Editing

If you follow me on facebook, or if you read my post about my trip out west recently, you know that it wasn't such a travel dream getting there. I have been trying to recoup spent money and it's like a part-time job. One day I was faxing and emailing and sorting through receipts for a good two hours or so. Not what I want to do with my free time, but you really have to keep up with it.

As part of this "project" I also wrote to the customer service people for the hotel that made me wait in the cold for two hours for the shuttle that never came. First I got a response from the corporate website saying that the General Manager of the hotel had a week and a half to respond to me. Then, when the GM wrote to me (5 days later - he was early!). Here's the letter he sent (keep in mind I did not change any of this letter):

Dear Kelly Steinhauer:

I would like to apologize for the shuttle service you encountered on February 20th . I would like to asure you that I have shared your comments with our Desk and Shuttle departments along with the General Manager of the Hampton Inn in order to examine the problem that occured that evening and to make make changes if needed in order that no future guest will wait a extended amount of time to catch one of our shuttles.

On that evening we were running one shuttle for the two hotels and usually that staffing is able to handle the demand of the airport we were not prepared for the amount of distress passenagers we encountered that evening. The shuttle was dispatched to pick up distress guests at the airport and the problem was two airlines had cancel fights at the same time and we brought back approx 40 people in a two hour time frame and for that level of activity we needed to have more shuttles running.

Please know that problems like this are rare as we communicate with the airport on a nightly basis and when the airport informs us of the amount of distress they will be sending us we make schedule changes to have the proper amount of shuttle service.

I will be sending you a certificate for a complmentary night next time your plans bring you into Denver .

Again,

I do apologize for the inconveince that we caused you that evening.

I have removed his name to protect him from embarrassment should he ever google his name and find this post. But seriously, how could you write a letter riddled with grammatical and spelling mistakes? Surely, all he needed to do was click on the spell-check button. I'll let the grammatical errors slide. I guess.

I didn't stop there. I called the customer service number and complained again. They were very rude to me and couldn't understand why a certificate for a free night at a hotel in Denver was unacceptable. I tried to explain that I was diverted there, that I don't intend on going back to stay in Denver.

Yesterday I got this letter from the GM (again, nothing has been changed):
Dear Kelly Steinhauer:

I sent out a free night gift certificate today that you may use on your next trip to Denver , This should arrive in the mail this in the next few days.

Again I do apolgize for the inconvience you encountered with our shuttle service on your last trip. You were not charged during your last trip by the Baymont Inn & Suites and I am able to offer you this free night for your next stay in Denver.

After all of this hullabaloo I have realized that the customer service policy we had at Einstein's was a really good one. Customers had to receive a response within 24 hours of their complaint. And I know it sounds like a really modern space odyssey kind of a thing, but we actually used the spell check function on our computers.

Imagine that.