"It is
impossible for ideas to compete in the marketplace if no forum for
John Hathaway-Bates
Today I do something I have never had to do before - I am removing a Hotel from our recommended list of Business Forum Hotels. (http://www.bizforum.org/www_hotels.htm). I feel therefore that it is only fair that I explain why I am doing this, so that our Sponsors, Members, Supporters and friends all over the world understand exactly why it is necessary for me to do this, from my old-fashioned viewpoint - but I pray that this is not going to be the wave of the future. I have recommended the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach for many years, (in fact since the day it was created out of the Le Meridian Hotel that proceeded it on the property), to both our friends and sponsors and on our web site (We got 627,542 hits last month from all over the World) - and now I wish to stop recommending this Hotel, as it appears that what I have been recommending it for may no longer exist. Note: None of the Hotels on our "recommended" list have ever asked me to recommend them, nor have they ever paid me to do so. The fact is that I have just provided this service to my friends because I think that good professional service should always be rewarded; and so I took it upon myself many years ago to become an unpaid and amateur West Coast Hotel critic for our friends and supporters. The problem that I have today, is that there may be a lot of people out there planning events at the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach based upon my original recommendation, and if they get the standard of service that I received this last month they might well blame us for it, with all the legal consequences that that entails. As most of you know, we have always held our Forums in the very best Hotels in the cities where we operate, and so over the years we have built up relationships with a list of Hotels where the service is exemplary and the ambience of the property is far above average; where the Chef is brilliant and the waiters, doormen, valets, etc. are polite, more than helpful and always courteous. During that time, we have also built friendships with the staff of the Hotels we use to the point where we accommodate them and they in turn accommodate us, when things do not go exactly as planned. The examples of how we have worked with our hotels when they dropped the ball, are just as many as the times that they have helped us when some Act of God, or a silly mistake on my part, made us do exactly the same. There are few things that ever go exactly to plan; and everyone makes a mistake now and then - but it is how you put it right and make things work after the mistake is made that really matters. It is upon that philosophy that we choose the Hotels that go on our recommended list and why I am doing what I am doing now by removing the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach from our recommended list. For example, When the lights (and the air-conditioning) went out in San Francisco a few years back we were holding a luncheon at the Park Hyatt Hotel. The staff were efficiently amazing as they dealt with the event, (proving beyond any doubt the value of quality training in Customer Service), and as our meeting was being hosted in the basement (no windows), we were a little fragmented for a while. We could have started demanding our money back, as many did, but in fact not only did the meeting go very well under the dim emergency lighting, as the temperature went up, and up, and up . . . . at the end of our slightly shortened meeting the Hotel presented each of our guests with a small box of chocolate truffles as they were leaving. They also forgot the guarantee and only charged the sponsor for the number that actually attended and waived the costs of valet parking for our guests - That is what I consider to be Class! Next: Once at the Le Meridian Hotel, which became the Sutton Place Hotel, (the Hotel we are removing from our list today,) we had twenty four guests arrive to find that the Hotel had actually double booked the room we were to use for our lunch, and it was already occupied with a presentation that had been going on since breakfast. My guests actually turned to and helped the staff set up a table on the patio next to the bar; and although we started fifteen minutes late, everything went fine. - It never occurred to me to ask for a discount, or start waving my contract at them - for such things do happen! Next: When I became ill on the plane going to San Francisco, the Westin Saint Francis Hotel not only sent a town car to pick me up, (I make a point of calling the Hotel when I first arrive in town to double check everything is on line for a successful event), they gave me a suite to rest up in before the lunch and called a doctor for me, (all at absolutely no charge). I recovered and the meeting went better than anyone could have imagined. (The sponsor’s representative did however looked visibly worried throughout the event.) - That is what I call caring for the customer and providing the epitome of old world service! Next: Once when we were organizing a meeting for the Business Council of the United Nations, the Mexican Ambassador to the UN arrived at the Sheraton Grande in Los Angeles the night before to find a few minor snafus had been made in the arrangements, which the hotel staff put right immediately. What proved their exemplary level of service however, was that the General Manager drove in from off property to personally apologize for any inconvenience that might have been caused. - That is hospitality! Next: A couple of months back at a meeting we were holding at the River Place Hotel in Portland, I arrived to find a beautiful table impeccably and beautifully laid for fifty people - for a lunch that we had twelve people scheduled to attend. No one started waving a contract in my face, or