Will Customers Ignore Bad Customer Service?

In competitive industries a bad customer experience results to churn (telecoms, media, etc). How about in hotels? Hotels are supposed to deliver the best customer experiences considering that Four Seasons set a trend several years back… This week I have very interesting customer experiences, of which a lesson can be learned. In a very large city I stayed at Le Meridien, the experience with the hotel staff and facilities were very pleasant and the price fits the companies travel budget. That set my expectation in the days there after. I arrived in Dubai with a similar expectation, booked a room at Emirates Grand Hotel (which is twice as much as I paid in Le Meridien) and was very disappointed. First off I was told I was told to pay the entire amount of my stay in advance and asked for my passport very rudely… the front desk personnel looked at customers with dubious suspicion, its the first time in many months that I have encountered such a sour and unfriendly staff in the front desk. Considering that the front desk staff is Filipino (who are known for excellent service and hospitality) I am very disappointed. The since I have to wait for the room to be ready before I can dress up for an early meeting (which I missed) I was hoping that the front desk staff will offer for me to wait somewhere convenient…. However after charging my credit card (the amount that I could have stayed at Four Seasons) I was ignored completely.. To my dismay I have to find someone else in the hotel to ask where their restaurant is and at least sit there and wait painstakingly…. Indeed a very painful experience… Anyway this first impression means I will not be a returning customer to the Emirates Grand Hotel….

I did have bad experiences in better hotels like Hilton (room not ready on time, worm in fruits). However in both cases the hotel staff apologizes and offered to compensate me for my troubles (free stay, free food, etc)… I continued to stay in Hilton considering that the bad experienced are offset with the apologies and friendliness of the staff… Something that I sadly never saw in Emirates Grand Hotel.

The question is in Telecoms, how many bad experiences does subscribers tolerate before they churn and move to another operator? In some countries subscriber churn immediately, especially young pre-paid users….