Dear Hotels: You Suck

May 1, 2011

Above: Samantha at the Pantages Hotel in Toronto.

All of the photos in this post were taken in hotel rooms.

Dear Hotels,

You suck.

I travel a lot. I travel a lot because I love it. And I have a love/hate relationship with the hotels that I stay in. I’ve recently just booked a few trips for 2011 all at once and have come to realize what an epic frustrating mess it is to deal with hotels and their websites. These frustrations have popped up in the past, but it was always one trip at a time, so I could handle those relatively small doses. Booking five cities all at once is a different story and has really magnified everything that’s wrong with the hotel industry. Coming on the heels of my American Apparel post (I Hate You, American Apparel), I don’t want to turn this into a consumer advocacy blog, but… you can’t stop me.

I not only stay in hotels, but I also use them as shooting spaces. Most of my complaints would apply to any traveller, however, and aren’t specific to the fact that I’m a photographer.

Above: Madison at the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax.

So here’s a simple list of what I think hotels should and shouldn’t do to make the experiences better.

Do… show me big, accurate photos. Whether it’s a site like Expedia or the hotel’s own website, 99% of the room photos I see are so small as to be useless. When clicking thumbnails, they typically enlarge to about the size of a postage stamp, which is no help at all. And if you’re gonna show photos, make sure they accurately reflect what the room looks like — last year I stayed at a hotel that showed a beautiful blue sofa bed in the photo, only to have it be a ratty old burgundy one in real life.

Don’t… open a new browser window when I’m checking room availability on your website. I can’t effectively express how much this annoys me. Most hotel websites have a booking form right on the front page of their site where you can input a date and check availability. About half of these open a new browser window to display the results, I guess because they’re using some sort of third-party service to do it. When I’m visiting a dozen hotel sites over the course of a night, I quickly end up with a massive mess of browser windows. Learn how to embed an effing booking system into your website.

Do… show me pictures of the bathroom. Why is there only one photo of the room itself? But six of the lobby? And three of the conference rooms? But zero of the bathrooms? I don’t care what your lobby looks like. I’m going to spend a grand total of about three and a half minutes there. I’d say less than 10% of the hotels I look at have bathroom photos. Why is this important? Well, for me, I like shooting in bathtubs, so I want to make sure the hotel has one. For other people — say, someone with mobility issues — a bathtub might be a real impediment and only shower stalls will do.

Don’t… charge me for internet access. I’m gonna repeat that. Don’t. Effing. Charge. Me. For. Internet. Access. Especially if you offer free wi-fi in the lobby to any stranger off the street — don’t expect me to pay $15 a day for it in my room. The worst part is that this is more prevalent among the higher-end chains that charge more to begin with. Go to any 2-star international hotel chain and you’ll have free internet. A 4-star hotel that costs triple the price? Pony up. If you can put free coffee and a coffee maker in my room, you can give me free internet.

Above: Gillian at the Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax.

Do… clearly list all your relevant details on sites like Expedia. There is no reason I should have to go to your hotel website to find out whether or not you have bathtubs in the rooms, which way the rooms face, or how much it costs to park my car. Hell — just finding out whether or not I even can self-park my car is a struggle most of the time. Make your list of amenities and policies clear and easily accessible.

Don’t… force me to pay for valet parking. When the hell did this start? Why would you even build a hotel without parking facilities? $35 a night for valet parking with no option to self-park? Are you kidding me? I will never, ever book at your hotel.

Don’t… list stupid crap in your room amenities like the size of your TVs. Nobody cares. I’m not going to stay at Hotel A because they have a 32″ TV vs Hotel B’s 27″ TV. Likewise, I don’t give a crap if you have a coffee maker in the room. Now this is because I don’t drink coffee — but if I did, is leaving the hotel to find the nearest Tim’s or Starbucks that big of a deal? Hell, many of the hotels I’ve stayed at over the last few years have a Starbucks right in the friggin lobby. I’ll even offer up some anecdotal evidence of how useless coffee makers are — I make it a point to check the expiry date on those little packets of coffee they leave in the rooms… I’m not kidding when I say that literally every single packet of coffee I’ve looked at in the last five years of travelling has been expired. Nobody uses those. Nobody. Ever. Remove them and give me free internet instead.

