Nick Cork

Review of ANA Hotel Sydney

From before I even arrived, there were issues that...

From before I even arrived, there were issues that were easily avoidable. A lack of meaningful follow up once the room booking was confirmed left me frustrated and having to contact the Hotel myself to get more information about the extra services I had requested. Not difficult stuff, but clearly there has been no customer journey mapping carried out on the booking process. Upon arrival, it got worse. Our room wasn't ready (which was OK), so we were told that if we sat in the lounge area we would be called when the room was ready. We sat for 40 minutes before having to leave for a lunch booking, then a play at the Opera House. By the time I returned 7 hours later, I still hadn't been called to confirm that my room was ready. We had also left our bags to be taken to the room, with a request that the birthday champagne was put in the fridge. When we finally got to our room, there was no sign of the bags and no champagne in the fridge. A call to reception eventually produced the bags and a mumbled apology about the bubbly. Not what you expect from a hotel of this calibre. By contrast, the room and the view were spectacular and it was a shame that the lack of proper process management and clear need for improved staff training had failed to meet the standards you would expect from such a hotel. In the Horizon club lounge we received another shock: we were told by reception that it was open until 9pm, but when we got there at 7.45pm, we were informed that it closed at 8pm. Fortunately for the hotel, the head bar man heard our story and arranged for a bottle of bubbles to be sent to our room. However, later that evening, in the Blu bar, it got worse - much worse. We waited over 20 minutes for service at the bar - it wasn't even very busy. The staff were too busy arguing amongst themselves to know in which order customers were arriving at the bar. Their solution? A pathetic "who's next" - something you would expect from a backstreet bar and not a "luxury" hotel experience. We left the bar and mentioned our frustrations to the staff member at the entrance, who promptly showed us to the lounge area and a table near the window - again, the lack of proper management supervision and processes was rescued by an intelligent and customer focused member of staff. This small success was overridden again a mere 20 minutes later when we were asked to move from our window seats so a group of tourists could take some photos out of the window. Seriously? Fortunately, the group were too polite to take up the suggestion and moved to another (empty) window seat. It was starting to feel like Sydney's Fawlty Towers, without the comedy genius. The following day, we were at the Chi Spa for a treatment and this was a truly luxury experience. The staff and facilities were second to none, the processes smooth and efficient - clearly, a different management team with proper processes and decent training. I highly recommend the Chi Spa experience, followed by lunch in the Altitude restaurant - it truly was amazing and the views are every bit as good as you would expect. The final nail in the coffin of my experience with the Shangri-La's broken processes came the day after we checked out when I looked at my bank app and realised that they had taken an additional 2 unauthorised payments from my card, totalling nearly $1,000. A call to the hotel and the bank was required to get the ball rolling on retrieving my money. It left a bitter taste in the mouth, as it was unnecessary. If the Shangri-La had even half decent management, processes and staff training our experience would have been very different indeed. The Hotel itself is beautiful, with outstanding rooms and views to die for. Unfortunately, the reception, concierge and bar staff lack basic customer service skills, don't do what they promise and are clearly not supported by robust processes. Pity, because the views will only get you so far - you need to offer luxury customer service too.