Virgin Beach Resort, Laiya - Customer Disservice

[j_avonni]

What would you do if you were in the shoes of this customer:


The customer e-mailed the resort for some queries:

hi i have questions about your resort and since we already confirmed and paid half of the price, we just want to make sure about the rules and what you can do to accomodate these requests and questions we got:

can we bring in food and drinks for my one year old son? like wilkins water and his baby food snacks? if so, are we going to be charge?

can we request if you can put a note to the kitchen that my husband cannot be served food with shrimp and crabs and eggplant? are we going to be charged by this request of special food preference?

can we use your microwave oven, if you got one, for sterilization of my son’s milk bottles? it’s only for 4 minutes. if so, are we going to be charge?

i hope you can reply soon about this so we can prepare for this first family vacation we are going to have. we will understand if you cannot accomodate these request, or if we will be charge accordingly.

i have heard so many bad comments about your resort, but we are giving you the possibility that your resort is one of the best places we would be in laiya.
thank you very much for your kind consideration. we are looking forward to enjoy our stay in your beautiful resort.



The customer called the next day and she was told that they can bring in those things and they can use their microwave oven and took note of her husband’s food request.

And when she checked her mail later, this was the reply:



Dear Mrs. Kesner,

You seem to have started on the wrong foot based on your email dated May 23 pertaining to your planned stay at Virgin Beach Resort this coming June 3 to 5. Your comments smack of intimidation, negative criticism based on hearsay, and sarcasm. You haven’t been to our place yet, but you are already questioning our rules, sarcastically asking if we are that strict, and then finally telling us you don’t want us to spoil your vacation. With your approach and attitude, we don’t see any possibility that you will be pleased, no matter how hard we will try to please you. Therefore we will mutually benefit by your not proceeding with your planned stay. We are gladly refunding your deposit early part of next week.

Allow us to take this opportunity to explain about ourselves. We have a substantial market, and many are returning guests. What they find nice about our place is that they have peace and quiet. On the average, our guests are upscale, and decent. During times when the volume of guests is high, our guests still enjoy their privacy. Modesty aside, we have one of the cleanest resorts in the country. Our accommodations are generously proportioned, practical, and clean. Guests also find our food more than acceptable, in terms of flavor, portions, and presentation. Our staff are very accommodating, and dutifully attend to guests needs. Do not misinterpret this to mean that we are perfect. We do have our share of mistakes, but we do our very best to correct them and improve.

All of the above mentioned are not possible if it were not for our concepts and our rules. Would you not agree that we can all be tolerant at times, but without rules or the implementation thereof, our guests would lose the advantages they have found and the things they enjoy at Virgin Beach Resort. It would become just like most of the other places you can find all over.

By the way, you didn’t have to be sarcastic about the snacks. We do allow that, and we also go out of our way to provide special menus for guests who have special dietary needs. It would serve you in good stead if you took the time to understand more about our nature, then perhaps you’ll have some appreciation. Hopefully you will not approach others in similar fashion while you are in this country, otherwise you will never be able to enjoy your vacations.

Thank You.

Grace


Read more about this and the developments:

http://***ynomad.i.ph/blogs/***ynoma...n-beach-laiya/




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[oliver1013]

Hmmmm, weird, yung Grace kaya ang may ari o manager lang Kung totoo yan wag sila papakasiguro ang daming malalakas na Resort sa La Union dati ngayon sarado na. Nagyon may internet na, mas mabilis kumalat ang negative feedbacks.

[wakin]

grabe! dapat call the resort again and confirm who's grace.

[toinktoink]

[quote=j_avonni;822166]What would you do if you were in the shoes of this customer:

i have heard so many bad comments about your resort, but we are giving you the possibility that your resort is one of the best places we would be in laiya.
thank you very much for your kind consideration. we are looking forward to enjoy our stay in your beautiful resort.


IMO, if i were the guest, i will not mention this comments... Kasi kung isa ako sa mga employee dun, i will mark "X" on those guest. For me all the request are reasonable, except on this remark. .. I will do the same as grace did! My opinion only!!

[redorange]

IMO, if i were the guest, i will not mention this comments... Kasi kung isa ako sa mga employee dun, i will mark "X" on those guest. For me all the request are reasonable, except on this remark. .. I will do the same as grace did! My opinion only!!

