If the customer is truly always right, then it would serve a company or organization well to assure that customers feel taken care of. I recently visited a restaurant, which will remain nameless for the sake of anonymity, and, after eating lunch, I left feeling very dissatisfied with my experience. Not only was my food cold, but the portion was embarrassingly small. I just feel like businesses have stopped trying to please their customers like they used to. There was a time when customer satisfaction was a key priority, but that has since been cleared away in place of saving time and cutting costs. Though I do not own a business, should I ever venture to do so, customer service will be a key tenet of my operations as a business owner.
Consider how you’re treated the next time you spend your time somewhere, and here’s what you missed in the news yesterday.
Airbnb + HotelsTonight
In an attempt to bolster its portfolio following a $31 billion valuation, Airbnb will acquire HotelTonight ahead of its initial public offering. Assuming the deal goes through, this will satisfy Airbnb’s desire to become the authoritative travel platform with home sharing, hotel booking, experiences and more. Per the details of the agreement, the HotelTonight platform will continue to operate independently from Airbnb, but HotelTonight’s CEO Sam Shank will report to Greg Geeley, Airbnb’s president of homes, according to TechCrunch.
“We started HotelTonight because we knew people wanted a better way to book an amazing hotel room on-demand, and we are excited to join forces with Airbnb to bring this service to guests around the world. Together, HotelTonight and Airbnb can give guests more choices and the world’s best boutique and independent hotels a genuine partner to connect them with those guests…”
–Sam Shank, co-Founder and CEO, HotelTonight
Airbnb is slowly but surely redefining what it means to travel. Whereas travel logistics have historically been challenging and often frustrating, Airbnb has made key investments in companies to alleviate these stressors and build a better platform.
Well, That Escalated Quickly
If you’ve managed to tune in, here and there, to the court proceedings regarding Michael D. Cohen, former personal lawyer and alleged fixer for President Donald Trump, then you know that things have been going less than smoothly as of recent. Cohen was sentenced to prison, disbarred from being a lawyer in the State of New York, and has had a rough time since his breakup with the President.
In an attempt to secure reparations for his trouble, Cohen filed a lawsuit on Thursday accusing the Trump organization of breaching a contract and “refusing to pay $1.9 million in legal fees once Cohen cooperated with federal prosecutors, according to the New York Times.
In addition to recovering his legal fees, Cohen is reportedly asking for an additional $1.9 million that he was forced to pay in fines, forfeitures, and other reasons after pleading guilty to his myriad of offenses. We shall see how this plays out in the next few days, please standby.
