From: Hotel Max
Subject Line: Your Stay with Us
Date: September 1, 2009

From: Hotel Max
Subject Line: Thank You for Visiting!
Date: September 2, 2009

Last week, I was up in Seattle for a meeting and stayed at the Hotel Max. After checking in at the front desk, I went up to my room and got online to catch up on my email. Amidst the regular cast of characters in my inbox was an unexpected surprise. Apparently, the minute I checked in, scratch that, the SECOND I checked in, Hotel Max sent me a welcome email. Talk about timely. Signed by the hotel manager, the email was personal and helpful, plus I have to give them kudos for taking the opportunity to plug the restaurant that's attached to the hotel.

To round out the customer service experience, they also sent me a follow-up email asking for feedback about my stay. I won't go into the details, but I did have some feedback and decided to send it in. I got a prompt personal email from the hotel manager letting me know what they were doing to fix the snafu. The only puzzle in all of this is that the first email I received welcoming me to the hotel lists one guy as the hotel manager, but the personal email I received was from a completely different guy who also held the hotel manager title. My guess is that there was a personnel switch and no one updated the emails. Oops. Now that's the perfect example of why it's so important to make sure the content in your triggered messages is up to date.