Kevin Hunt Video

I’ve got a simple philosophy when it comes to customer service.

I never want my customers to feel the way I’ve felt over and over again from hotels, airlines, restaurants, satellite TV/cable and on and on. I trust you know the feeling from the culprits on that list.

One of my most recent bits of fun came during a trip my family took to the largest waterpark/hotel in Wisconsin Dells, in mid-May. I won’t bother naming it because I’d prefer not to get another call from them, offering to “make it up to me” with a pathetic “gift” to get me to drive back to the Dells. In this era of $4 a gallon gas, the “gift” is less than what I’d pay in gas.

Seriously.

Anyway, I was upset that one of their indoor waterpark attractions was closed for reconstruction, despite it being advertised on their Web site without any mention of that closure.

And, when I asked a couple lifeguards if that particular attraction would be open during my family’s visit I was met with blank stares, as if I was speaking, well… English.

Clearly they weren’t from this continent.

Long story short, I complained and got the “explanation”. I told the management that advertising the attraction on the Web without any indication that it wasn’t even available would be like me advertising a product/service on my Web site and saying… “Uh, sorry… I don’t do that anymore.”

Nice.

So they offered me a $100 gift card and an apology.

Again, I think the summer room rate is at least $150, and it’ll cost me a good chunk of my day job paycheck to drive there and back.

No thanks. I can tell you with 100% certainty that I will never stay at that waterpark/hotel again.

Plain and simple… Customer service is about doing things right in the first place. And making things right if the customer feels shortchanged. Is that so hard?

Now, don’t make me tell you how clueless DirecTV was when I recently left them for Dish Network. That’s a story for another post.