The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Apart from the fact they are hideously overpriced and generally hugely underwhelming, what they term as ‘service’ is what does my head in.

I’m staying at the Purlitzer in Amsterdam.

It’s a hotel in a beautiful location … right on the canal … however so far, that is about as beautiful as it gets.

I got to the hotel yesterday morning at 7am.

With traveling time and connections, that means I’d spent over 19 hours to get to Amsterdam plus I had an additional hours delay while Dutch customs officers searched my bags because I apparently have the look of an archetypal drug smuggler … though I would imagine that means the real drug smugglers look completely the opposite to me. Say Brad Pitt.

Anyway, I walk in and after spending a good 10 minutes trying to make eye contact with a receptionist doing her best to avoid my gaze, I then get told my room was not ready.

OK – it was early so these things happen – however when I asked if there was somewhere I could shower and change they said no … not because they don’t have the facilities … but because they couldn’t formally ‘check me in’ they could not give me access to the changing rooms.

So after 19 hours of travel, the hotel that was charging me 299 Euros [+ tax] felt they had done enough and the receptionist asked me to …

“Move aside, so she could serve the other people in line”.

Nice.

Now I know I’m pro-Asia and that labour is much cheaper over there, so you can hire more people to ‘do stuff’ … but this scenario just wouldn’t happen there, at least in a semi decent hotel.

Whether you were in Singapore, Shanghai, Bangkok or Bali … you wouldn’t see most of the hotel staff talking to each other and ignoring their customers.

You wouldn’t be left feeling that the slightest request was either too hard or not in their job description.

You wouldn’t be left without alternatives.

You wouldn’t be left full stop.

I’m not trying to make a hard luck story out of this – I know how lucky I am to be staying in Amsterdam in a beautiful location – however whenever you stay in a hotel, the experience you receive does have a baring on what you think or remember about a place and that is why I believe a nations tourism board should be placing expectations on service levels at international hotels rather than just leaving it to the hotel.

The reason I say that – facilities & styling aside [and why the fuck do so many hotels in the West – and a few in Asia – not include a toothbrush in the room!] – is because I believe part of the reason for the Purlitzer’s bad service is due to the culture of the country, rather than the company.

OK … OK … I accept that a company should be able to counter stuff like that with it’s training, however as I’ve been banging on for at least 5 years, culture influences/dictates attitude and behaviour far more than it is given credit for … so given I’ve stayed many times at hotels in Asia that are part of the same group as the Purlitzer and had great experiences – I would say the reason for the staffs attitude is something that goes beyond a lack of training.

I remember watching a documentary that said the reason service standards in the West are often quite poor is because they felt ‘looking after a strangers wellbeing’ made them feel a ‘lower class of human’ and as such, behaved in a way that implied they didn’t care as it made them feel superior in the interaction.

Now I don’t know enough about the Dutch culture to say if this applies to them or not [but I’m sure my lovely friends Jonathan & Truus will tell me all about it tonight] however if the generalised and extremely overly simplistic view of them being blunt and not suffering fools gladly is true, maybe that could be a contributing reason for what I’m experiencing at the moment … it’s certainly safe to say that this is one of the only hotels I’ve ever been to where all the staff seem to come from Holland which would mean any outside influence interms of service standards and expectation just aren’t there.

The thing is, good service isn’t about superiority or subserviancy, it is about – in very simplistic terms – ensuring life runs smoothly for the person paying for the experience, and whilst there may be the odd hiccup or bump in the road that can’t be avoided, not making an effort to find a mutually advantageous solution actually makes you feel worse about the place than if they tried something and fucked it up.

Which all goes to show that brand positionings count for absolute shit if you can’t back it up with the experience.