I recently stayed at the Courtyard Marriott on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile while attending Creative Good’s LabFest.

Normally, this would not inspire anything remarkable, but the check-in process at this Marriott was truly remarkable. There was nothing new, but the speed and efficiency with which it happened was phenomenal. I walked up to the desk and said “reservation for Madaio”. The clerk asked for my credit card, scanned it, and handed me my keys, all in less than a minute. That was it!

Why are other check-in processes any more complicated than that? The speed in which they did this instantly created a positive experience at this hotel for me. Other than that, it was somewhat pedestrian, but I left with an overall positive feeling towards the place.

On a somewhat related note, Phil Terry also spoke of hotel experiences in his Keynote speech at the conference. The CG folks were staying at The James hotel, a hip, trendy boutique that was by all accounts extremely nice. One thing, however, was missing — in a downtown hotel that caters to business travelers, none of the rooms had desks!

(Oh — in case you are wondering, go here for my other Marriott story.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 10th, 2006 at 9:36 am and is filed under events, customer service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.