Here’s the General Manager of the Marriott Providence Downtown in Rhode Island sick and tired of customers expecting reasonable value for their money.
”We’ve always been people-pleasers in the hospitality industry,\” says Farouk Rajab, general manager of the Providence Marriott Downtown Hotel in Rhode Island. \”The customer was always right. Well, they’re not.\”
Mr. Rajab, whose staff has been worn down by complaints about not answering front-desk calls fast enough and off-brand complimentary shampoo, posted signs at the entrance of the hotel and in the restaurant area, letting customers know they are experiencing a staff shortage and asking them to be kind and patient.
The hotel isn’t discounting, or giving out bonus points, because they aren’t answering guest calls or offering cheap shampoo. And if it takes them too long to take your order or cook your food, that’s on you. That’s not the sort of place I’d want to patronize.
Businessing is hard. And customers cut a lot of slack during the first 6, 12, and even 18 months of the pandemic. But overall hotel occupancy and rates are back to pre-pandemic norms. The correct response is to apologize for failures, and when you do not deliver on expectations you haven’t earned a customer’s money. Can’t find staff? Get creative. Surely in the longer run technology plays a role but in the meantime you’ll have to pay more or bonus more or find ways to make the job not so undesirable.
This G.M. simply has the wrong mental model, it’s the customer’s fault and the customer needs to adjust their expectations – pay more, get less – and customers shouldn’t go along with that.
(HT: Live And Let’s Fly
I stayed at this property a few months ago and it was fine. I think I got a $10 coupon for the bar.
Businessing is a real word!!??
Wow…..
Irrespective of one’s business, if you treat customers right, you will earn repeat business. If you don’t, you won’t. Your place can be a dive — such as the Seal Rock Inn in San Francisco. But, if you treat customers right, customers will say it has nostalgic charm. It’s that simple.
I think the titles read better and displays a greater truth if you remove “Providence Downtown “.
Gary – you come across as an entitled pompous person. Yes you should expect reasonable service but many businesses, including hotels, are dealing with severe staff shortages. Sorry but that is reality. Personally, I don’t bitch if I can’t get a front desk agent when I call (maybe the ONE PERSON is checking someone else in. As for “off brand” shampoo – here we go again with your tiresome tirade about hotel toiletries – carry you own or go by CVS to buy some if it is that damn important.
Sorry but your headline is overly harsh. I frankly see nothing wrong with the note posted by the GM and we absolutely do need to be more considerate of all workers. God I would hate to have your perfectionate butt as my customer! Oh year the customer ISN’T always right – that is a fact.
@AC – be considerate of employees, absolutely! But the GM has the absolute wrong frame and I wouldn’t stay at any hotel managed by this individual.
The mind boggles at what kind of treatment was handed out at this hotel to cause such negativity. Last time I checked, hotels didn’t answer the phone most of the time. That’s been going on for years since the invention of the cell phone. Hard to expect a hotel to have someone on 24/7 to answer the hotel phone which may ring once every half hour. If I want something from the front desk and nobody answers the phone, I just stroll down there. I have no idea how the cost of the hotel shampoo can be measured … unless you’re looking for a specific brand name which makes no sense at all. If the restaurant has bad food or lousy service, I just make other arrangements. Travellers are in for some big changes, as hotels use the virus as a reason to cut service. I agree it’s a problem, but unanswered phones and ‘cheap shampoo’ are hardly a reason to lose your cool. What else happened to you at this hotel?
This would also aptly describe Marriott Northwest Indianapolis – or a lot of Marriott properties lately.
I’m with Gary if your paying the premium rate nearly two years later past the start of the pandemic it is no longer a reasonable excuse why you have no service and poor food and beverage .
Rates are sky high oddly in some markets and frequently the cost of redemption is more than paying revenue.I need to be motivated to spend my money and leave home not be treated poorly and pay a premium
If they sell at a half price rate for the failure to make it a reasonable stay then add a disclaimer
I have empathy but I’m also not donating money to hotels that may be inadequate.
The same applies to dining out IMO I might add
Cheers
Gary f*** you for this article. The general manager, obviously a person of color, does not deserve to be singled out for starters. You are a bigoted bell end. POCs have a very difficult time especially in such white cities like Providence. There is nothing wrong with the mental model here. Hotels charge a rate that you can choose to pay, or not. Right now they can’t provide a lot of services, and they don’t give bonus points or any compensation for the lack of services. Why should they? The room rate already fluctuates based on market conditions. There is nothing to compensate for.
Also wtf Gary. You call yourself a leader? “Can’t find staff, get creative.” Wow, that is the same logic as Republicans, “Why don’t poor people just buy more money?”