And you would promptly be fired in the hospitality industry for replying like Grace. The person just said that she heard bad reviews about the resort but still willing to give them a try to show that those reviews were wrong. As someone who managed for an international hotel property management company we would be happy that a person would allow us the opportunity to prove the reviews are wrong. In the hospitality industry serving the customer is your life blood and stupid letters like Grace can cause big money as a public relations nightmare.

[Bogeyman]

Mali naman yung tinuran nung Grace, naging defensive agad. Pero on the other hand, yan din ang hirap kasi pag written communication; you immediately miss those little nuances that reveal whether or not a person is being sincere or sarcastic. Most of us would probably find nothing wrong with the customer's legitimate queries, but obviously this Grace isn't as enlightened.

Mas maganda siguro kung tumawag na lang yung customer sa resort mismo imbes na padaanin pa sa e-mail, at least masasagot agad yung mga katanungan niya. Na-feature pa naman ang Virgin Beach Resort sa "Ang Pinaka" ng QTV-11.

[utk505]

[QUOTE=toinktoink;822196]

What would you do if you were in the shoes of this customer:

i have heard so many bad comments about your resort, but we are giving you the possibility that your resort is one of the best places we would be in laiya.
thank you very much for your kind consideration. we are looking forward to enjoy our stay in your beautiful resort.


IMO, if i were the guest, i will not mention this comments... Kasi kung isa ako sa mga employee dun, i will mark "X" on those guest. For me all the request are reasonable, except on this remark. .. I will do the same as grace did! My opinion only!!

+1 ako dito

[Bogeyman]

The problem is what if management is not informed about the wrongdoings of this Grace?

Well, this is one way that management becomes aware of Grace's misbehavior, although it is unfortunate that they should have to read about it online. If this spreads out far enough, then the management of Virgin Beach Resort can no longer claim to have no knowledge of their employee's misbehavior, and as such act accordingly.

Assuming, of course, that Grace acted on her own accord, without her bosses prodding her to do so. Otherwise, all of them could be held liable. Either way, they need to re-evaluate the way they do things within their organization, if instances like this are to be avoided, and if they really want to match other resorts that are known for excellent customer relations.

Two words come to mind: command responsibility. Generally we frown upon a superior who feigns ignorance of a subordinate's wrongdoing. Since this principle is being applied on matters concerning people in uniform i.e. police and armed forces and the government itself, this might as well apply to civilian organizations, especially those that are in the service sector.

[cutedoc]

agree ok sa la luz, been there before the food is good, they served nice kapeng batangas, bonfire at night, its fun snorkling, the fishes that you see while snorling looks like the tiny fishes served at the buffet table nevertheless the overall is great=)

been to coco groove as well last may 1, the secretary is rude, di kinaya ng charm ko, siguro yung matabang secretary nila sinumpa ng sama ng loob, anyway we were able to talk to the owner of coco groove he is nice, instead of lending us a small room for a day stay, he gave us the tree house, with two room, not bad.

i heard the virgin beach is good but havent tried it yet, i dont want to see grace there if ever

[j_avonni]

Maybe Grace is still a virgin with PMS or an old virgin with MPS! Oh, I'm just joking!



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[utk505]

they messed up with the wrong family

[j_avonni]

I didn't care about the attitude of the complainant in this instance. I became interested in this because of the reply of Grace as an employee of the resort.

We were considering this resort for our outing next year. In the meantime, we already scratched this resort from the list subject to re-inclusion if the explanation of the resort, if there's one, is acceptable.



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[Lemon]

i have heard so many bad comments about your resort, but we are giving you the possibility that your resort is one of the best places we would be in laiya.
thank you very much for your kind consideration. we are looking forward to enjoy our stay in your beautiful resort.

This remark irked the management thats why they replied to the customers' emailed in that manner. But Virgin Beach should have kept their cool. This is not the best way to treat a customer.

