The impacts of the coronavirus continue to swing from one end of the hospitality pendulum to the other, and we understand that communicating with us has been challenging.
As we work to engage all of our stakeholders in sharing a path forward for all of us. we seek to find joy and the pursuit of happiness under still adverse conditions.
One particularly frustrating aspect of this trend recently has been what can only be called an astounding increase in communicating with the Twiddy & Company team that has led to long hold times on the phones and delays in our responding to written communications. This new problem is simply unacceptable to both our customers and ourselves–we recognize this problem, own the outcome, and are moving rapidly to fix it.
In an effort to share candidly and directly what’s causing these delays and more importantly what we’re doing to resolve them, Edward had a chance to visit with Clark Twiddy, Twiddy & Company’s President, in a video session today. Edward brought up some tough questions around what’s causing all this and when we can look for a return to Twiddy & Company’s legendary customer service.
In his comments, Clark shared that very simply what’s happening is that we’re less accessible right now due to both the current communication demand as a function of the new travel landscape and also the corona-driven complexity of many of these communications. Across all of our communicating channels, we’re simply having a hard time keeping up right now. It’s frustrating to our customers and it’s equally as frustrating to us – for a Company built completely on the customer experience, we cherish the relationships many of us have with our customers and we’re working hard to fix this problem today.
In terms of what steps we’re taking to rectify these problems, we’re doing several things to make it faster and easier to connect with us–just in the past ten days, we’ve added more servers, more software access, more staff, and a run-to-the phones mantra up, down, and across the Company–no matter the role, we’re all on the phone or in a written exchange with a guest. Because this will always be a people business, these changes have taken more time than we would prefer and we’re in catch-up mode.
One way or another, this is going to be a short-term problem and we’re going to get it right although we’ve hit some bumps and bruises along the way as we try to understand whether this new trend is a short-lived storm front blowing through or the arrival of a much broader new weather pattern that will reimagine the Company. Either way, there is simply no higher priority at the Company than a commitment to customer service.
Clark closed by saying that it is always important to thank the many customers who have shown compassion, empathy, and patience with us as we all continue to find our way in this new world. Lastly, he offered his personal apology to many of our customers who are waiting–in some cases much too long–for the personal response that is so important to all of us.
No matter what, we’re going to get this right. Thank you for hanging in there with us.