Let me start by acknowledging that in the scheme of things that matter, this doesn’t even rank. But OMAAT is also about covering the little details of the airline & hotel industry (I mean, I write about my favorite airline boarding music), so please indulge me for a moment.
Why can’t hotels spell my last name correctly?
When you check into a luxury hotel, it’s common to get a welcome amenity with some sort of a note that’s addressed to you, typically from someone senior at the hotel. Sometimes the note will be handwritten, and sometimes it’ll be printed. Sometimes it’ll be a scribbled sentence, and sometimes it’ll be quite long.
It’s intended to be a nice, personalized touch. After all, luxury hospitality is more competitive than ever before, and is all about the little details. But here’s the thing — a substantial amount of the time, my name is spelled incorrectly in the welcome letter (my last name is Schlappig, and they spell it “Schlapping”). I haven’t done the math on how common this is, but I’d say it’s misspelled maybe 25% of the time in these letters.
To me, this doesn’t seem complicated, no matter how difficult a last name is for someone. The hotel has a reservation in a certain name, and when that letter is written, you just have to copy down the name as it’s spelled on the booking. It doesn’t matter if the name is Ng or Tskhdjflkdshjfrkjeshrklesn.
I’m not trying to throw any one hotel under the bus here, but below is an example of a note I received a couple of days ago at a hotel. Like I said, this happens a lot.
Why do I even care, and why am I writing about this?
I think most hoteliers would agree that it’s the little details that guests notice about a luxury hotel stay. I also think first impressions matter a lot.
So when you arrive in the room and one of the first things you notice is that the hotel manager can’t spell your name correctly, it doesn’t make a great first impression. Again, none of this actually matters in the scheme of things, but I imagine the manager trains the staff to be focused on all the little details of service, so how can one expect such attention to detail from staff, when the manager can’t even get something so basic right?
Now, I suspect the manager isn’t actually the one writing these notes, but if he’s going to put his name on it, then I’ll take it at face value.
It’s not like I’m actually offended, or take it personally. It’s just a little negative detail I notice, and in a hyper competitive hotel market, hotels try to strive for perfection. If it happened once or twice, I wouldn’t think much of it. But like I said, it happens a decent percentage of my hotel stays.
I’m rather introverted and I don’t like to complain, but I’m starting to get to the point where I’m considering just bringing this to the hotel’s attention. It’s not that I want anything, I just want them to know they’re making this mistake, because I imagine if no one tells them, they’ll never realize it. And I imagine if they’re making this mistake for me, they’re also making the mistake with others.
But then I come to my senses, and realize this is petty. And as someone who is introverted and doesn’t really like to complain, I don’t feel like this will put me over the edge. When I checked out of the hotel, I was asked how my stay was, and it was mostly very good. I was tempted to say “good, but the manager couldn’t spell my name right in the welcome note,” and then I realized that’s just too minor to bring up. So maybe just being able to write a post about this scratches my itch on that front.
Am I wrong for noticing this, and for thinking it shows a lack of attention to detail? Does anyone else deal with this regularly? Is it totally crazy to bring this to a hotel’s attention?
Bottom line
Too many luxury hotels can’t seem to spell my name correctly in welcome letters, and it happens way more often than it should. Is this minor as could be? Of course. But if luxury hotels are all about the details, then a note signed by the manager being addressed to a guest with a misspelled name seems less than ideal, especially as a first impression.
This is so minor that I can’t bring myself to actually say something. But it also happens with such frequency that I feel the need to bring it up in some capacity… so thank you to OMAAT readers for scratching that itch!
Am I unreasonable for noticing this, and thinking it shows a lack of attention to detail? Is there a point at which you’d politely bring this up?