even tried to accredit blame or work out what had gone wrong, or who was to blame, they just set to and re-set the room for twelve - even someone from the front desk pitched in - That is pride and efficiency and service at the highest level and no five star Hotel in London, Paris, Rome, Madrid or Vienna (and I have used many of them) could have done any better! Next: When the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel in Seattle changed management and became the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, I got four phone calls (including one from the Fairmont in San Jose) promising me that any arrangement I had had with the Four Seasons would be honored by the new management and the departing Catering Director personally introduced me to the incoming Director taking his position. That is what "buying goodwill" is all about - and well proved the professionalism of everyone involved! Next: Returning to the Palace Hotel in San Francisco last month after at least a fifteen month absence, I found that today they serve only a buffet breakfast - but one of the waiters in the Garden Court saw me wandering around slightly dazed and came up to me and explained that I should take my usual table and he would bring me "your two medium poached eggs, white toast, no crusts and Worcestershire Sauce, Mr. Hathaway" - and how nice it was to see me again. When a Hotel has staff like that, how can they fail? In almost a quarter of a century we have built up a list of such examples long enough to be a book. But the most helpful relationship we have with our Hotels, and what encouraged me to recommend them to our friends, members, supporters and sponsors in the first place, is that when events happen that could jeopardize the success of the meeting, the staff at our Hotels always work with us. In more than twenty years if I have ever had to reschedule a meeting for any reason, provided I gave them enough notice (three or four working days) every one of my hotels has always worked with me, and allowed me to reschedule without charge. I work with Hotels that will even waive the guarantee when a rainstorm, earthquake, traffic jam or something else, reduces the number of guests that attend. All of the Hotels we use for our Forums also know that all of the organizational details of every meeting we hold are always handled by us alone. (The sponsor merely agrees to pay the costs of the event afterwards). In fact I make a point of always checking that the Hotel employee working with us (if they are new) understands that we have a long term relationship with their establishment and I always tell them to make sure they check our file so that everything is as it always is for the event. In other words, The Business Forum brings the Hotel a great deal of business and the Hotel returns the favor with a high standard of service and a presentation that is always the same. Seeing as we have never asked for a kick-back, commission or personal favor from them of any kind, why would they not do so? Until this last month it has never failed - since 1982 until now. Last month however, it failed big time at the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach, California - and we shall not be going back to them again! I have worked with the Sutton Place Hotel in Newport Beach, California for as long as it has existed, and I have brought them dozens of clients that became repeat business for them – my friends even held their daughter's marriages there - and we have never asked for a reduced rate, a commission, a favor, or a personal benefit of any kind, beyond them providing good service, because the level of service that we (and our friends) received until this last month was always worth every penny that was charged for it. But this time I was working with someone I had not worked with before, so I went through the usual procedure with her, explained how we worked, confirmed the details for the meeting by fax as we always do, and asked them to get just the payment details from the Sponsor of the event concerned, but to work everything else through me. That, as far as I was concerned, was that – I believed that the Sutton Place staff would do their usual exemplary job and everything would work exactly as it always has. But it did not! It actually turned into an experience that I would not wish upon anyone. What happened was that a week before the event it became apparent that the speaker would not be able to attend. So, as always, I called the Hotel, explained the situation and asked if we could put the meeting back a month. (I have phone records to prove the calls of course) and I was told we could do that, without charge as usual, and so of course, I believed what I was told. Their word had always held up before! Some days later however, (the day before the original date that the meeting was going to be held), the sponsor received a phone call from the Catering Manager and was informed that a full Cancellation Charge would be levied. The sponsor of course then called me - and I in turn called the Catering Manager, and the result was that I learned that the Hotel had changed ownership, (no one had told me that when I booked the event of course) and I was informed that our past relationship with them is now irrelevant and the old arrangements no longer apply - (they did not tell me that either when I booked the meeting). I was also told that as the sponsor had signed the contract and was paying for the event, she (the Catering Manager) had seen absolutely no reason to communicate with me before the meeting. The sponsor had signed the contract and it would be enforced. I explained my conversation with her assistant and the fact that we had not "cancelled" the meeting, we had merely rescheduled it with almost a week's notice to put it back a month - her reply was "Did you talk to me?" - I explained that she had not been available when