I went to the official opening of a new hotel in my area this evening, the Maplewood Inn. They opened it up to the local chambers of commerce because they wanted us to see all the work they'd done on the property.

I hadn't realized that it was considered as part of the Days Inn chain of hotels until this evening. What used to sit on the property was a Days Inn, and it wasn't one of their most impressive hotels, I'd have to say. If you clicked on the link above, you can see what kind of quality place it is now.

For all the people who were there, the hotel went out of its way to make sure that not only was there enough food, but it was spread out to try to entice people to visit different areas of the hotel so that we could see their special rooms. They also had people ready to give you a tour of some of the hotel rooms, but I didn't avail myself of that. But spreading food out in 5 different areas, including desserts, was a masterful touch; I was easily impressed by it all, though I think some of the people who were actually staying at the hotel might have thought there was a convention going on.

But the staff,... well, they were friendly and attentive and overly courteous, which is a good thing for once. Most hotels do have very nice people working for them but it seemed like there was this one lady who was everywhere, taking care of even the smallest things that someone might have had a question about.

Of course it was a wonderful night of networking, but I have to say I was easily impressed with the customer service aspect of the hotel staff. Not that I don't expect the staff will always be courteous, but one hopes they can keep up this level of attentiveness as things settle back in to a more realistic flow of traffic. I think that's always the concern when it comes to customer service, or customer service training; it's easy to gear up for special events, bu sustaining it when things seem slow or routine is a challenge.