Many hotels like Hilton are doing something new. The cutting edge can be exciting, but it does come with risk. I want to teach you an important lesson about using your iPhone or Android smartphone as your key to open your hotel room door. I stayed at the Hilton and was able to open my door with my iPhone and their Digital Key app. It was very impressive and worked fine, until it didn’t.
It sounded great. And when the Hilton Digital Key works, it is pretty cool. However, you may experience what I did on a recent business trip to give a speech. So, as hot and as this new technology can be, always have a backup plan… just in case.
It’s not just Hilton. Many hotel chains are starting to let guests skip the plastic key card and use an app on their smartphone. This sounds so cool and when it works, it is. The problem is this is not always reliable. Sometimes the problem can come from the hotel. In my case, the problem came from my iPhone, but who knew? However, it doesn’t really matter to the customer. The bottom line is if they can’t get into their room, they are ticked off.
When you check-in at the front desk, the app has your credentials and unlocks the door for you. It doesn’t work as quickly and easily as the key card, but its new and cool and users love it.
The Digital Key I used on my iPhone worked great the first time when I went into the room. I love all this new digital stuff. Makes chills run up and down my spine. This is what I talked about in my speech. What works, what doesn’t and why. How to delight and not to hurt the customer relationship.
Locked out of hotel room preparing for a keynote speech on wireless
However, being on the cutting edge you often get cut. It was dinner time, so I went downstairs to the restaurant to stretch my legs and to buy dinner and bring it back to the room to prepare. So, with my hot dinner in hand, I went up to my room, and tried to open my door. The problem is this time the iPhone no longer worked. I tried once, twice, three times, then the darn thing said sorry and gave me a phone number.
Standing there in the hallway, hungry and tired with my iPhone in one hand and food precariously balanced in the other, I called the Hilton 800 number on the app. They were nice and told me to stand-by while they called the front desk.
After several minutes, I got frustrated and marched to the elevator again. Took it down to the lobby, walked up to the front desk complaining the Digital Key is not working and asked for a regular plastic key.
The clerk was very nice and made me a key. This is what they should have done when I checked in. While standing there the woman on the phone finally came back on and said she was calling the hotel several times and no one was answering. Imagine that.
Frustrated, I said never mind. That I was at the front desk myself. The Hilton people were very nice, but there was a technology problem the customer was wrestling with and they didn’t know anything technical.
So, I got the key, went upstairs and got in. Hooray. But now my dinner was cold, and my attitude was sour on the Hilton hotel chain. This problem was not with Hilton, but I didn’t know that yet, so my anger was with them. This is not what Hilton wants to do with technology. This is not what any company wants to do with technology.
The whole problem could have been avoided if I did one thing different from the beginning. When I checked in, I should have told them I would use the Digital Key, but also request a regular plastic key, just in case. That would have prevented a bad customer experience.
In addition, train the staff at the hotel to help customers with new technology. No one at the hotel or on the tech support line had any idea how to help me. This is a major flaw in the system. This is the only want to nurture the customer relationship.
Restarting iPhone or Android is often solution to Digital Key problem
Later on, I had a thought… what if I restarted my iPhone? Would that clear up the problem? Whenever I have a problem, simply restarting my iPhone, Android, MacBook and Windows laptop always seems to work. So, I restarted it and to my surprise, it worked once again.
So, from the start all I had to do was restart my iPhone. Huh. Why didn’t the person at the help desk at their 800 number tell me to try that? Why didn’t the person at the front desk tell me to try that? Why did I have to think of it on my own?
New technology can sour a relationship when it doesn’t work correctly. This is something every business should consider. They want to use new tech to build the customer relationship, not ruin it.
Unfortunately, you can’t count on the people who work for the hotel. They are not tech support. Even tech support couldn’t help. They didn’t have a clue. This was the mistake Hilton is making. That’s a big mistake. That’s putting their brand in the hands of technology run by other companies.
Companies should always have tech support waiting. If there is no support, there should be no new technology. Period. That’s the only way to protect and build your brand.
So, you must be prepared to take matters into your own hands. Best recommendation I have is always start with a re-start of your smartphone. That will solve more problems than you can imagine.
Technology problems can spoil your brand reputation
That’s the tricky part with all this new technology. A simple and basic restart is often all that is necessary. Yet no one thought to tell me to try that. This time the problem was not with Hilton, but Apple. Or was it the app? Who knows. However, the bottom line is customers associate the problem with the hotel chain, fair or not.
Initially, Hilton took the hit on their brand with this bad experience. Now that I understand what happened, both Hilton and Apple iPhone took a hit. That’s not what companies want. Tech is supposed to build the customer relationship, not short circuit it.
Technology astounds us. It blows us away… until it doesn’t work when we need to get into our room with our hot dinner in a bag. Hotel workers should be trained on helping customers solve easy problems, don’t you think? They should always suggest a re-start to begin with.
I test these new technologies all the time. I know they work sometimes. Other times they don’t. But I wasn’t testing anything in the hotel. I assumed the bugs were already worked out. After all, this was Hilton and it was already being used. So, I wasn’t worried. Hilton would never tick off their customers and tarnish their brand, right. I was wrong.
Hilton should automatically give the customer an old-fashioned key card, just in case.
This was a great example in my speech, which was thankfully terrific, where the audience laughed.. At least there was something good that came from this disaster.
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