Bad service at luxury hotels…a rant.

London Hotels Insight blogger Andrea has a good old rant about several occasions when she has received bad service in London hotels...

I occasionally get to attend industry events in various four and five star hotels around London.  I also sometimes work at beer festivals.  You wouldn’t think, perhaps, that the two have much in common; but actually, hosting a business trade event with a bar serving canapés and cocktails isn’t all that different from hosting a beer bar with a few snacks on the side.

The basic principles of good customer service still apply.

So does basic health and safety.  For instance, if you ever hear a glass hit the floor at Norwich Beer Festival, you can guarantee there will be an orange tee-shirted staff member on the scene with a brush and dustpan before you can count to ten.  It’s quite fundamental, isn’t it?

So imagine my surprise recently when someone I know backed into a table at a big 5 star London hotel, knocking over three champagne glasses – and forty-five minutes later, no one had turned up to remove the debris!

Instead I saw a number of very highly-paid professionals trying to pick up the largest bits themselves and brush the rest under the table.

Other basics: customer wants a drink, customer gets a drink.  OK, on Friday night at a busy bar, you’re always making excuses.  It’s busy, people will have to wait but you let them know you’ve seen them and they’ll be served once you finish the next two orders.  An understanding smile doesn’t cost a penny – one or two London hotel bars would do well to remember this.

Bars do get crowded at weekends...but that's no excuse for stroppy staff, particularly in bars which charge a hefty premium for standard drinks (image credit below)

And in another 5 star London hotel recently, I was amazed that the bar staff couldn’t seem to work out that we were craning our necks around trying to catch sight of them because we wanted a drink.  It’s not rocket science!  I personally think it’s a bit naff to wave a twenty pound note at bar staff, just as it’s naff to bash your empty glass on the bar to call for service – but I don’t expect to have to behave like that to get served.

Worst of all was an incident at another well-known luxury hotel.  One of my pet hates is the way hotels always serve things on cocktail sticks, but they never give you anywhere to put the cocktail stick when you’ve finished the prawn, or sausage, or devilled prune, or whatever.  And since the smoking ban, there are no ashtrays around either.

So I deposited the surplus cocktail stick on one of the tables.  A moment later, one of the staff walked up, picked up the cocktail stick, and jabbed it into my hand.  “The table is not for rubbish,” he said, and walked off.

Fine.   My hand is not for exercising sado-masochistic fantasies on either.

I sometimes wonder if certain big hotels use agency staff for big trade events and conferences.  Maybe they think people who are coming to an event for free are not worth bothering about?

Unfortunately for them, journalists with free tickets are quite likely to write about their experiences.  But when I receive better service at a beer festival than in a 5 star hotel, I do think there’s something wrong.

Particularly when there are some brilliantly-talented hotel staff employed in London hotels these days.  Generally, I find the situation a bit better in smaller boutique luxury hotels, where the people who work there treat you almost as though they are hosting you in their own homes.

Nickel and diming of guests with expensive WiFi charges is one of the most shortsighted policies which some London luxury hotels still persist in (image credit below)

Lastly, it’s a more subtle form of bad service listed in our top 10 hotel rip-offs recently, but don’t you hate it when luxury hotels charge for WiFi?

The worst part is that they rarely disclose it clearly on their website.  And given that many mid-range London hotels offer free WiFi, don’t they feel a bit ashamed at charging their guests an additional £20 + per day on top of already eye-wateringly expensive room rates?  Wonders never cease!

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Photo credits: Nancy Coop’s photostream, danielmoyle’s photostream.