I was called a liar yesterday, and it turned out to be an expensive mistake for the Red Lion. Here's the story:

Yesterday afternoon I headed to Eugene for a gathering of agents. We were supposed to have dinner together and then attend a continuing ed meeting today. The dinner plans more or less fell apart, but I was already down there, and unfortunately you can't actually camp inside the Eugene REI. I thought about just driving home and then driving back in the morning, but I decided to call a few hotels instead.

The Red Lion Inn was the first one I called. (At about 845pm) I explained that I might just drive back to Corvallis, but was curious if they had any "last minute" kind of deals. We settled on $79.00- not bad to avoid a 2 hr round trip. The guy at the counter was nice, and also gave me a $20 voucher for breakfast in the morning- now that was a deal! The place was simple, but clean and didn't smell too bad. So far so good.

I have a great time reading the newest Dan Brown book, and end up having a good night sleep. The next morning, I go to the lobby to check out and get breakfast, but realized I left the voucher in the room, along with the room keys. I asked for a new one. The manager looked at his computer, and said he didn't see a voucher on my room receipt.

I told him the man at the desk last night gave me one with my room keys. He then proceeded to scan the computer screen some more, finally looked up and tells me he's sorry but it looks like I got the "walk in" rate and there's no record of me purchasing a breakfast voucher. I guess the guy last night did me a favor by giving me a voucher despite the special cheap rate.

I then realize I didn't have the keys to go back and get it. I asked again if he could just give me a new voucher, that the original one is back in my room. Instead he gives me a new key. I mutter under my breath as I turned to walk away, " so you're saying I'm a liar?". No response. I go back to the room and get the voucher and then proceed to have a decent $12.99 cafeteria-like breakfast. No sign of the guy- apparently he'd moved on, happy that I hadn't been lying.

I'll never stay at the Red Lion Inn again and I won't be urging friends or colleagues to stay there either. All to try and save $12.99. This guy just didn't get it. Even if I had been cheating him out of a $12.99 breakfast, he'd have been better off taking that chance and giving it to me.

Ken Blanchard captures this truth in his book Raving Fans- Don't punish 95% of your clients for the bad deeds of the other 5.

I mentioned my displeasure not just to him, but to one of his staff later. Then, just before typing this I called down there to try to give him one more opportunity to apologize. Apparently he'd gone home. The manager asked if he could help me. I told him that I wanted to give Ian one more opportunity to apologize for the bad experience I had before blogging it. The guy just chuckled and said Ian normally leaves at 3:30.

Too bad. The internet is forever.