Travelodge: Good morning, Travelodge, which hotel can I book for you?
Mktg: Hi, I'm calling because I'm travelling down to London and I wanted to take advantage of your £19 for one night offer. But there don't appear to be any rooms available for £19 in any of your London hotels for the entire year.
Travelodge: I think London is exempt from these £19 rooms. You get saver rates in the London hotels, but they're not going to be from £19, I'm afraid.
Mktg: So London is actually exempt?
Travelodge: It looks like it, yeah. We don't have any £19 rooms on our system for London, anyway. To be honest, I've never heard of £19 saver rooms in London. Maybe on the outskirts, but certainly not in London.
Mktg: So why is that information not highlighted?
Travelodge: Maybe it should be, but I would recommend you send an email to customer services if you have any issues regarding that.
Mktg: And that's the best thing to do?
Travelodge: Yeah.
Mktg: Alright, thanks for your help.
Travelodge: Ta-ra.
VERDICT
This call-handler sounded quite apathetic, but was at least easy to talk to and honest.
However, he didn't seem to care that Travelodge fails to highlight obviously that its London hotels are exempt from the £19 room offer. Instead, he opted simply to direct any further enquiries to customer services via email.
Overall, the call-handler's forthrightness did not make up for the hotel chain's apparent unwillingness to include London hotels in its ads.
Score: 3/10