Review of Northcote Motor Lodge 3*

A lovely stay in the hotel… spoiled by the hotel owner. Any hotel or business must listen to constructive and polite customer feed back and at least respond to the feedback in a polite and professional manner. So I was shocked by the behaviour of the hotel owner, Mike, after my Wife sent a polite and constructive email to him. To explain, after we returned from a long drive to and from Kiakoura in New Zealand, we returned to our room found that our bed had not been made and the room had not been tidied and toiletries not replenished. This is the very basic expectation any customer has staying in a hotel. I received a scolding from the hotel owner Mike, for giving the feedback in email form. Furthermore Both the hotel owner Mike and his Wife Elsa came to my room. Elsa tried twice to speak to me and both times Mike rebuffed his Wife and said he would deal with this… I felt for Elsa as she was very nice and was clearly concerned about customer feedback. I was also shocked to here Mike say that he was very approachable… he is anything but. Mike gave me a lecture (I) that the room rate that we were paying did not leave him “much skin in the game” as he put it. (Ii) Additionally, I believe the Mike got angry because his Wife upgraded us to a better room without additional cost. And To be clear we never asked for the room upgrade. I never want to speak to Mike again after this incident and we left the hotel on completion of our 3 night stay without doing so. Neither of the above points is the customers issue or concern and the hotel owner should very have clear policies in place. I cannot see how Mike and Elsa will survive in the hotel business unless the owner (Mike) starts listening and professionally responding to customer feedback, rather than getting extremely defensive and lecturing the hotel guests. I fully understand that mistakes are made and I would have been more than happy not to make any comment about the issue, had Mike not been so unprofessional.