Sunny D.
Yelp
I was pleasantly surprised by cleanliness of the University Hotel, but unfortunately upon checkout, my boyfriend and I received the single worst customer service experience we have ever had.
We checked on January 31, 2014 and stayed at the hotel through January 2, 2015. The night before we were due to check out, January 1, we called the hotel front desk three times from the hours of 1:30am to approximately 3:30am to complain that other guests were being very loud very close to where we were trying to sleep. Each time I called, I was told that the front desk attendant would handle it, but only did after my third call to the front desk did we hear the other guests actually go inside their rooms.
The next morning, my boyfriend and I were very unhappy and frustrated with the hotel's slow response to our complaints, and requested that our room be discounted.
All the manager (Giuseppe) of the hotel had to do was apologize for the fact that we had such a rough night and ask what he could do to make to us happy. However instead of doing that, Giuseppe become aggressive and defensive, and insisted that A) the hotel had handled the issue promptly, that B) it was not the hotel's responsibility to quiet loud guests, and C) that we should have expected the noise given that it was New Year's Day.
My response to Giuseppe's declarations were and are as follows:
1. The situation was dealt with promptly: If this were the case, then why did we have call the front desk three times over the course of several hours? The only time the attendant actually left the office to go ask the partygoers in person to quiet down was the third time I called, and the walls of the hotel were so thin we were able to hear him. At that point, my boyfriend and I were debating whether to actually call the police. When I told this to Giuseppe, he insisted that it is company policy for the desk attendant to call the police themselves after 3 noise complaints - but then admitted that the police were never actually called.
2. It is not the hotel's responsibility to quiet loud guests: Of course it's the hotel's responsibility to quiet loud guests! Phones are provided in guests rooms with a number to directly contact the front desk in the event of a complaint. If the hotel did not want to take responsibility for their guests, why were we told each time we called that it would be taken care of, and why were we not told to call the police directly ourselves? A hotel's absolute goal should be to make sure that all of their guests are comfortable and happy, not to deflect responsibility when that fails to happen.
3. We should have expected the noise given that it was New Years Day: The previous day was New Years Eve, and we hadn't had any complaints about the noise on NYE. Regardless of what day it was, 1:30am to 3:30am is an inappropriate time to be having a party outside, especially when complaints were made. Furthermore, why on earth would Giuseppe defend the people that caused the complaint in the first place?
After deflecting all blame and refusing to take any responsibility for the hotel or to apologize, Giuseppe offered us a paltry $20.00 discount on our stay, which we said was inappropriate. He was rude, aggressive, and refused to take any responsibility or apologize. When we turned down his first offer, he countered with a comp of $50.00, while also accusing us of trying to steal from him and then immediately told us not to "mess with him". My response was that Giuseppe has absolutely no business working in the service industry. A person who is clearly so incapable of making guest's happiness his primary responsibility, and who is apparently unable of hearing a guest's complaint and responding appropriately has no business running a hotel. I couldn't believe how we were being treated!
After all that, Giuseppe insisted that he provided great customer service, gave us his card, and tried to tell us we could have a night free at the hotel. At that point, I was absolute furious. I ripped up the card, which was very rude of me, and told Giuseppe that we would absolutely never stay in the hotel again. And why would we?
Throughout the course of the conversation, Giuseppe was rude, aggressive, and got in our faces. Even after we had all agreed on the $50.00 refund, he kept trying to goad us into arguing with him more. We had to tell him to stop and just give us our refund three times before he would let us leave!
Once we were finally able to obtain our refund, I told Giuseppe on our way out the door that I would be writing a review of our argument on yelp, because I believe potential guests have a right to be informed. Giuseppe tried to scare me away from doing so by yelling that it was a felony to threaten someone with a bad yelp review. However, seeing as our transaction had already been completed, it was not a threat. How awful to provide such poor customer service, and then attempt to frighten someone away from reporting it!