Expedia is fighting a major social media and PR fire after one of highest profile tech blogs on the planet slammed the agency for poor customer service.
In a highly personal post, MG Siegler, a writer on TechCrunch, took Expedia apart for ruining his Valentine’s Day trip to a hotel with a female companion.
The row has cause such a furore that Expedia officials say that an internal investigation was launched today and is being “led at the highest level”.
Siegler, who also goes by the name Paris Lemon and is one of the site’s more controversial writers, alongside its founder Michael Arrington, says Expedia failed to honour his pre-booked accommodation and he was only notified after arriving at the hotel.
In the 1,800-word article, Siegler explains in detail the series of phone calls he made to an Expedia call centre to attempt to resolve the problem.
He was eventually offered a refund and $100 voucher as compensation. Expedia was unable to find an alternative room in the unnamed city Siegler was in at the time of the incident.
The resulting and somewhat inevitable storm in the comments (140 at the time of writing this post) below the original story included general nods of agreement and recounts of similar experiences.
The article has been retweeted on nearly 500 occasions and is also syndicated to Washingtonpost.com.
Siegler defended his use of TechCrunch to report what was essentially an highly unfortunate yet personal experience:
“I say we have to hold these companies accountable for their crap customer service. It shouldn’t matter if they’re talking to a writer for one of the biggest blogs in the world or anyone else. Expedia routinely fails in customer service, but they get away with it because most of the time people don’t have this type of platform to expose these stories.”
At the centre of the incident is the use of faxes to confirm bookings made via the Expedia website. Siegler says Expedia “apparently” faxed the booking to the hotel in question and received a confirmation in return.
Expedia will not discuss any details of the case until the investigation is complete, officials say, including whether it still uses faxes with hoteliers.
The OTA claims it does not treat complaints differently – like a sliding scale of intervention – based on the ability the customer has to create a public fuss.
However, Expedia says in a statement:
“Obviously this is a high-profile case, but the profile doesn’t dictate the response. The details do. I am sure that they are going to do everything possible to try and make things right but can’t offer any particulars right now, since the internal investigation – which is being led at the highest levels – isn’t complete.
“In this instance, they will quickly work to deduce what happened and why (which is not to imply that the veracity of his complaint is in question) and those details will govern the response and whatever steps are necessary to try and make things right.”
Updates:
- Expedia emails to confirm some hotels still use faxes for booking requests and confirmation. “The hotel’s preference dictates the method Expedia uses. While the majority of hotels rely on the more advanced confirmation systems offered by Expedia, some small properties elect to communicate by fax,” an official says.
- Siegler also replies to an email. He will not name the hotel involved in the incident “just in case the screw up had absolutely nothing to do with them”, but confirms it was located in Carmel, CA. ”As far as I know, Expedia hasn’t contacted me or Michael since the incident. I might put them on hold for an hour if they do,” he adds.
I would like to hear the results of the investigation. But what sounds hollow is the statement by Expedia that the complainant’s profile doesn’t dictate the response.
Oh, c’mon.
Investigations at the highest level don’t happen when Joe Customer makes a complaint.
I was pretty quick to comment on this bizarre outburst and break down what I think would have happened for Expedia on my site. As someone that handles issues like these, I think I am in a pretty good position to analyze where the booking went wrong. MG on the other hand simply used Tech Crunch as his soapbox and embarrassed himself.
I liked the part where he brags about making a fool of himself in public, and even seems proud to be swearing and carrying on in front of children. We’ve all had to deal with someone like this at some point, I commend the Expedia staff for even putting up with it long enough to help him.
My thoughts here: http://bit.ly/cUPfg2
C’mon Expedia you’re the world’s largest OTA and apparently there are still faxes going around to confirm hotel bookings? What year are we in 1999? With today’s available technology there should be no more “lost” bookings. The risks of these hiccups exploding into major PR disasters are all to visible as this high profile case shows.
And, no I do not defend or excuse ranting and raving customers but companies just need to live up to their own PR and advertising claims and when an error occurs own it totally and fully and not with lame excuses or cheap vouchers to keep people quiet.
Welcome to the new world of radical, total transparency with no place to hide.
@Joe I dont think expedia would choose to communicate through fax if there was an alternative. Most small hotels don’t have the money to use a system that integrates their live allotment with a wholesalers, so the choice to send a fax most likely wouldn’t have been made by expedia.
I think this week has proved more than ever that travel companies need to be on the ball where monitoring what people are saying about their brand – no longer can they hide behind their desks.
One thing I ALWAYS do when making a hotel booking with a third party is confirm with the hotel that they have received my booking. You can not trust any system no matter how old or new it is.
Joe I agree with what you are saying about fax’s in 2010, but have you seen the state of some of the hotel websites? I think they were designed using Yahoo’s geocities!
Doesn’t Expedia own TripAdvisor? lol!
Yes?
Interestingly, I had the same problem this weekend (albeit with Laterooms, not Expedia). The hotel hadn’t received the confirmation. Luckily the hotel itself found somewhere nearby for the first night and had room for the second and third.
Darren’s tip is very good advice.
It shows once more that the better way to book a hotel room is directly through its website…isn’t it?
@ Guido
Speaking to a few friends about this tonight it surprised me that all of them said that they book direct with the hotel, rather than using a third party website.
That surprised me because I have always booked through a third-party. They added that the hotels tend to be cheaper than the third party sites too.
I think from my experience the hotel sites I have found have been poor, badly designed, lack of quality photographs. That obviously is not the case with all hotel websites.
@Darren
The other post here about Get A Room even proves it louder. By agreement hotels are usually not allowed to advertise lower rates than they offer via OTAs, if OTAs see that rate parity is not maintained they can kick the trespassing hotel form their site…. hence a telephone call is always worth a try…I admit I’ve encountered some (stupid?) hotel sales departments that were not allowed to sell rooms by phone…mostly that is because errors can occur in jotting down credit card numbers…or because hotel guests are simply as they are: too easy or too lazy or unable (caught in a snow storm) to communicate a possible no show with the hotel…
See, faxing should be illegal
Good thing he wasn’t flying Southwest Airlines.