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The Advantages of Twitter and WeChat Customer Service
More and more hotel groups now support customer service through Twitter and WeChat for handling hotel reservations. If you run into something that can’t be done directly on the official website—such as adding a Guest, using a Free Night certificate to book for someone else, or canceling a reservation that cannot be canceled online—you can try contacting the hotel’s Twitter or WeChat customer service for help.
Compared with calling, Twitter and WeChat customer service can save a lot of time. With phone support, you usually have to deal with the automated system first, and during busy times you may be stuck holding for quite a while. Sometimes, if the agent is not very experienced, the process can take even longer. In my experience, and based on others’ experiences as well, Twitter and WeChat support tend to be efficient and familiar with these requests. Most importantly, you don’t have to stay on the phone the whole time. You can just send everything you need in one message and wait for a reply. During business hours, they will generally respond within 1 hour.
How to Contact Them
For Twitter, you’ll first need a Twitter account. Then just search for the hotel group’s name, select People, and in most cases you’ll find the hotel brand’s official customer service account.
Follow them first, then go to their profile and select Message to send them a note.
WeChat customer service usually exists in the form of an official account.
- First, search for the hotel group.
- Follow the corresponding official account.
- Then send a message directly within the official account.
Marriott
Twitter Customer Service
- @Marriott Bonvoy
First, follow Marriott customer service, then send a Message directly to that account. Just make sure you don’t contact the wrong one. When I used a Free Night to book a room for someone else, I forgot to add a Guest. I contacted Twitter customer service and asked them to add the Guest. Since the stay date was still far away and I didn’t feel like calling, I just left them a message and got it taken care of.
WeChat Customer Service
- 万豪旅享家 Marriott Bonvoy
Marriott’s WeChat customer service is called 万豪旅享家, which is also an official account where you can make bookings. If you run into any tricky issues, you can contact customer service directly there.
Hyatt
Twitter Customer Service
- @Hyatt and @Hyatt Concierge
Looking back through my records, I once contacted them to Match SPG Gold to Hyatt Diamond, though they later asked me to send an email.
WeChat Customer Service
- 凯悦 Hyatt
Hyatt Free Night awards can be booked directly in someone else’s name, but this can’t be done on the official website, which only lets you add a Guest. However, WeChat customer service can handle it directly.
Hilton
Twitter Customer Service
- @Hilton Honors
I once booked a hotel and forgot to cancel 24 hours before check-in. The website and APP both showed that it could not be canceled directly and that I needed to call. So I decided to try Twitter customer service first and call only if that didn’t work. The agent handled it quickly and cleanly.
WeChat Customer Service
- 希尔顿 Hilton
Hilton’s WeChat official account does not support making reservations or modifying reservation details through customer service. Hopefully that improves in the future.
IHG
- @IHG
I haven’t tried their service.
- 洲际酒店集团
Things to Keep in Mind
- When making a reservation or requesting a change, it’s best to provide complete information all at once. This includes the confirmation number, membership number, name, email, and the hotel you’ll be staying at. If you send everything in one message, the agent can usually handle it right away. Going back and forth takes much more time.
- Try to update your payment information in your account ahead of time, and make sure your credit card is not expired. I previously ran into this issue myself: my card had already expired, and customer service would not let me type the card number and expiration date directly in the chat because it would be blocked, which made things more complicated.
- I still don’t know whether this method could potentially create any privacy concerns.
Final Thoughts
Using these two newer ways to contact customer service and resolve problems is actually pretty easy and pleasant. Have you had any similar experiences? Feel free to share them in the comments.