For me, the USA has some seriously top customer service, which is why when it falls down in standards I will review it.
First issue - our room was right next to the entire hotel’s air conditioning/internal fan unit. Complete silence on the balcony, constant racket in the room. By 2:30am, when it was still raging on and despite earplugs I quit trying to sleep & called the front desk to find out what it was - they RESPONDED BRILLIANTLY. During the day I was sorted out a new room. Perfect. No issues, no attitude, no quibbles. Three different people involved in the process, two guys, one lady, all fantastic. Exactly what you should get...and if they couldn’t have done it due to so many bookings then I KNOW they would have been apologetic with a smile and without being dismissive - which I would be completely happy with - because people do what they can but how you present the limitations of a situation matter.
Now - the issue. Specifically and naming names: Colette. A server in the main restaurant and cafe. Gave me, my 75 year old mother and other people that I observed some real bad attitude. Now, she did absolutely have some humour and the usual ‘I’ll be right with you’s’ and good followup chat. I am sure she works very, very hard and there are aspects of her life that I do not know behind the scenes BUT that doesn’t erase the huffs, eye rolling, arsey comments, being tutted at and some downright in your face rudeness. I actually checked at one point if this was some strange Northern State humour delivery that was passing me by, but a woman from Pennsylvania who heard how she spoke to my mother and I assured me it was not...and it wasn’t just to me, so I know it wasn’t me that was the issue.
Now, despite asking for the room change described above, I am NOT a problem customer. I am smiling, upbeat, positive and I tip well but if I am paying then it is reasonable to expect a certain standard.. I know just how damn hard people work in the service industry and that is what made me so angry here. If I place an order at 3:30 and the kitchen closes at 4, I do not expect attitude about it when there is no last orders sign. Ditto if I ask hold the egg on an order - it is not difficult. Giving an elderly woman face and verbal over her completely straightforward order is damn well not on.
So. I could write word for word and point by point exactly how each encounter went, but it would take pages and I simply couldn’t do justice to the delivery - you would need a really good film director to show just how her scale went beyond dumb insolence into active insolence and downright rudeness over basic interactions and completely reasonable questions. If she had been working in some backwoods diner I might have taken it for fascinating local character and got the hell out before the banjos started playing, but no way should this be acceptable at a popular ski resort.
In short. Piss poor service from someone who is obviously smart enough to do better.