I called - she told me I should have called back - and so on, and so on, until I finally asked if I might talk to the General Manager - to be honest by that time I was in shock. Can I help it if her staff have not been trained fully enough to report back to her? The General Manager called me the next day; however he obviously did not want to listen to what I was trying to explain to him, he merely and I thought, very pompously, reworded his Catering Manager's position almost exactly. I explained to him in the most genteel words that I could muster, that I had called a member of his staff and had rescheduled the meeting and I had been told that there would be no charge as I had given them ample time to change the arrangements - and his reply? "Did anyone confirm that to you in writing" Again, can I help it if his staff have not been trained well enough to report back to him either? I took the word of his staff and therefore I was duped into being placed into a position where it would appear to my sponsor that I am breaking my word - and everything I am and everything I do, depends upon people being able to accept my word as my bond. That of course should have been the end of conversation - for if someone's word is only good if you get it in writing afterwards, well, what is the point! What really hit me though, was that when I explained to him that I had been working with the property for many years and had brought them so much business they might want to make an exception for my sponsor this one time - he replied something to the effect that as his company had not owned the property back then, he was more interested in today's profits, than he was in old relationships that I "might" have had with previous owners. I really felt at that moment like going out and rounding up a band of homeless people to take them there for lunch, so that at least someone would benefit from the whole affair – but the "new management" of the Hotel probably has a rule against that as well! So, the question is, where did the flowers and the food I am going to have to pay for go? - I guess that God only knows, because no-one at the Sutton Place Hotel has been able to tell me! So now, I have a sponsor that I have worked with for many years that believes that either I am an idiot, or at the very least that I am losing my touch and making statements that do not hold up. The end result being that as I told the sponsor there would be no cancellation charge after I had rescheduled the meeting (as I was told by the Sutton Place staff) – I am honor bound to keep my word, and therefore I am on the hook for $850, as far as I can understand, maybe more - and that is out of my personal pocket - for there is no way that I can charge my naive belief in someone's word not kept off onto my members! On top of that, my sponsor has been inconvenienced because the Sutton Place Hotel already called them and told them that their credit card had been charged - before the General Manager even bothered to call me. So as you can see, there is absolutely no way that I can continue to recommend an establishment that treats a long term repeat client like that to my sponsors, members, supporters and friends. A Hotel that will not "work with me" is not a hotel that I would work with again, nor can I recommend the place to anyone else - at least not while it is under the same unsophisticated and terribly rude management that begins every conversation by not trusting anything the customer might say. I went as far as to send a draft copy of this letter to the General Manager of the Sutton Place Hotel, prior to publishing it, explaining that all he needed to do was call my sponsor and explain that there had been a misunderstanding and the "cancellation fee" would be forgiven. Instead he called me and implied that he really did not care, as he was sure no-one else would care what I thought anyway and so it would not affect his business in any way! My father always used to say “Never trust anyone you do business with who does not trust you.” The reason being that someone who does not trust you, is most likely “projecting” their own level of honesty and character upon everyone else; and Hugh Saunders (one of my mentors and variously Corporate Secretary for Lever Brothers, Director of the Diamond Institute, a Barrister at the Inner Temple of the British Law Courts and my father’s Commanding Officer during World War II, told me that “the best way to judge any organization is to evaluate the people that they employ compared to your own standards”. Why is it we only remember good advice after we have forgotten to follow it? So I would suggest to all of my sponsors, friends, members and supporters that have a need to hold a meeting in Southern Orange County that they call Sherrie Becker at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel at 714-662-6616 - this lady is a professional and a real gentleman, based upon what I know of her and her treatment of us and our sponsors to date. She will keep her word and she will treat you like a friend - and you have my word that you will receive five star service and full value for what you pay for and real and honest hospitality! (Mention my name if you wish). How I miss the good old days when a gentleman’s word was his bond, and when people told you something they actually meant it; those wonderful days when the Innkeeper greeted his guests by name with a handshake and a smile, (as the professionals at our listed Hotels still do) as opposed to being greeted by someone holding a contract in their hand and treating you as if you might just be a criminal and that in some way they are doing you a favor by taking your business and your money.
You can
email me at
john@bizforum.org To
view our World Information Pages, go to:
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2001 January
2002
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