Sometimes it’s not about winning back the client

I recently stayed at a resort island and despite looking forward to the experience I had a fairly ordinary time. Now, I’m the first to admit that I’m a stickler for service, but the little things (chaotic breakfast service, missing cutlery, noisy rooms, bags being sent to the wrong rooms, poor dinner service, etc) all added up to me feeling pretty darn disappointed with the whole stay.

I had planned on coming home and writing a fairly poor review on TripAdvisor and only one thing stopped me. Strangely it was another huge service blunder. As we boarded the plane and flew to our next destination – our luggage stayed behind on the island.

I was horrified and quite emotional. We were travelling with two young children who had all sorts of necessities in the luggage, as did I with medication that I needed.

As we communicated with the resort throughout the day it appeared that our luggage may not meet up with us, as it could take three days to get from this somewhat remote destination via courier, and we only had two full days left on our journey.

And then, there was the turning point, I got a call that told me that our luggage was being personally flown to us and then driven to where we were staying (an hour and half away from the airport) by a staff member.

As I told the staff member, this was over and above what I expected – and I was extremely grateful.

So grateful that I won’t post the review on TripAdvisor I was planning on posting, and while I wouldn’t stay there again, they certainly went out of their way to attempt to repair the relationship with this one gesture.

Sometimes it’s not about winning back the client – sometimes that may not even be possible, but sometimes you can simply stem the “bad will” that has been generated with a grand gesture.

From broke at 19 to retired at 27, Kirsty Dunphey is an entrepreneur, mother and author, and lives by the motto Memento Vivere (remember to live).