Gary Lef. My largest customer is located in Providence. not far from the Marriott. I haven’t been to see them in close to 2 years, but i was going back there 6-8 times a year and probably stayed at that hotel 25 tines, Never had a problem. Great restaurant. Great chef. Great food. They have been remodeling and relocated the lounge….it was small but the lounge food was good. Nice health club and equipment. It will sadden me if the service has gone downhill. But indeed, times change
Haha holy shit WOKE!!! You forgot to blame Trump and Rittenhouse too!
I’ve stayed (unfortunately) many times at this specific Marriott, which contrary to the name, is certainly not Downtown Providence. Funny he mentions off-brand shampoos, because the last time I was there, they had Best Western **branded** toiletries with the Best Western logo and everything.
BUT I AM A DIAMOND GUEST! I Have Ten people with me. And a dog. And a giraffe. And a former American Idol who must have her helicopter pad, attached to the room.
I AM A DIAMOND GUEST
@ Gary — You could’ve just stopped at “Why you should never stay at Marriott.” @ AC — Gary comes across as someone who, like myself, is fed up with COVID as an excuse for everything. Higher prices for less service has to end NOW. Businesses that fail to wake up and realize this fact will fail.
Thanks for posting this…I would never patronize this hotel because of the GMs comments. I’m a Bonvoy Ambassador with over 2500 nights….perhaps the issue is with him or his franchise owner’s business model or hiring practices.
There are too many choices out there and knowing about the attitude of a hotel’s GM is enough to make me go elsewhere
I don’t understand why some of you are acquiescing to businesses providing reduced service at either the same or a higher rate or cost. Businesses, like this Marriott, are clearly using the pandemic to devalue services and make it so you get less than what you paid for. Or making it so you get less than you got before the pandemic. Why would any of you be happy getting less than you did before?
Gary’s unfortunate post takes the Marriott manager’s remark out of context. The remark was offered as part of a Wall Street Journal article about increasingly abusive hotel and restaurant customers, and about how stressful work in many such establishments has become. Many of the examples cited involve customers unreasonably and obnoxiously objecting to masks. If you read the manager’s comment as part of the article, what he said makes a lot more sense.
I think part of the reason they can’t find people is related to the fact they aren’t cleaning rooms every day. I couldn’t imagine the irregularity of work for cleaning staff if they are only doing check out cleaning.
Not cleaning the rooms daily is a big issue for me. Hotels sure as heck haven’t dropped the rates to reflect that a service that used to be included (thus being paid for) is no longer being offered.
What’s really sad is back in the SPG days you could choose to skip cleaning and you’d get 500 SPG Points (aka 1500 Bonvoy) now I’m paying the same rates or even more and no cleaning, brown bag breakfasts, and trash bags in the hallways. What’s worse it’s so hit or miss. I reached titanium this year on stays and quite literally you never know what you are going to get. From a fully back to normal hotel to ones that still brown bag. I think the inconsistency is the biggest issue of all, which is an issue with Marriott overall, even outside the pandemic.
I think the US is at a point where it’s less a pandemic issue and more a corporate greed issue, where they are milking the situation for higher profits.
I just stayed for several day at the AC Marriott in downtown Portland, a city that definitely has not recovered all its downtown workers and college students. But the AC was great to stay in. Staff was friendly and helpful and always there it seemed to me. So let’s not paint the whole chain with the bad brush.
https://images.app.goo.gl/2qknm6AWncMXXPKJ7
Hey Woke, check it out!
Sad that are so many angry people vent here with hostility that can’t carry on a civil conversation like ladies and gentleman.We all have opinions right or wrong but is it so hard to challenge and disagree without personal attacks?
@jack the lad — I checked out your link. WTF is your point? A page of pics of brown skinned men. Is this some kind of attempt to show what a racist you are without actually saying you’re a racist? I don’t get it.
That Providence Marriott has always been a good hotel and one of the few, at least a few years ago, that let me bring my dog without charging totally exorbitant pet fees. This is a rough time. Can’t believe you wouldn’t cut them a little slack.
#1 the hotel is not downtown
#2 you all are AH. As a Rhode island resident and employer WE CAN NOT GET HELP. Did you get that , every place has help wanted signs out. The state minimum wage has always been higher than the Federal great even at $15 we cannot get anyone to work we have college to it at Brown who don’t work part-time because they have Silver Spoons so what do you expect to hire people who do not work what we need as the immigrants to come back because no one else wants to work as Americans how lazy
Your uninformed and biased opinion would be exactly why I would stay there if I were in RI. Really, this is a very real and new situation: people can’t work (family care/child care) or don’t want to work right now, because they were the frontline who were at risk in the last two years. So being nice isn’t so much a request…
@ Robert, First, I don’t appreciate your manner of address. To the point: Woke is assuming the gentlemen in question is a POC. The link is to a picture of the gentlemen upon his promotion. He does not appear “brown-skinned” to me at all. So who makes this call? Woke obviously made it for the gentlemen. I suggest neither of us nor Woke should be making that call on behalf of someone else. If that invokes you to call me names, so be it.