Don’t… nickel and dime me. I realize that this is actually your entire business plan, but something’s gotta change. I recently looked online at hotel rooms that had fireplaces for an extra fee vs non-fireplace rooms. That’s fine. But then there was some small print that indicated not only do you pay extra for the room, you pay even more should you want to turn on the fireplace. What’s next? I get a sink but I have to pay extra for the water? A $10 surcharge to turn on my bedside lamp?

In closing, hotels, I’ll tell you this: stop treating your customers like enemies. Don’t make it difficult for us to find the information we want. Don’t overcharge us. It’s no wonder your occupancy rates have fallen to the 55-60% range in the last decade.

I Hate You, American Apparel

April 10, 2011

And I’m glad you’re on the verge of bankruptcy. This is the story of the ridiculousness that I went through over the course of three months with American Apparel…

Our story begins on December 13, 2010, when Groupon offered up an American Apparel deal: $25 for $50 worth of stuff. SOLD!

I had never bought anything from American Apparel before, but had browsed through their stores in Toronto, Halifax and Orlando. While I could appreciate their whole “sweatshop free, made in America” mantra, I still felt the clothes were overpriced for what they were and thus never bought anything. But at half price? Surely there was something I could find.

On January 1, 2011, when everything else was closed for New Year’s Day, I shopped around the AA website and settled on two items. First was the Shiny Too-Short Tube Dress in gold lamé (I’m not linking it, go look it up yourself). You may recognize that description as what Sam is wearing in this photo to the right.

Faye Reagan wears the Stretch Floral Lace Long Sleeve Thong Bodysuit

The second item was the Stretch Floral Lace Long Sleeve Thong Bodysuit (item RSALS310 – this will be important later).The only photo I have of this is not my own, as you’ll soon find out why, so the illustration to the left is from the AA website.

At the time I ordered, the Lace Bodysuit was out of stock, so the items would be shipped separately. A couple days later, on January 3rd, I got notification that the Tube Dress shipped. The next day, the Lace Bodysuit shipped. Woot! Faster than I expected. The Tube Dress arrived a few days later, it was perfect, and I put it to use with Samantha just a few days after that.

The Lace Bodysuit arrived on January 8th. Except they sent me the wrong product. Instead of RSALS310, I got RSALS302, which the website describes as a Stretch Floral Lace Bodysuit. Doesn’t sound a lot different, but there are two distinct differences. What they sent me was full-bottomed instead of thong, and was sleeveless instead of sleeved. I was invoiced for the correct product but sent the wrong one. So I headed over to the website and filled in their online contact form to report the mix up. And then I waited.

And waited.

Aaaaaand waited.

Nearly two weeks later, January 20th, I still hadn’t heard anything. I had a model all lined up who was patiently waiting to wear this bodysuit for a shoot. So this time I called American Apparel’s office in Quebec and spoke with someone named Maryse. I explained to Maryse that I had received the wrong item and that my email to them went ignored. She offered to email me a shipping label so that I could send the product back and have it replaced with the correct item. “Here’s what you have to do,” she began, “Do you still have the invoice? Yes? Good. Okay, so I need you to get a pen. And then you’re going to write on the invoice, ‘Wrong item received. Please replace with RSALS310, size small, black.’ And then put the invoice in the package that you mail back to us. Did you get that? Do you need me to repeat it?”

Um, what? An enormous multi-million dollar international corporation deals with shipping errors via handwritten notes? SERIOUSLY? There’s no computerized method for this? Wow. Flabbergasted, I pointed this out to her, and she just calmly explained that this was the normal procedure. So I did as she said and popped the package in the mail.

And I waited.

And waited.

Aaaaaaand waited.

Four weeks go by. I notice via my online banking that I was issued a refund for $20.28, which was the value of the product after the Groupon had been applied. But why? I didn’t ask for a refund. I wanted the product I ordered. I waited another week. Finally on February 28th, I emailed Maryse to ask where my item was. On March 1st (speedy for them), I received an email from a different rep, Jaclyn, who had no knowledge of the situation:

“I was forwarded an email from you regarding your replacement. I have on file that your refund was completed on February 23^rd, however I do not have anything on file for a replacement. If you could please indicate which item you were supposed to have received I will make sure that it is issued to you immediately.”

