Two Rooms Short on a Sold-Out Saturday Night
It is 22:50 on a Saturday in November at a 48-room hotel on Amritsar's Heritage Street. The night report shows 47 rooms sold. Rooms 208 and 311 were taken out of order at 6:00 pm - 208's AC compressor has failed, 311 has water seeping from the ceiling rose - leaving 45 sellable rooms. At 22:40 a family of four arrived on a prepaid direct booking (₹4,200, booked on the hotel's own website, first stay) and there is no key for them. A corporate guest who logged 38 room-nights last year is due at 23:30. At 23:50 a walk-in offers ₹7,500 in cash for any room. The GM's phone is switched off, there are no holds at any alternate hotel, the nearest comparable property is 3 km away selling at ₹5,800, housekeeping has one houseman on duty, and the family's infant is asleep in the lobby. The outside temperature is about 14°C.
1. With 60 minutes to act, decide whether anyone has to be walked. If a walk can be avoided, show how; if it cannot, say who and defend the ranking criteria.
Read the worked answer
Nobody needs to be walked - but only if the AC failure is reclassified in the next ten minutes.
- 208 is sellable tonight, with disclosure. It is November in Amritsar at about 14°C; a failed compressor does not make the room uninhabitable. Put in a pedestal fan, inspect and clean the room, and offer it to the family after telling them the truth, with ₹800 off a prepaid booking plus complimentary breakfast (cost about ₹180). That returns one room to inventory. 311 is different: water through a ceiling rose is an electrical hazard, so it stays out of order and an electrician and plumber are booked for 7:00 am.
- The family gets 208. They are present, prepaid, first-time, and holding a sleeping infant at 23:00 - the highest service-failure and highest complaint exposure in the building.
- The corporate guest keeps his room. He has spent roughly ₹1.5 lakh with us this year and has not yet arrived; displacing him to save ₹800 is a poor trade.
- The walk-in is declined. ₹7,500 cash is tempting, but displacing a confirmed guest for a higher rate is both a breach of contract and an obvious fairness problem; offer a 10% card for a future stay instead.
The ranking criteria are: legal exposure first (a confirmed prepaid booking is a contractual obligation), then irreversibility of harm (an infant in a lobby at midnight), then lifetime value, then rate. Cash on the counter ranks last by design.
2. Draft what the agent actually says to the family, including the compensation offered, and state the limit of what a night-shift agent may offer without the GM.
Read the worked answer
Script (staff member standing, not behind the desk, eye contact, infant's comfort addressed first):
"Mr and Mrs ____, thank you for waiting, and I am sorry - you booked and paid, and we did not have your room ready when you arrived. Here is what has happened and what I can do. Room 208 is ready now, but its air-conditioning has failed tonight; it is 14°C outside, I have put a fan in the room and inspected it myself. If you accept it, I will take ₹800 off your booking and breakfast for four is on us. If that room is not acceptable, I will move you to a hotel 3 km away, pay for the taxi both ways, settle their bill tonight, and hold a room here for you tomorrow with a complimentary upgrade. Which would you prefer?"
Then: confirm the choice in writing by SMS so there is no dispute, walk them to the lift if they stay, and send water and a cot up within ten minutes.
Authority limit: the agent may give up to ₹1,000 off, one complimentary breakfast, late checkout to 2:00 pm and a taxi. Anything larger - a free night, paying another hotel's bill, an upgrade commitment - needs the duty manager or GM. If the GM is unreachable, the agent records the time of each call attempt and the decision taken, and refers it to the morning manager. He never improvises a free night and never blames housekeeping in front of the guest.
3. What goes into the incident log and handover, and which two changes would have prevented this?
Read the worked answer
Incident log (time-stamped, written before the shift ends): room numbers and the reason each was taken out of order, with the name of whoever authorised it; the time the OOO status was entered; the arrival list showing 47 rooms sold against 45 sellable; the family's name, booking value, offer made and response; the corporate guest's arrival time; the walk-in enquiry and what was offered; each call attempt to the GM with times; the taxi voucher and alternate-hotel cost if used; and a named owner for the 24-hour follow-up call.
Change 1 - inventory discipline. The rooms were taken out of order at 6:00 pm but the hotel kept selling to 47. The moment a room goes out of order, the PMS must stop selling it; the deeper fix is a same-day 4:00 pm 'rooms at risk' check, so the front office sees the shortfall while there is still time to call arrivals, relocate or discount.
Change 2 - written night-shift authority. The agent stood alone on a full house with no spending limit and no escalation route. A one-page authority matrix (₹1,000 discount, taxi, one breakfast; anything else escalates) plus a duty-manager number that must be answered removes the paralysis.
Why log it at all: the log is what converts a one-night embarrassment into a management decision, and it is the agency's defence if the family later escalates a complaint.