Caesars Palace #fails in "horrible" checkout experience

Posted by Bob Thompson on November 13, 2010

1 comments | 2533 reads

My recent stay at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas was spoiled by a 15-minute wait to checkout. The automated checkout in the room was down (the 2nd time this happened to me at this hotel) so I went downstairs and found 50+ people waiting in long lines to check out. Was late for a meeting as a result.

Around me, I heard lots of lots of grumbling and frustration. One person I interviewed (see video) called the experience "horrible" and said she wouldn't come back. I feel the same way.

It's really too bad because otherwise Caesars Palace was very nice. Hopefully the people running it will realize that in customer experiences the last thing that happens really matters, so they'd better get the checkout working more smoothly.

I brought up the issue to the front desk clerk, who was very pleasant and smiled a lot, but clearly didn't care and wasn't going to mention it to anyone. So the hotel also #fails on Voice of Customer.

Well, maybe this video will have some effect on the Powers That Be at Caesars Palace. Instead of building another big statue, how about getting your techies to fix the in-room checkout?

P.S. This is my very first video, captured with a Flip video camera, edited with Microsoft Movie Maker, and uploaded to YouTube. I'm planning to produce more videos like this and would welcome feedback and suggestions.

Bob Thompson

Bob Thompson is CEO of CustomerThink Corp., an independent research and publishing firm focused on customer-centric business management, and Founder/Editor-in-Chief of CustomerThink.com, the world's largest community dedicated to customer-centric business. Thompson is a popular keynote speaker, blogger and author of numerous reports, articles and papers, including CrowdService: Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds in Customer Service and Support.

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David Heneghan

December 2, 2010

Nice going with the footage

The video is a terrific way to capture real life customer experience, a nice addition to the piece, I'd welcome more of the same.
Thank you also for sharing the 'peak-end rule' very interesting, thanks.

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