I was also offered a 15% discount on my next online order for the inconvenience, which would have to be applied manually by an “online agent” whom I would have to contact. After using their contact form last time and getting no response, this was a completely useless offer for me.

Two months have elapsed since my order was placed, it still hasn’t been filled correctly, the rep I’m dealing with has no idea what I’m talking about, and I’ve been offered a paltry 15% discount that I have to jump through hoops to get. Got all that?

I replied to Jaclyn on March 3rd and explained my situation for the third time (first being online, second being to Maryse). I recapped everything in detail, including how perplexed I was by their handwritten exchange process, and even included a website link to the product that I ordered and should have received.

On March 4th, Jaclyn apologized and noted that, “to do an exchange, we begin by issuing the refund and then we ship out the new item and bill the credit card again.” Why? Is that not just a whole lot of extra work for people in the accounting department? Why not just send me the item I paid for? She closed the email by saying my item would be sent out “as soon as possible.” Not today. Not now. As soon as possible. Whatever that means.

On March 8th, I received a package from American Apparel in the mail. Guess what was inside? The exact same item they sent me the first time, which I had sent back to them. I once again received RSALS302 instead of RSALS310. On a whim, I checked my online banking and was shocked to discover a charge of $56.50 from AA, despite the fact that it was only $20.28 to begin with. So I’m now nine weeks into this mess, I still have the wrong product, and they’ve charged me nearly triple what I initially paid.

I fired off an angry email to Jaclyn, where I described in meticulous detail the differences between the product I had and the one I ordered. I also made it clear that I should not have to explain their own products to their employees. I closed with this:

“It is evident that neither you nor Maryse are capable of seeing out this problem to its correct conclusion, so who at your company can make sure my order is ACCURATELY filled, at the correct price, and in a timely manner?”

One week passes.

No, I’m not kidding. My order has been screwed up beyond belief for nine weeks at this point and American Apparel chooses to ignore my email. For another week.

I send another email on March 15th, demanding to know what the status of my order is.

Later that morning I get an email from someone named Nathalie, who is the manager of the customer service department. So for those keeping score: ten weeks, three different people, problem still not solved. Let’s see what Nathalie has to say.

“I have been forwarded your case as you do not wish to speak with either of my customer service representatives.”

Um, what? I asked who could solve my problem since they were incompetent. At no point did I refuse to speak with them. And how does this justify waiting a week to respond to me?

She agreed that my experience had been a horrible one, but noted, “the error was not on Maryse nor Jaclyn’s part. The error is an error made by the shipping department.”

Riiiight. So the shipping department ignored my email from January 9th? The shipping department is the one who charged my credit card nearly triple? The shipping department is the one who ignored my subsequent emails? The shipping department is the one who promised to rectify the situation and make sure I got the correct product? No. Customer service, specifically Maryse and Jaclyn, had those responsibilities. And Nathalie, the head of customer service, is now passing the blame to a faceless “shipping department”. Despicable.

She continued, “not only am I working to rectify the situation as soon as possible, but I have as well forwarded your concerns to our head office in Los Angeles.”

Oh really? Guess what I’ve heard from Los Angeles since then? Nada. They’re too busy filing for bankruptcy protection, I guess.

And there, once again, is the promised time frame of “as soon as possible”. Looks like they’re all reading from the same playbook.

“How could we serve you better? If you wish I could oversee that the correct item is shipped out to you, such that we can avoid this error from re-occurring in the future.”

Wow. Really? I’ve made it clear time and time again to these people that I want the product I ordered… and they’re still asking me if I want the product I ordered? And then asking how to serve me better? I worked in retail for ten years. This woman has no business even dressing herself in the morning, never mind being head of customer service.

Nathalie closes her email by offering the same 15% discount that I was offered before. Previously, it was a mild annoyance, now it’s just down right insulting. I replied to Nathalie and said as much. Why would I want to order from AA again after this experience?

