in Past Decade; Program Has Become An Industry Standard / Oct 1999 
100% Guest Satisfaction Program? / Hotel Online Viewpoint Forum

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