Some people just shouldn’t be in the hospitality industry, and one woman, at Days Inn Oacoma, is one of them. Normally I wouldn’t even bother mentioning a person who shows so little aptitude for her profession. I would consign her to oblivion where she belongs. But both she and Days Inn should be exposed for what frauds they are. I’ll use this very same information to make my official complaints, and that way I don’t have to do it twice.
UPDATE: Days Inn corporate has rectified the problem. They made good on the discount themselves, and PROMISED that the offender has beeen duly counseled. Please keep that in mind as you read the rest of the entry. Problem solved!
While we were in Custer, planning our way back Joyce came across a coupon for the Oacoma Days Inn in some little throw-away tourist rag that offered a 20% discount to veterans. So we saved it, and on arrival, there was also a sign outside thanking us for our service. Great! Super!
Not so fast. That woman first informed us we had reserved TWO rooms. Turned out to be a computer problem, but until Hotels.com corporate cleared it, she was going to charge us for both rooms. She said if we didn’t get it straightened out by that night, she would penalize us, so we had to spend considerable time on the phone and online fixing it. And to top it off, she also refused the veteran’s discount because we had booked through hotels.com. She told us we shouldn’t book through them! She wouldn’t give us her supervisor’s name and refused to contact him. We later got this information from another employee, and we saved the coupon and photographed the sign.
That woman seems to think her job is to collect as much money from people as possible at all costs. She has no idea that the way to get more money for a business is to create and maintain a good reputation through good customer service. In all likelihood all the other people she cheats have just written it off because very few people will stay in Chamberlain to pursue it, or return there. She may believe it’s her mission to squeeze all their money out of them in the short time they are in ”her” Days Inn. She has no idea all this information about her and her hotel will go to Days Inn, onto the internet and to hotels.com. And she probably thinks that because nothing has happened yet, nothing ever will. But when I get home and have the time to make all this information available and follow up, she will learn that some people just don’t back down. You don’t offer discounts to veterans and then renege. There’s a lot of crap you can get away with, but not that. Not in this hyper-patriotic, extremely paranoid culture in which the military is perpetually valorized. Usually I find this kind of lock-step group-think quite annoying and/or funny. But will I use it to my advantage? In a heartbeat.
UPDATE: Because of the fine cutomer service we received from Days Inn on this matter, we will definitely give them another chance. Good job!
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