The next day, March 16th, I get an inexplicable email from Maryse, who hasn’t been involved with this process since the beginning:

“Your e-mail has been forwarded to the online department with success. I hope they reply to you as soon as possible. Have a wonderful day!”

She’s so out of the loop at this point it makes my head hurt.

A few minutes later, I get another email from someone named Lisa, sent from her iPhone. Person number four on my case.

“Someone get back to this client ASAP.”

Now I really have no idea what’s going on.

Two hours later, one final insulting email from Nathalie followed.

“After consulting with my online representatives, they did exactly as they were told to do.”

I hope you all find that as amusing as I do.

“I apologize for the delay in the return of your message as I was away from the office, and the online representatives were under the impression that you did not want their service, from your previous email.”

Fine. I understand where they were coming from. But in one week, no one was able to say to me, “Hey Ryan, our manager is away and will get back to you on March 15th”?

She offered to correct the charges to my credit card and to personally hand-pick the correct item from the warehouse. She then asked for the incorrect item to be sent back with the “attached” return slip. Except there was nothing attached. One final, stupid, annoying, screw up from the people who can’t do anything right. The instructions were to place the item in a box (why? they shipped it to me in a bag) with the invoice. On the invoice I was to indicate that I was overcharged and sent the wrong item. So now we’re back to the handwritten notes.

The last line of her email indicated it would take two weeks to correct my credit card without any further explanation.

During the final week of March, I finally received the correct product. A few days later, on March 29th, my credit card was properly adjusted.

The end.

And you know what would have made this whole process so much easier for everyone involved? If, on January 8th when I received the incorrect product, I could have walked into my local AA store and exchanged it on the spot. But AA’s policies prohibit exchanging online orders in store, despite so many other retailers working this way.

GelaSkins: Custom Skins Review

December 10, 2009

Earlier this year I blogged about GelaSkins, the product that protects your fancy electronic doodads with stylish skins in different designs. I bought one skin each for my iPod Touch and BlackBerry Bold 9000, but lamented the stunning lack of photography available on the site compared to the dearth of illustrations and paintings.

Specifically, I wondered aloud what my photo of Peggy’s Cove would look like on the back of a laptop. Well, wonder no more:

macbookpro

This is thanks to a new feature on the GelaSkins site which enables the user to upload their own images to have custom skins made.

I had four devices that I needed skins for: iPod Touch (2nd gen), Nintendo DS Lite, a newish 13″ MacBook Pro, and a brand new BlackBerry Bold 9700. Before I set out on my custom adventure, I perused the ready-made section of the site to see if there was anything that tickled my fancy. Designs for the iPod and DS were plentiful, but I was saddened to see there were absolutely no skins available for the MacBook Pro nor the Bold 9700. In the case of the Bold 9700, it didn’t surprise me that much since I bought one on the day of release and it takes time to get accessories to market. However, in the case of the MacBook Pro, a product I’ve owned for nearly six months, there didn’t seem to be any good reason why skins weren’t available for it.

I was ready to give up at this point and just check back in a few months to see if the selection had changed, but I pressed on anyway. Lo and behold, when I clicked on “Create Your Own”, the Bold 9700 and 13″ MacBook Pro were both viable options. Weird! About five days after I ordered, the Bold 9700 finally made it into the ready-made section, but the 13″ MBP is still nowhere to be seen as of this writing.

After selecting the device I wanted, I was greeted with the upload interface and began sending photos to the site to toy with. I didn’t get very far, though, as the uploader rejected my .jpg file with the following error: “Sorry, we cannot accept that type of file (.jpg). Please review the accepted files type: (acceptable format: jpg,png, gif).”

Um, okay. So to recap — I upload a .jpg file and am told that .jpg files are not an acceptable file type, one of which is .jpg. Confused? Me too. I tried re-uploading the same file over and over, to no avail. I tried opening and resaving in Photoshop with different settings. I tried direct exports from Lightroom. I tried everything I could think of. Eventually, and for no other reason than just repeatedly clicking the Upload button, my file was accepted. When I chose another photo to upload, the results were hit and miss. Sometimes it would upload on the first try, and other times it would take close to ten attempts to get the GelaSkins system to accept it without any modifications on my end. This was a tedious process and any normal human likely would have given up long before I did.

