Jackie Danicki

We really needed a weekend with no domestic distractions or other forms of work, so on Thursday I booked us into the Meliá White House Hotel near Regents Park. (Yes, we stayed at a hotel a couple of miles from where we live. Believe me, we will do it again.) It’s a four-star, so pretty comfortable, but what really set it apart was the customer service.

From the moment we checked in, the hotel employees were not only polite and helpful, but didn’t seem to resent having to be so. As Antoine always remarks whenever I point out to him how good a particular service employee is: Yes, but they aren’t British, are they?

So it was at the White House. Most of the staff seemed to be Spanish (it’s a Spanish chain), and they were delightful, efficient, and able. The British members of staff seemed rather more surly. (My theory is that this has something to do with service jobs being looked down upon by many Brits, who do not - not as much as North Americans, anyway - generally take jobs working in fast food restaurants or shops while they’re growing up. So there are some rather large chips on certain shoulders about serving people for money, it seems.)

My only complaints:

1) Wifi only in public areas, billed at a rate of £5/hour or £18 for 24 hours. Ethernet access only in rooms, billed at £8/hour. A complete joke.
2) The woman checking people in at breakfast wouldn’t take no for an answer when I declined her request that I take a customer survey from her.

“I have one in my room,” I told her.
“Yes, but that’s in the room. This one is for me,” she smiled, as if she were someone special or otherwise known to me.
“I’m not going to fill out a survey at breakfast for you,” I replied. She didn’t like this, but as I was already walking towards my table, she didn’t have much more to say about it.

So you can imagine how pleased I was to see Antoine hand a survey back to the woman as we exited the restaurant (we’d arrived separately as he went to get the newspaper they’d forgotten to leave outside our room*). “I can’t believe you let her shove one of those at you!” I exclaimed. “This time belongs to us, not some stranger.” Antoine, who is about a trillion per cent more laid back than me, just smiled. “Who says I actually filled it out?” he asked.

I suppose there is something to be said for this conflict-averse method, but I’d rather have the conflict and let the woman know how rude it is not to take no for an answer the first time.

*I didn’t really mind them forgetting our newspaper, because the service was generally so great (and also, I suppose, because I wasn’t the one who ended up going off to fix the situation. They forgot again this morning. Still, we’ll go back.

Filed under: Life