On 4 June 2006 my Wife and I were due to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary. My Wife currently lives in the US and I live in London. So I went ahead and booked a flight, and a room at the Waldorf Astoria in New York and a dinner reservation at their famous Bull & Bear restaurant – where we celebrated our wedding exactly one year ago to the day.
I am not the most creative when it comes to celebrations and recreational ideas but I felt pretty good about this, I thought it would be nice for me and my Wife to revisit the scene a year later, just the two of us and reflect on that day and the loved ones that travelled so far to be with us.
On 30 May I was in what I can only describe as extreme pain, I went to see my doctor and he sent me to hospital directly. As Dave Ramsey likes to say “Life Happens”, and it did.
It’s Tuesday (I’m in hospital) and my flight is on Friday and our wedding anniversary is on Sunday, it dawns on me (even though I’m a guy) that things are probably going to get cancelled.
I call my Wife from the hospital and calmly let her know what’s going on – she books a flight to London.
I ring up Virgin Atlantic to cancel the flight, they say (due to the circumstances) they will honour the flight another time – until they realise I have booked through a travel agent and inform me that they can’t make any alterations and I should phone the agent.
I call eBookers, explain the situation, they tell me the ticket is non-refundable (I know this) but they can refund the airport taxes after charging me an administration fee. The airport tax is almost a third of the ticket price so I take it and then phone my travel insurance company who send me out a claim form.
On Friday evening I get discharged from hospital, my illness, although causing me a great deal of pain is not uncommon, is not life threatening and will remedy itself. My gratitude, my relief are hard to describe, my belief and faith in God and in Jesus are magnified, tears are shed.
By this time I have clearly missed my flight, which I had already cancelled and in any case my Wife is with me. I call the Waldorf Astoria – this is the instructive part of the story – and explain the situation, the lady on the phone explains the reservation I made is non-refundable. I thank the lady and put the phone down.
Frame of reference No 1 (me)
I knew the room was a non-refundable booking when I booked it, when I went to the website to book a room they had a special/promotion Sunday night booking for $367.45 (yes, this is the special discounted rate) – I booked it – non-refundable, it makes no difference to me, it’s my anniversary.
The flight – same deal exactly, I don’t take transatlantic flights on a whim, if I want to fly to New York on a particular day it’s because I have good reason.
I have no grievance with the Waldorf or eBookers, do you know why? Because when I booked these I knew they were non-refundable, life happens, I’ve just been discharged from hospital, my Wife is by my side, I am a happy man! (even considering the pain even considering lost wages, as a contractor, I listen to Dave Ramsey – I have an emergency fund in place and am not too out of pocket).
Frame of reference No 2 (my Wife)
My Wife chose the Waldorf Astoria above many other possible venues, this decision was not based on price. She chose the Waldorf to celebrate her marriage to me with the important people in our life. Our tiny gathering was nothing compared to the Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones extravaganza but it was our special day.
She has travelled 3,000 miles at short notice, at great expense because she has been told that her husband is in hospital, she does not know what’s wrong with him.
So my Wife rang the Waldorf about 3 minutes after I finished speaking to them and after a quick pre-amble with the operator asked to speak to a supervisor, after some wait a supervisor came to the phone. My Wife explained how exactly one year ago we had our reception at the Waldorf – (the booking was still “non-refundable”), my Wife went on to tell the supervisor that she works for a large investment bank in New York and when travelling on business only stays at the Hilton (the Waldorf is owned by Hilton Hotels Corporation) and actively recommends it to colleagues (all true!) still the booking is “non-refundable”.
Exasperated my Wife asks if the booking can be moved or a credit be put towards another stay (clearly our intention was to stay there in particular not just any hotel in NYC), nope, the booking is non-refundable, non-transferable, non-redeemable just about any word with the prefix “non” – were we in France? Non!
The conversation ended suddenly with the sound of plastic striking Formica (neither the phone or table suffered any damage). I was in the next room, not because I’m scared by my Wife or because she is a scary woman but because she had a very serious look before phoning. When my Wife looks serious… it’s serious.
So what IS my point?
My point is this: the Waldorf Astoria were correct in upholding the non-refundable status of the booking. If I never went there again it would make no impact on their business, if Michael Douglass never went there again it would make no difference, if everyone in Hollywood boycotted the Hilton on his say so, it would still probably not make any difference to their bottom line.
A few years ago the big business buzz-words were customer-focus, customer-orientated, customer-led… Clearly in retrospect this was in fact a fad, borne out by out-sourcing and off-shoring the new not-so-buzz-words.
One of largest business costs is still customer acquisition but somehow businesses fail miserably in the area of customer retention. This may in some ways be irrelevant for a publicly owned company with huge critical mass, such as Hilton Hotels. They could probably close their customer services department tomorrow (maybe they have already;O) and still do business for the next decade leaning on their brand name alone.
But for other small businesses, entrepreneurs and marketers this story is instructive. You can NEVER underestimate the lifetime value of your customer, their ability to endorse you, to recommend you, to even build your brand for you – at no charge!
Nothing can take away my memory of our wedding day and the evening we spent at the Waldorf, it was exceptional, the attention to detail, the staff, the timing, really were faultless, nearly everyone made some remark to this effect.
At the end of the day the Waldorf get to keep their $367.45 and rightfully so (it was, after all, non-refundable), and my Wife and I get to choose were we stay and were we spend our money.
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Author: Noel Byrne
http://sitesforbusiness.blogspot.com/
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