Good morning, Nitenite and bye-bye

By Mik Barton on Oct 6, 08 10:44 PM in PR

I suppose any company that routinely requires its staff to answer the phone by saying "good morning, nite nite" must have a fairly relaxed attitude to correct use of the English language.

But what might raise a wry smile on the phone, creates an angry customer when it is applied to advertising. Misuse of the language is no longer humorous, it is misleading.

When it is a Birmingham hotel that is upsetting visitors it not only loses them potential customers, it impacts on the image of the city too.

Living in Birmingham I rarely have the need to try and book a city centre hotel. However as a birthday treat we thought we'd extend a night out by staying over. And I thought it might be fun to sample the Japanese hotel pods meets Ikea experience of the NiteNite. A web search quickly found their special offer of 600 cheap rooms scattered throughout November. (Remember the word 'scattered')

nitenite offer.JPG

Unfortunately, the special rate wasn't available on the Saturday night in question. But, being the sort of person I am, I smelled a rat. So I phoned the hotel....

"Good morning, Nite Nite," said the voice. I smiled.

The person on the other end of the line then politely explained how when I tried to book online only certain nights would show the special offer. She then offered a number of random dates where the reduced rate to 'beat the credit crunch' was available. "It's pot luck," she said.

"Or in my case, pot bad luck", I suggested.

The great thing about internet booking is that with just 30 clicks of my mouse I could check every date in November. It appeared I would be lucky on every day of the week except Saturday. Hardly random. Was this amazing coincidence or misleading advertising I thought.

OK, so most people would at this point simply go and book another hotel. But had I done that, I wouldn't be writing this post.

I looked up the word 'scattered' in the dictionary. Then asked NiteNite's PR manager Kat Bailey for her definition. "Spread out at random," was her answer.

When I pointed out that the random pattern meant every night except Saturday, she said she didn't really mean random, she meant scattered and it was just luck. If I tried to book another night and it had been sold out then I would be unlucky.

Or if I was so annoyed at being taken for a mug that I booked another hotel, then she would be unlucky.

Just another example of how honest offers make happy customers and dishonest offers loose you business.

Another offer on the NiteNite website makes reference to a very famous couple who had trouble with 'no room at the inn'. I think the copywriter is trying to be funny.

So how's this for another joke. "Book early for Christmas. Excludes 24-26 December."

(Nice to see people read the Post blogs - as the page has since been changed!)