Other than the requirement of a .jpg file, there are no other specs listed on the upload page for what type of files are recommended for the GelaSkins system. Buried in the FAQ (and how many people will check that?) are rough guidelines for resolution, but not much else. No aspect ratio, no colour space, no bit-depth, nothing. As a test, I uploaded a ridiculously low-res file to see if the system would generate any warnings about quality of the finished product. Alas, it did not. I can imagine hoards of people using photos downloaded from their Facebook profile (about 600×400) to create skins and being vastly disappointed when they come out looking like a giant pixelated mess.

So after struggling with the uploader for the better part of an hour, I finally progressed to the layout. The layout controls were thankfully simple and clean, allowing easy customization and cropping of the images on the front/back of the devices. One cool thing is the ability to create custom wallpaper for your device’s LCD screen, as well as customize the text that appears on the packaging. More on this in a bit. All in all, the layout tool was flawless compared to the uploader. No errors, no quirks, it just worked.

screenshot

After the layout is complete, the site displays a photo-realistic preview of what the finished product will look like on the device. At this point, the product can be saved in the shopping cart and then the process can be restarted for additional devices.

preview

I created three custom skins from my own photos (for the Bold, MBP, and iPod), and picked one of the existing GelaSkins designs for my Nintendo DS.

My previous order with GelaSkins arrived ridiculously fast, and they state in the confirmation email that, “We do our best to process all orders within one business day.” That wasn’t the case this time, possibly because of the holiday season, or possibly because of the DIY nature of the skins. The timeframe was still super fast — three days to process the order and two more for it to arrive. Just be aware of this if you’re planning on ordering any Christmas gifts. The sooner the better!

The confirmation email also contained .jpg files of the wallpaper for my iPod and Bold 9700. The one for the iPod looked great, faithful to the original .jpg I uploaded, but the Bold 9700 wallpaper did not:

wallpaper

Kinda blurry, eh? In fact, ridiculously blurry. Obviously the back-end of the GelaSkins website that creates this image either malfunctioned or just plain doesn’t work. This is how it should look, after I did it myself in Photoshop:

wallpaper2

The package arrives:

The items are packaged in a sturdy cardboard mailer. The item on the left is a fun little cardboard coaster they threw in. The quality of the skins is fantastic, and closely matches my original photos. I immediately noticed two things, though. Firstly, the image of Randall holding the colourful mask came out much darker than I expected. It still looks terrific, mind you, but her dark hair blends in with the dark background a bit too much. Secondly, the Bold 9700 skin came with the wrong Gelascreen in the sleeve. Gelascreens are clear LCD protectors and the one I was sent is for the old Bold 9000, not the Bold 9700, so it doesn’t fit.

I quickly got to work, sticking my new skins to the devices. The 3M adhesive is top-notch miracle stuff. I don’t know how it works, but it works very very well. Adhering and repositioning the skins is a piece of cake.

The finished product:

My creepy shrine to Randall Sutton on my iPod Touch and BlackBerry Bold 9700

With the new BlackBerry Bold 9700, RIM has switched from their traditional trackball to a trackpad, similar to those on laptops. The skins have a cutout that exposes the ball or pad, depending on the model. One quirk I’ve found with the trackpad/skin combo is that it’s mildly annoying to scroll up or down, because my finger keeps skimming against the sharp edge of the skin. I imagine that this will dull over time. The trackball didn’t have this issue, since it protruded from the Blackberry body, whereas the trackpad is flush. Thus the added thickness of the skin causes a slight difference in height.

Finally, I got a great deal on the skins because of the “Buy 3, Get 1 Free” offer, in combination with a Black Friday sale. The B3G1 offer continues, but now there’s a free shipping promotion on! Head on over to GelaSkins to make your own!

