Feedback Is Not Brand Stewardship

Trust traveled down from the parent brand to the hotel. After a recent stay, my distrust traveled back up. Brand stewardship (or lack thereof) is at fault.

We recently stayed at an independently owned hotel in a collection affiliated with a major global hospitality company. We’d stayed there four years earlier and had a good experience, so we returned. I took the name to represent a threshold of quality.

But this time our room showed significant deferred maintenance: missing fixtures, non-working equipment, an HVAC unit pulling away from a badly stained ceiling. But honestly, the room isn’t the point. What happened to my perception of the brand attached to it is. Before this stay, the collection affiliation lowered my risk in choosing an independent hotel. Now we’d think twice about another property in that collection, and our hesitation extends to the parent company as well.

Compare that with Relais & Chateaux, also a collection of independently operated hotels. The properties are deliberately individual, yet I’d book an unfamiliar one without hesitation, because I trust the curator. Their brand promise is backed by regular inspections and ongoing guest feedback. That’s a system designed to ensure the experience still merits the name.

So, I searched on LinkedIn for the executive responsible for the collection brand. I sent him an email describing what we’d experienced and attached a PDF with photographs. I don’t know him, but figured he’d want to know what was being delivered under his brand. Over a week later I’d had no acknowledgement or response.

Then I completed the company’s post-stay survey. Within minutes, its system flagged my dissatisfaction and invited me into a text chat with a rep who already knew the categories I’d flagged. When she asked if there was anything else, I said I had photographs of the problems and would be glad to send them. She didn’t ask for them.

She did say my concerns would be forwarded to the property management team. But doing that doesn’t really address the issue. The property already has my survey results and is already responsible for maintenance.

After 10 days with no response from the collection brand executive, I emailed another leader at the hospitality company. This one responded after one business day, to their credit. Still, the upshot was: “I will be sure to get your feedback into the correct hands and you should expect to hear back from the property very soon.” That was four days ago; nothing yet from the property.

Brand stewardship requires a mechanism *above* that level. Franchises, licensees, marketplaces and partnerships all carry the same risk. Every time you attach your brand’s name to an experience you don’t directly control, you’re lending out trust.

Trust travels down easily. A brand that doesn’t monitor and control how its affiliates use its name has no way to stop distrust from traveling back up. That cost isn’t reflected on a P&L, but it’s very real.

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash