Authors aren't the only ones fucking up

My name is Amanda and I am addicted to reality TV. No, not Jersey Shore. I’m talking about renovation type of programs; por ejemplo: Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Stakeout, and Hotel Impossible.

Ok, phew. Glad I got that off my chest.

So I was watching an episode of Hotel Impossible (on the Travel channel) earlier this week. The Penguin Hotel was featured: an “art deco” hotel situated right on the beach, offering a fair price, especially in comparison to its surrounding competition. The transformations are the best parts of the show, IMO. I tend to Google them to see if they flourished after the program was finished filming. Despite the drama, I do always root for the underdogs to get ahead and succeed. Until…the staff fuck themselves over, de facto.

A gentleman posted a less than favorable review in regards to his stay. Needless to say, a hotel employee decided to reply. My problem with this response by the GM is: “that was very thoughtful of you after having complained about almost everything else”. What? What?! Way to guarantee that customer will NEVER come back again.

And…

Okay, so now you’re going to call the customer a liar? Carpetwizard wasn’t the only one complaining of their reservation being lost and being sent to the sister hotel The President. A couple of would-be guests who were not given a room they reserved were also simply told to go elsewhere and the employees wouldn’t even help them find a different hotel in the area.

Here are some other funny and absolutely wrong responses to customer reviews:

 

Once again, essentially calling the reviewer, Garcia, a liar.

Now, none of the responses by the employees seem to personally insult the reviewers, but often insist that they’re wrong and/or insinuate that they’re lying…a pretty stupid move on their part.

So why am I bringing this up? As most of you already know, there has been a series of incidents on GR involving authors commenting on readers’ reviews. Obviously, hotels and novels aren’t in the same business, but both industries suffer from bad judgment. That is, responding to reviews.

Personally, I don’t think it’s horrible for an author to simply say “Hey, thanks for taking the time to review my book” regardless of how the reviewer rated the novel. However, there should be an effort in not chiming in on a reader’s thoughts of the book. It is horribly detrimental and will often leave a bad taste. I think it goes for anyone who is involved in a consumer-related career: if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.