Hyatt Concierge – The future of Twitter?

by Josiah Mackenzie on May 18, 2009

Today Hyatt Hotels CEO Mark Hoplamazian announced the launch of @HyattConcierge – a new 24/7 global concierge service on Twitter. Barbara from USA Today’s Hotel Check-in blog followed up with her thoughts.

Hyatt Concierge on Twitter

Apparently, the account will be staffed 24/7 by customer service agents around the world. Hyatt already provides round-the-clock service by phone and email, so it was just a matter of training the agents to type responses in 140 characters or less. As Adam said, it’s amazing no other major hotel brand tried it earlier.

John Wallis, global head of marketing for Hyatt, explains the company’s thoughts on Twitter:

“Whatever we did, it had to be with the theme of going the extra mile, providing additional service. We really believe that it is a concierge service rather than a promotional tool.”

I like that mentality. It will be interesting to see how this works for Hyatt…and how many other chains try it themselves.

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Article by Josiah Mackenzie // May 18, 2009 Josiah helps CEOs and hotel executives increase sales by using social technologies to provide remarkable service to their customers.

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Comments

Wyn Lydecker // June 15, 2009 @ 10:53 am Reply

Hyatt’s massive global marketing efforts aren’t going to mean much when their loyalty cross promotions and customer service cheapen the Hyatt brand image. Twittering won’t help either. Our family signed up for a promotion to stay in a Hyatt Resort or Hotel anywhere in the world, via our Chase Rewards/United Mileage Plus card. After spending thousands of dollars on our card and receiving our promotional certificates, we tried to book Hyatt stays in four different cities, only to be told our certificates were no good. When we complained to customer service, we got back a letter filled with grammatical mistakes and sentences that were non-sequiturs. Hyatt’s letter explained their way out of honoring our certificates through technicalities. The certificates are the lowest-level, redeemable in places such as airport locations and frequently visited spots like Uzbekistan. This is no way to build trial or loyalty. In recent travels, we drove past the two of Hyatts where our certificates were not welcome, and we just shook our heads. Our image of Hyatt has been truly damaged. We feel disappointed and cheated. Mr. Wallis needs to look into how Hyatt runs promotions and customer service, if he wants to build his brand.