Pros: top notch quality, fast turnaround time, excellent value for money, accurate printing/cropping

Cons: mostly back-end engine/interface stuff on the site like the broken uploader, ambiguous image specs, missing devices, blurry wallpaper, and the mis-shipped Gelascreen

You suck, Rogers. You too, Flickr.

May 16, 2009

I’m a fan of Flickr. I wasn’t always. As photo-sharing websites go, I found the interface, usability, and navgiation all left a lot to be desired. I’ve warmed to it now that I’ve become familiar with it over the years, and upload most of my new work there to share with the world.

But let’s rewind a bit. Many years ago, Rogers, my internet service provider, discontinued a service known as Usenet newsgroups, citing lack of popularity. When I wrote to them to protest, they retorted that they had entered into a new relationship with Yahoo which would provide all sorts of new features to make up for the lack of newsgroups. Well, I didn’t want or need any of the new features, I just wanted my newgroups back. No dice. One of those new features, however, was Yahoo Photos.

Fast forward to October 2007. Rogers and Yahoo decided to discontinue the Yahoo Photos service and replace it with the superior Yahoo-owned Flickr instead. They bestowed all Rogers customers with a free Flickr Pro account (worth $24.95US/year), which was actually pretty cool of them. I used the service extensively since then, sharing my photos with other Flickr members, uploading hundreds of photos, posting them to my blog, etc.

And that brings us to yesterday, when I received this from Rogers:

We are writing to inform you that on July 1, 2009, your Flickr Pro account included with your Rogers Hi-Speed Internet service will change to a free Flickr account. If you enjoy the full flexibility and storage capacity of your current Flickr Pro account, you can maintain your Pro account by subscribing directly to the service for $24.95 (USD) a year.

In a nutshell: they’re canceling everyone’s memberships which were only instituted a year and a half ago.

However, as is the case with many of these things, they didn’t provide a reason. I started searching and came across this nugget on the Flickr FAQ:

Why do Rogers Internet Service subscribers no longer get free Pro?

The Flickr Pro account included with your Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed service will change to a free Flickr account on July 1, 2009.

They go on to detail prices and account restrictions, but nowhere do they answer exactly why we “no longer get free Pro” as stated in their own question. That they wrote. I wrote to Flickr about this and am still awaiting a reply.

Some more digging around resulted in a post at the Digital Home forums from someone claiming to work for Rogers. The reason for canceling Flickr Pro service?

A very small number of our customers (less than 2 per cent) took advantage of the Flickr Pro service.

To recap: years ago, Rogers takes away a service, citing lack of popularity. They replace it with unrelated services, one of which gets superceded by a newer and better service. They then discontinue this new service, replacing it with nothing, once again citing lack of popularity. Does any of this make sense? And if those services were indeed so unpopular, then what possible time, expense, or resources could it have been costing Rogers to keep them up? Zilch.

The silver lining in this cloud? Some time ago, I won myself a free one-year Flickr Pro account from my friends at MOO* and have been saving it for a rainy day. I engaged the gift code this morning, meaning it will become active on July 1, 2009 when my Rogers-provided account dies a sad little death, and be valid until July 1, 2010. Except for one little problem. Flickr now reports that my Pro account is only valid until May 15, 2010. WTF? It’s six weeks short.

I wrote Flickr another email to ask what was up. Extracted from their response:

Thank you for your recent email enquiry regarding Flickr Billing. I understand that you need information regarding the status of your Flickr pro account.

Let me help you with your concern. I have checked your account and it shows that your Flickr pro account in [sic] valid until May 15, 2010. Please be informed that Flickr pro account is valid for one year only. Since you have activated your Flickr gift pro account dated May 15, 2009 that means your pro is valid one year from the said date which is May 15, 2010.

Um, what? I’m pretty sure they didn’t even read the sections of my email where I detailed very clearly the July 1 versus May 15 discrepancy. From their own gift page:

If your gift recipient currently has a Flickr pro account, buying them another year of pro allows them to enjoy pro status for that much longer!

Except me, apparently.

* Speaking of MOO, here’s another great deal I can share with you. If you’re a first-time MOO customer, then you can save 20% off any single MOO product as long as you order before May 29, 2009. Use referral code WETYFM. Hurry to the MOO site before it expires!