Price Gouging, dressed up as Customer Service

I spend a lot of time traveling. About two weeks every month in hotels. New York, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Saskatoon. All the spots you'd expect. So I've become a bit familiar with the tricks of the trade that hotels, airlines, and car rental companies employ to win me over. For the most part, I feel these companies do a good job. And I'm generally a very loyal consumer. My hotels are almost always Marriott. My cars are almost always Avis. My airline is almost always Air Canada.

But one thing in particular irks me to the point of my considering switching companies.

When I check into a hotel and my company is paying as much as a few hundred dollars a night to have me there, I do expect that if that hotel has me as a Platinum member, then they will want me to know I am appreciated. So they put a little basket of chocolate goodies in my room, and a fridge full of drinks, and then they even tuck in a little card saying that these conveniences are there to let me know they appreciate my stay. And then they mark up the price of everything by 300% or more.

That's appreciation? And what's with saying "Thank you" by charging me $12.95 a day to have Internet access in my room? And charging me a dollar a minute if I want to print out a page or two at the hotel business center? Believe it or not, I was at a copy center in a top hotel in Atlanta, and as the clerk totaled my order, she asked me if I was staying at the hotel or came in from the street. When I asked why, she said that the hotel added another 30% for guests. They were actually charging people who were already giving them $200 a night, 30% more than people who were not giving them anything! Is this really customer service?

Why not just come right out and admit it, and print on that card, "Dear Guest. Thank you for staying with us. We know that at 2:30 in the morning, if you working on a paper or watching football, or just can't sleep, that you're probably going to be tempted by all this stuff sitting here. And there's no way you're going to go out for a drive when we have it all right here in your room. So we have inflated our prices on items that already have a pretty good profit margin, to three times more than what you'd pay in any store. Please dig in and enjoy. "

How about a new plan? Let's put the same basket in there with all the same goodies, but put in a new note, telling me you appreciate my being there, and I can therefore have one item from the basket at no charge for each night that I stay. What does that cost the hotel? Maybe 40¢ a night? What does it earn them? A much more impressed customer, who will pay them back by giving them $200 that same night. The math makes sense to me.

Let's lose the price gouging. Or at the very, very least, please stop telling me that you're doing it in appreciation for my business. I'd get that level of appreciation by sleeping in the back alley.

Are You Creating Friends?

I had a marketing company for several years, with a team that was truly exceptional. Alex, Andrea, Shelly, Nicole, and others were people whom I took great pride in, and they in turn clearly took great pride in the work they were doing.

From time to time I would call them together for an emergency meeting, and announce that a major competitor had gone after one of our key clients. We had to switch quickly into defense mode, and search for ways to wow the customer and win their support.

Of course, the team knew after the first time we did this that no such attack was actually underway. But it was still a valuable exercise, allowing us to identify ways to super-please our clients, before the threat ever loomed.

I still think back on that exercise whenever I ask a prospect why they are leaving their current supplier. I want to know what threat ruined that relationship. And what still surprises me is that, in almost every single case, there was no competitor swooping in to destroy a previously happy relationship. The damage had come from within. Clients were generally leaving suppliers because those suppliers simply were not keeping them happy. There was insufficient effort. A lack of passion. An absence of fanaticism.

How about your clients? If I asked them what they thought of you, would they rave? Would they recommend you? Would they tell me that they don't even want to hear about any other suppliers, because they're so happy with you? Or would they be all too happy to hear about my company, and what we can do for them?

Here's the key question. If they did tell me things they didn't like about you, do you know what those things would be? Do you know where your trouble points are? Unless you actually asked your clients these questions recently, you might be surprised by the answers they give. Most businesses spend too much time selling what they sell instead of asking what their clients want.

So don't wait for the exercise to become reality. Take your top clients out to dinner. Ask tough questions. Learn. Change. Win. If you don't ask questions, someone else will. And your client will answer. Because they're hungry, and they appreciate the attention.