Jasmine S.

I spent 4 years as a front desk agent, and I have a few tips for you.

If you use Booking.com, you absolutely need to call the hotel to confirm your reservation. Regardless if you received an email confirmation from booking.com, you need to call the hotel. There's been many cases where my entire city was sold out and booked across town, and the guest with the booking.com reservation was no where to be found in our system. Even the generated confirmation number on their email is made specifically for booking.com so the hotel has no records of that number. When the customer calls booking.com, if their reservation was prepaid, customer service seems to assist them by helping them find a room at another hotel (which could be in a another city if there is no availability nearby) or they'll offer a refund but it can take days for them to receive it. If the customer did not prepay online, booking.com tells them that they will cancel the reservation (which makes little difference given the hotel has no records of it) and the customer is left to find fend for themselves.

When you call to confirm with the hotel directly, make sure to also confirm the room type. A countless amount of times, guests reported that the room they booked on booking.com said the room would have X, Y and Z in it. When it's paid in advance, I can't change the room type to help the guest and have to advise them to contact booking's customer support. When the reservation wasn't prepaid, I could assist the guest and upgrade them to the room type they assumed they had booked but it was always based on availability.

Whether it be Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com or any other website that's not paid directly through the hotel, know that PREPAID reservations are challenging to cancel or change. You'd imagine booking a prepaid reservation, needing to cancel and then the hotel assists you with that while you're there. Unfortunately, hotels have an agreement with 3rd parties such as booking.com where they can not alter the reservation dates, prices or process cancellations when it's paid in advance. Technically, hotels do have the ability to cancel the reservation and make changes at their free will, but by breaching this contract, the hotel is at risk of not only losing the payment from the 3rd party but also all future business with the company as well.

When you prepay, booking.com does not give the hotel your payment information. Booking.com gives the hotel a different card number, and you could imagine this is a great tool to make sure agreements aren't breached without their knowledge and if you need to extend your stay, they want a percentage of that sale.

If you need to extend your prepaid stay, the hotel may give you the option to contact booking.com or they will ask you for a method of payment for the technically new reservation. For your protection, some hotel systems have added security so workers are unable to create new reservations with old payment information; it needs to be swiped/chipped every single time.

With reservations where you don't pay in advance, the hotel can easily cancel or change your reservation; however, they may have a fee to do so. The good thing is that you don't have to delay your plans by remaining on hold for a booking.com representative with a foreign accent.

One time, a guest was waiting on hold for an hour and when he finally got through, they didn't believe he was at the hotel so they hung up on him and called me at the front desk to confirm. The guest was so upset they hung up on him and when I told the representative, he claimed it was untrue and the customer hung up on him, but the customer had the call on speaker so it was just unprofessional overall. For that specific situation, we had no records of the reservation and it was not prepaid. Booking.com basically told the guest it was a system glitch, and there wasn't anything they could do because we were booked. I found the guest and his wife another hotel nearby and sent them off with bottled waters and treats, but you could imagine this was NOT the experience he wanted with Booking.com.

The Good Things:
• Sometimes, booking.com has better prices than the hotel and other competitors online
• You have the convenience to compare and filter hotels
• The ability to book a reservation without providing payment information upfront

Key Takeaways:
•Call the hotel to confirm your reservation
•Get the reservation or confirmation number from the hotel; they're often two different numbers but you only need one
•Confirm your room type

Hotel Tips:
• If you need to change your non-prepaid reservation dates, call the hotel to inquire how much it'd be to change it... Front desk agents have the ability to either lock your original rate or they can populate the price for the new date (which usually costs more). I'm guilty of calling to inquire, hearing the price jump, and then calling the hotel at a later time and speaking to a much nicer agent that locks in the rate so I'm paying the same price;)
• Ask about wifi, breakfast and pool hours because not every worker volunteers information
• Some hotels provide free toothbrushes, toothpaste, razors, shaving cream, makeup remover, combs, sewing kits, match books and shoe polish if you ask for it because you forgot it
• If you're a light sleeper, you can request for a quiet room or ear plugs (they'll give it to you if it's available)

I created and ordered a Love Book for my boyfriend, and he absolutely loved his gift. I was also gifted a PDF copy of the book which was awesome.

