Hyatt TOTALLY has it. They found my $500 gift card!
So…last week, when I thought I was having a very bad day (smashed car window, lost $500 Hyatt gift card)? It turns out that it was just the prelude to a very bad week. Here are some of the other lowlights:
- Work drama (major comings and goings)
- Friends’ intense health concerns (I’m scared for both of them)
- Lost items (a brand new earring, my son Bear’s trumpet)
- Random, accidental flight rescheduling by the airline (to Shanghai, when I was booked to Mexico)
- Several tween meltdowns (too little sleep, too much door slamming)
- And more! Too many to list!
However, in the midst of all this upheaval, there have been a few fabulous highlights that have sustained me. Most of them have come from friends (thank you, everyone), but one came from none other than HYATT.
Yes, Hyatt. I love them! Here’s one more reason why:
I ordered a $500 Hyatt gift card. However, when I opened the envelope that contained the card, it simply wasn’t there. The shiny silver letter was there, along with a bar code and some numbers and a tiny shred of paper where the card used to be…but no card.
Dejected, I wrote a blog post about it. Here were my exact words:
After dinner, I called the Hyatt gift card customer service center. They were REALLY nice, but they basically said…sorry. Apparently gift cards are like cash, and if you lose them, you are likely out of luck.
I’m going to follow up with everyone I can, and hopefully someone at Hyatt can help me (Hyatt, are you reading this?), but wow…$500 and a car window, all in one night?
I don’t know what I was expecting, but here’s what came back in the comments section:
So I followed up with Todd, and the amazing team at Hyatt took care of the situation immediately. Literally overnight. (Seriously, as I was sleeping).
They were able to verify my purchase and reissue a card, then they located my address and sent it out via FedEx.
Incredible customer service, don’t you think?
Have you ever had a similar Hyatt moment?
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THIS is one of many reasons why I am a loyal Hyatt fan! I love their customer service and the staff at the hotels are for the most part top notch in the customer service department as well. Sure the Hyatt website can be a bit quirky at times, but hey, they have to have something to improve upon.
I’m so happy that you were able to find the silver lining in all of that!
Sign me –
Another Hyatt groupie!
Hey groupie 😉 – Yay, Hyatt!
Makes me want to love Hyatt too! Can us regular joe folks get this kind of service?!?
Ginger – Yes! Their Twitter team is also fantastic.
Happy for you, but this is absolutely the minimum they should have done, and I don’t think you should be praising them for it, maybe the service recovery deserves some praise. Think about it that gift card is run on their system and they manage it end-to-end, it costs them just about $0 to be able to provide a service if a card is lost or stolen, they have the purchase records, can track use, and handle authorization of use, just like a credit card company does. Why this is not a standard service of their program is inexcusable and unacceptable in my eyes.
Glad things worked out, but surely you can be more critical that they couldn’t offer this service as standard and someone had to do it as an extraordinary act.
TopGunner – I was truly impressed that Todd took the time to read my blog post and connect in the comments. I was also amazed at the almost-instant response from the team once I reached out to them, in addition to the proactive nature of their solution. So, I respectfully disagree – I think that while perhaps offering the service itself could be seen as standard, the way in which Hyatt delivered that service was exceptional.
I agree the service recovery was to be commended, although one wonders how much of it is attributable to your platform versus the average guest. That said here is my point, via an imperfect metaphor, should you really praise the fireman who puts the fire on your home after he gave you a frozen turkey to cook in your deep fryer next to your home?
There would never have been a need for service recovery had the gift card program or the customer service agent on the phone had been designed or trained to deal with a rather foreseeable situation. To hammer the point home further about having a system in place for dealing with lost or stolen cards, Hyatt Gift checks are sent by UPS/FEDEX signature required.
By all means praise the team reaching out to you in your predicament, but serve your readers and other guests as a critic by calling out Hyatt for not having a procedure and system in place to protect and serve their customers, sometimes from Hyatt’s own decision to send the cards via regular unsecured mail. Think about Grandma ordering that card for Jimmy’s graduation, she would have been told tough and have to dip back in her thinner wallet.
I love hyatt too! For a family stay at the Orlando Grand Cypress, they upgraded our regular room to a huge suite on the 16th floor! It was so unexpected but a real treat.
Julie – Love that!!!
I have had great experiences with Hyatt as well. They go the extra mile.
AnonCHI – Couldn’t agree more.
So happy for you, Kendra.
Husband and I scheduled to be at Andaz Maui in approx. 3 weeks. This trip was rescheduled from early Dec. and they had previously contacted me by phone and email regarding our upcoming stay. So nice. So now we are really looking forward to our stay with them and hope to experience our own “Hyatt moments.”
Marilyn B – Wow, I am so excited for you! I hear that the Andaz Maui is amazing. I hope you have a lovely time and that I get to hear about it at some point! 😉
It’s stories like this that make me want to give Hyatt a try.
I’m a little late to the party, but I’m so happy for you 🙂
P.S. Hope that the friends you mentioned are doing better, and that healthy days for them are ahead!
-icicle