I'm two days into finding meeting space for my public workshops and I'm already encountering a disturbing trend. In today's economic climate you'd expect hotels showing an extra bit of hustle to try to bring in some extra business. Right? Quite the contrary it seems. Calling clients and submitting proposals doesn't seem to be part of the sales plan for some of the hotels I've contacted.

Both Hotel A and Hotel B (names withheld because it is an active sales process) promise a one business day response time when you submit a request for proposal on their websites. Here are the actual results:

If customer service is defined by the extent you meet the customers expectations, then receiving a proposal within one day equals good service. This means Hotel A delivered poor service (i.e. fell short of expectations) in 6 out of 7 instances.

Hotel B fared a little better, but several of their emails missed key details from my request for proposal. This required me to email back and forth several times and one hotel was eventually excluded from my search because the sales person didn't answer my questions after emailing three times.

Only two salespeople performed at a very good level. One person from Hotel A and one from Hotel B called me to confirm my requirements and then promptly emailed a proposal that directly addressed my needs. 

Stay tuned...