[j_avonni]

Here were the developments from the customer (thru the blog of ***ynomad.i.ph)


i just called them up and told them that what they did is not even acceptable. they said that they don’t know about this. they only saw this as a forwarded email from this grace person, who is only a staff in reservations. i told them to bring my money to my place now in cash, because they even wanted to bring me a check. hello?! ok lang sila? i deposited cash, i told them, you should give it back to me as cash or else i would really do something about this legally and tell the media and all. their owner is away, and they even told me that his grace person is on leave since last week. so why the heck she would email me on a weekend this kind of letter? i told them, don’t they get it, just by this person, their company will sure have bad reviews from everywhere. so now i’m waiting for our money. or else. i am not gonna stop unless i talk to the owner and this grace person and know the reason why she had to email me and why do we have to be insulted by this grace person who is not even the contact person i have from their company. this person really insulted us just because we asked questions as guests. i am not going to stop this.

Posted by isi at May 28, 2007, 2:28 pm

-----

now i got my refund well, late in the afternoon. i even asked the messenger who that grace is, secretary daw nung owner, ang sabi sa akin. i got cash, good thing they finally listened to me, because i didn’t want a check.

anyways, i kept on asking them why she did this to us. and i am not going to stop calling and making a letter to the owner who is out of the country until i really know why she did this. or else, i’ll just be informing everybody about this. really. i am going my way to publish this over a few leading newspapers and other media forms.

they messed up with the wrong family.

thank you so much for all your comments about this. thanks so much jen.

Posted by isi at May 29, 2007, 12:09 am




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[BlueBimmer]

IMO after getting their money AND if the management apologized dapat quits na...no use pinapalaki ang issue. yes the hotel will get a bad rep but you cant fault other people for thinking na medyo OA na if natanggap na ang pera and received an apology, IF they received an apology.

[mhelskie]

i totally agree with redorange, in this kind of industry, it's not enough that you have good/great facilities or location. It's just as important that you have courteous staff to compliment your business...

[oliver1013]

Pag may business ka maliit man o malaki kelangan mo i maintain ang good personal realtionship sa lahat mapa customer mo i hindi. Napaka hirap masira ang reputasyon, ang hirap ibalik niyan.

[falken]

Maybe this Grace is a disgruntled employee trying to get back at her boss.

[mazdamazda]

IMO after getting their money AND if the management apologized dapat quits na...no use pinapalaki ang issue. yes the hotel will get a bad rep but you cant fault other people for thinking na medyo OA na if natanggap na ang pera and received an apology, IF they received an apology.

+1 on this.

Sometimes, the customer fail to see that the action of one misbehaving employee does not sometimes speak about the whole company as a whole.

Yes, I'll be pissed off like hell if ever this happens to me - but I won't go on to blog this or post in public forums until I get to the bottom of this first.

She should have waited for the owner to arrive to get to the bottom of this first before posting this out in the public. Try to consider also the other employees (like the one who she spoke to) as they may lose their job if the resort folds up because of this.

But if management or the other employees are trying to avoid you or doesn't respond - then that's the time to start spreading the word around.

[Horsepower]

Talking about customer service.

Ganito nangyari sa akin with a telecom company.

I opted to get their trial DSL account but didn't like it since it's slower than dial-up. So i told them i'm not going through with the subscription.

So months passed, biglang nagpadala ng disconnection notice with bill amounting to 7k!. So siempre, di ko binayaran (since di ko naman nagamit e). Biglang na-disconnect line ko.

So i called the DSL department, since i don't want to waste my time on agents (since they don't have powers to negotiate anyway), i demanded to speak with the supervisor or as high as possible.

I overheard their conversation, ayaw nung supervisor makipag-usap. Having a bad day because i can't receive calls and surf the net for my transactions, I still spoke nicely to the agent. I asked for the name of the supervisor. I left my mobile number and asked to be called back.

They never called me back.

I called again, still the supervisor won't talk to me as if i'm some insignificant customer.

So, i searched for materials regarding the company's status. I sent a 16-page hate fax to the company through all of their fax numbers and metro manila offices in different divisions (about 15-20 i think). hehehehe.

I used my computer to do that so everything's automated. One click and all of the fax machines they have on received my message. Those that are turned-off got it when they were turned on since i have auto-retry on. I did that 4 times.

I cited about their founder, their track record, their debts, our relationship for the past years, about my problem and about their disrespectful employees.

The VP called me back. He sacked the supervisor and the other person responsible for my problem. He cleared everything on the spot, a few minutes later, my line was reconnected.

The agent and I became friends. They now turn off their fax machines at night. Now, whenever i call, i get accomodated readily thru a direct line.