Their website was so easy to navigate through, and from a creator's perspective, making the book online was enjoyable and a lot of fun. I would say it's so easy that a 2nd grader do it.

You don't have to worry about the page sizes, bleed or no bleed, or all the minor details that have a huge impact when attempting to publish a book; basically, this company does everything for you.

In regards to shipping and delivery, I ordered my book far in advance. If you're buying anything online especially for a special occasion, you have to understand that it's very possible for a company to ship an item out on time and then the post office or whatever carrier delays because of the high volume. Plus, when you order in advance, you still have time to address any concerns after receiving the product and you won't be as angry contacting customer support. I had no problems with my order and loved the purchase... HOWEVER...

A year later, I did have a billing concern because I assumed this was a one-time purchase (and not a membership with an annual fee). I was caught off gaurd when my bank notified me of a transaction, and I reached out to customer support via email.

Trista was wonderful! She provided amazing customer service; she was understanding and showed sympathy, addressed my concern, educated me on how LoveBook memberships work and advised me that she would resolve the issue for me. Within a couple business days (due to the speed of my bank processing things), my issue was resolved. I can't thank Trista enough for going above and beyond to help me.

I will recommend Love Book to just about anyone. It makes an excellent gift because of how personal it is. Honestly, I did think it was a bit pricey initially, but after seeing the book in person and any time my boyfriend sees the book, it puts a smile on our face because it's basically our book and our love story that I was able to create and personalize thanks to Love Book.

From a cost perspective, this book was equivalent to paying for a dinner for two (which is actually reasonable now that I put it that way). The icing on the cake is that not only does this company appreciate their customers, but they're also very quick to assist and provide solutions.

I'd rate this business zero stars if it were possible.

I live in a rural area and delivery instructions are beyond helpful to find my residence. Amazon can follow instructions with no problems, so I figured I would try theautopartsshop.com. Terrible decision. I ordered one factory rim from their website and provided delivery instructions.

My expected delivery date passes by and I wait a few more days after with no package. I reach out to customer support, and they tell me the package has already been delivered. You can imagine anyone who NEEDS a new rim because their original rim had a leak would know if their package arrived or not; it's the difference between being able to drive or not. They provide a UPS tracking number that says it was delivered, but clearly, it was not delivered to the correct address.

I requested a refund for the order that I never received. Emailing customer support goes on back and forth for almost a month at this point. When they tell you they will call you on a specific day, they won't call you at all that day or notify you.

They can email you for an entire month but can't just email you a resolution or answer your basic question. In my case, my request was for a refund. Any normal business would either say yes or they'll tell you no and provide a reason that of course will leave the customer upset but they at least have their answer. This company will beat a dying horse for weeks and weeks, providing you with no answers.

Pradeep Kumar Movva has been the person of contact, and the customer support he has provided has been terrible. I wouldn't even label it as customer "support" because they clearly do not care about their customers or value their time.

I will never order from this company again because of how unprofessional and inconsiderate they have been. To this day, I still do not have an answer from them. I've already told them since they can't follow through on an agreed time to talk and have already wasted my time, they can feel free to call and leave me a message but I highly prefer it in writing via email so I have records of our conversation. They proceeded to say they need me to arrange another time to speak - or another time to not follow through on their word, basically.

Advice to the company:

You can market yourself, have great products, but if you continue to show customers that you do not care about them, their time or money, then you'll be out of business because of it.

A good customer service representative is understanding, acknowledges the customer's concern, provides a solution and informs the customer of the company's policies, especially when it's not in favor of the customer.

In contrast, your customer service is unapologetic, provides no solutions for the customer, shows no concern or sympathy, avoids addressing the issue and takes days to respond with a generic response saying someone else will be in contact. Either follow through on what you tell your customers or follow up and keep them updated with relevant information.

"The customer is always right" isn't always true, and when they request for something that's outside of what you can do, it's your job to be understanding, ADDRESS THEIR CONCERN, educate the customer on your policies and highlight what you can do for the customer. You need to make customer service a priority.