It wasn’t until I was getting out of the shower that I realized the towels were stacked on the far side of my hotel room. How can that possibly make sense? And how can such a thing happen? Here are a few possibilities:

• Someone selected a designer with zero expertise. I don’t think this designer had ever even been to a hotel!
• Across-the-board cuts truncated the design process, surrendering results to “good enough.”
• Management wasn’t willing to spend money on final touches – like towel racks in the bathroom.
• Employees have never cared enough to point out the problem.
• Management is deaf to employee suggestions and/or customer complaints.
• Service standards are so low they leave bruises on your shins.
• The schedule was so tight, no one thought things through.

The answer could be any or all of the above. What do you think?

Meanwhile, no one has examined the customer experience from booking to check out. No one has discovered that people use Kleenex. Or that short people could not possibly reach the toilet paper in this place. I don’t care how cute and upscale the place looks, it has to make life easy for travelers!

I will never return to this hotel. Nor will I recommend it. Interestingly enough, my colleagues staying elsewhere had plenty of complaints about their hotels as well. It’s not rocket science, folks! But everyone’s gotta wanna!

• What are you doing to avoid unqualified help, unintended consequences, deaf managers, and employees who just don’t care?
• When was the last time you examined your customers’ experience from start to finish? Maybe even asked a few real live customers for their reactions?!

There is no point in developing or delivering a product or service half way. Set solid objectives and you can compete with the best of them, even in New York City.