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Hotel Chatterbox

The Better Business Bureau used to help clean up the marketplace from businesses with questionable ethics. Who do you turn to on the internet? I guess the internet. You should be able to unsubscribe from a newsletter when your needs change and you don't want that newsletter anymore, just like you should be able to unsubscribe from catalogues and magazines. When you can't unsubscribe the newsletter, or ezine, becomes like spam -- something you hate getting in your inbox. HotelChatter has become that kind of annoyance to me.

An associate mentioned to me that he gets lots of great environmental leads from a website and newsletter called HotelChatter. Since I like to scour lots of sources for my environmental news and ideas for articles, I added the newsletter to my collection of emails.

Though I have loved the information and their cleverness in titles and topics, I struggled with reading the newsletter because it wasn't formatted well and I had to wade through its content. Formatting controls were sprinkled through enough to boggle my eyes too. Here's an example:

       HotelChatter Video Tours:=20
[their URL]Our videos are kind
of a big deal.       Hotels for Mac Lovers:
[URL/story/2008/2/26/155755/829/hotels/UK_s_City_I
nn_Hotels_Offering_iMacs_in_Every_Room] UK's City Inn Hotels put new iMacs
in every guestroom.       VIP Hotel Reviewer:
[URL/story/2008/2/27/162059/113/hotels/The_Fairmon
t_Copley_Passes_The_Airfare_Watchdog_s_Sniff_Test] George Hobica of
AirfareWatchdog.com gives a shout out to Catie Copley.=20

and another:

ALSO: One& Only Palmilla's Non Deal [URL/story/2008/2/25/72250/6674/hotels/Summer_and_ Hurricane_Season_Deals_at_One_Only_Palmilla], W Africa and Iceland [URL/story/2008/2/26/113429/004/hotels/W_Hotels_No w_Heads_Into_Africa_] =0D

For me it's ugly and almost impossible to read. I've had enough.

After subscribing for about a year I realized I wasn't reading it anymore because I had to work too hard to get applicable information, so I unsubscribed. I should say I tried to unsubscribe. Directions to report an erroneous delivery say to reply to the email saying it's been received in error; that didn't work. There used to be a link to report problem deliveries gives you to a page to report a problem, but that didn't accomplish the goal of being removed. And emailing to ask to be removed doesn't work.

Organizations like HotelChatter need to pay attention to customer needs, or they risk being thought of as a problem, rather than a help, to the industry. Ideally there will be several ways subscribers can communicate with you for problems. Publishers need to make sure their systems work so they don't become a problem. In my experience, HotelChatter has become a problem.

Posted by Kit