Friday, August 18, 2006

Bad experience with DoubleTree suites

I am explicitly taking out some time out of my busy schedule today to write this post.

I came to New Jersey for the first time as a consquence of a new job. Until I found an apartment I chose to live in DoubleTree suites & Hotels (Newport branch) which is a part of the Hilton Hotels umbrella.

My experience with DoubleTree was really really bad and I was absolutely appalled by the kind of customer service they offer.

Basic things like clean rooms, with all the needed utilities and amneties were all perfect. There was no problem with that.

The ugly part is here.

Avis car rentals has an office right in the lobby of the same hotel. I didn't really know this and called the front desk about renting cars. The front desk dosen't really want to talk straight. It dosent understand what the hell customer service means.
The lady who picked up my call answers in an irritated tone saying that 'Sir, why don't you call the Avis rentals rather than asking me?'. It seemed like by telling me this she was doing me a huge favour for which I'd owe her one.

Finally gives me the phone number for Avis rentals which dosent work! I had to go on the Avis website and get thier number.

This is bad service. Real bad service.

Here is another one.

Internet access in DoubleTree suites is not Wireless. Its Wireless only in Public areas.

Crap!

In which age are they living? 1760's?

Tell me which hotel today dosent have a wireless connectivity in rooms?

To add to that, the wireless connectivity is available for 9.95$ per day. This is a too expensive. No value for money ! Total crap!

I had lived in Extended Stay hotels in the past and they offer wireless connectivity in every room for 4.95$ for the entire stay. Thats what I call value for money. These guys (Extended Stay) make profit too but they don't rip the customer off for making the profit. They do ethical business.

When you check-in to DoubleTree they offer you Choclate Chip cookies as a warm welcome. This is a total gimmick! They have no Idea of good customer service at all. The warmness in the customer service dissappears as soon as you get into your room.

With all these problems I'd advise anybody NOT to choose DoubleTree suites for your stay if you want that stay to be comfortable. There are a million other hotels and you shud rather choose those.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am afraid you are quite wrong to insist on wireless connection in private rooms.

For secure connection you should use a cable connection.

It is OK to do websurfing wirelessly in a public area but you are taking a risk if you use the connection to connect to, say, your bank.