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Peter Vincent

Peter Vincent: Review of 'Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough'

Tuesday, September 25, 2007 | 10:01 AM ET

Money Talks is a collection of daily columns from The Business Network, which airs weekday mornings on CBC Radio One at 5:45 a.m. ET (6:15 a.m. ET in N.L.).

Through a series of events and mishaps this past summer, I found myself at two Edmonton hotel chains - the uptown Westin Hotel and the Holiday Inn Express out at the airport. To my astonishment, both hotels gave great personalized service. You might expect great service at the Westin, but at the Holiday Inn - a hotel that chain that feeds off budget driven overnight flyers, I was impressed. It wasn’t so much the room upgrade or the free breakfast as it was the staff. Everyone from the check-in desk to the handyman seemed to actually care and tolerate my unreasonable demands with empathy and a smile. I find this attitude in pretty much all the retail chain stores as well. Last week, Rona happily replaced an ailing power tool that was out of warranty and without a receipt. And Costco positively gushes over my badly abused electronic returns. So what’s going on?

We are in the age of the Perpetually Dissatisfied Customer. Jonathan Tisch, CEO of the Loews Hotels chain, is here to lead us through this quagmire, in a book entitled Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough.

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