LateRooms 'gets' Social Media

It is always a pleasant surprise to see a company using social media and the ‘net to their fullest advantage when it comes to identifying and adressing customer needs and, more importantly, customer issues.

A few weeks ago, I booked a hotel in Birmingham for the Party Conference through laterooms.com. Places to stay during Conference are like hen's teeth, so I was very happy to find somewhere about a mile or so away, and at a reasonable price to boot.

All seemed well, until I got a call from a rather apologetic lady at the hotel in question saying that she was very sorry, but they were full on one of the nights I had requested. They had told LateRooms this, and they had no idea why I had still been able to book it.

After cursing my luck, checking online, and phoning around, I managed to get a booking for B&B just down the road for the entire stay, and cancelled my previous booking (at no charge thankfully).

Skip forward a couple of weeks. Up pops conservative blogger Tory Bear, mentioning that (as ever!) he had no accommodation yet. I sent the following tweets:

The next morning, I got this:

Needless to say, I have written them an e-mail, letting them know that despite the problem I had I am suitably impressed with their use of Twitter. Far too often we see examples of companies using social media incredibly badly – this one springs particularly to mind. Here, however, we see a company willing to use new methods of communication to engage with their customer base, and ensure their concerns are addressed. Well done LateRooms. Just make sure your availability is updated more often next time, eh?