A former worker at the Hyatt and Hilton chains of hotels has shared the inside goss on a system used by the hotel staff to monitor which guests have been making complaints, and judge them accordingly. Seems like these hotels really said “the customer is NOT always right”.
Ex-hotel staff member Katie Stapp (@melvcookie) has made her claim to fame by spilling tea on the resort’s complaint tracking system.
“It’s called a service recovery tab in their system, and you can find out what people complain about, what kind of compensation they got, and then you get to read comments about the person posting the complaint,” Stapp explained.
@melvcookie #hotel #motel #travel #karen #chad #advice ♬ original sound – KT
She then went on to detail how it would often be the case that customers would make it a habit of always complaining when staying at the hotel, and always expected to receive compensation regardless of how truthful their complaint was.
Kind of like how I always make sure I take home the complimentary shampoos and conditioners. It’s just part of the experience.
Thing is, Stapp points out that the hotels aren’t big fans of customers trying to get the one up on them.
The TikToker told the story of how a man on the Hyatt’s rewards system was observed by hotel staff as always claiming that it was his wedding anniversary and deserved a free wine.
A lie that was easily foiled, using the hotel’s complaint tracking system as it had logged the different dates the man claimed were all his anniversary.
I mean honestly, respect the grift, but that’s just sloppy man. If you’re gonna rip off the big hotel chains like this, you gotta be more savvy than that. At least say it’s a birthday once or twice.
Stapp then made the point that “people like that should be banned from using the rewards program.”
“And I really wish every hotel chain did that, just to protect themselves from losing money. To also know what they’re expecting from people — their behaviour might become so erratic. Like you might have to kick them out of the program, and some hotels do that!” Stapp shared.
She clarified that this type of kick them out model is only used for “people that are extremely verbally abusive” and are clearly trying to exploit the goodwill of the staff working there.
So this is less of a case of hotels kicking out people who claim it’s their birthday for a free cake every night, and more a case of them keeping their receipts in the situations where they need to handle problematic guests.
Stapp said herself that “if you complain once in a while that is fine — and you deserve to be compensated for terrible things!”
“But if terrible things happen at every single place you stay… that’s a problem.”
The video has been viewed on TikTok a massive 310K times, and has over 700 comments that are debating the ethical dilemmas this system creates.
“Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the poor billion dollar hotel chains?” One commenter sarcastically wrote, pointing out that it is a little bit of a world’s smallest violin situation in regards to how much we should care about Hilton and Hyatt losing money on the occasional free wine.
However others disagreed, and took to the defence of the hospitality workers who are forced to manage these problematic customers.
“YES!!!! the customer is not always right. Drives me crazy!!!” a user wrote.
While another pointed out that working front desk at a hotel was the “worst job” they ever had: “Grown people screaming at you like toddlers because they can’t get room 116.”
Moral of the story: treat people kindly and they’ll treat you kindly.
Treat people poorly, and you’ll be stuck without free wine on your 17th anniversary.
