Dear Management of Pullman Melbourne City Centre,
I am writing to formally provide feedback and complain about the unacceptable service, miscommunication, and lack of customer care experienced by myself and my companions during our stay in Room 701 from May 17th to 19th. I urge management to address these issues seriously and initiate a thorough investigation and rectification.
On the evening of May 17, 2026, at approximately 8:00 PM, Melbourne was experiencing heavy rain. I arrived at your hotel for check-in with elderly family members, children, and friends. At that time, large tour buses were concentrated at the hotel's main entrance and drop-off area, offloading passengers and luggage. This completely blocked the hotel entrance, making it impossible for vehicles to temporarily stop or pass through. Furthermore, there were no accessible or temporary parking spaces provided at the hotel entrance. Consequently, we had to park our vehicle approximately a twenty-minute walk from the hotel. Ultimately, our group, carrying five large pieces of luggage and accompanying elderly individuals and young children, had to walk to the hotel in the pouring rain, a process that was incredibly embarrassing and exhausting.
After I completed the check-in procedures, my friend, to avoid venturing out in the rain again, proactively called the front desk to pay for the next day's breakfast in advance. After the front desk staff quoted the breakfast fee, my friend immediately accepted it and prepared to complete the payment. However, the front desk staff’s handling of the situation over the phone was highly unprofessional and inconsistent. The employee immediately stated that payment could not be completed over the phone, citing a lack of available POS machines and credit card authorization forms at the front desk, and insisted that our party must physically return to the hotel lobby to pay. This explanation completely contradicted the facts on the ground – just ten minutes prior, the same front desk employee had successfully processed my check-in deposit payment using a POS machine. During the call, my friend repeatedly clarified that the room had already completed a credit card pre-authorization at the front desk and that this payment was solely for the approximately $60 breakfast fee, requiring no changes to the room bill or check-in authorization, and requested a convenient way for the hotel to process it. However, no effective assistance was provided.
Throughout the entire phone conversation, the front desk employee displayed a cold and impatient service attitude, showing no empathy for the guests' difficulties in the severe weather conditions. No alternative solutions or humanistic care were offered throughout. Due to the employee's severely improper handling, my friend proactively asked for and confirmed their employee ID and name during the call. The employee explicitly identified herself as Maria and spelled out the name letter by letter to confirm the information.
However, in your subsequent official response, you claimed that the employee who answered the call that evening was Yunita, which completely contradicts the name provided by the individual concerned. Rather than dwelling on the specific employee's name, our primary concern is the fundamental service issues exposed by the hotel: employees providing inconsistent information, lax work procedures; the hotel's official response deliberately sidestepping the core service complaints and terrible stay experience by focusing solely on the correctness of the staff's identity; and the hotel failing to provide any explanation, apology, or rectification plan regarding key issues such as the employee's cold service, lack of professionalism, and lack of customer empathy.
Furthermore, your response mentioned that "the guest has apologized for the parking and breakfast issues," a statement that is severely inaccurate and smacks of an attempt to shift responsibility. The root cause of this problem lies entirely with the hotel's chaotic entrance management during peak hours, lack of drop-off area management, insufficient parking facilities, and the front desk's low level of professionalism, and is by no means due to guest fault. This phrasing deeply concerns me, as it indicates the hotel has failed to acknowledge its own service shortcomings and lacks basic self-reflection on its service.
I want to state emphatically: I have never questioned the hotel's payment regulations and fully understand the hotel's legitimate requirement to verify cards and passwords for risk control purposes. The core of this complaint is not about the policy itself, but rather the employee's rigid implementation, contradictory statements, cold attitude, lack of empathy, and disregard for guests' special difficulties. That evening, we were with elderly individuals and young children, caught in severe rain, and facing difficulties with passage and parking. We should have received basic understanding and assistance from the hotel, but instead encountered stiff, perfunctory, and contradictory service responses.
I have now completed my trip and left Australia. Based on this extremely poor service experience, my companions and I will permanently refrain from choosing to stay at Pullman Melbourne City Centre in the future. Furthermore, I will absolutely not recommend your hotel to friends or visitors from out of town, as this incident has severely damaged your hotel's brand reputation. Attached are relevant response records from the Google platform for management to review the complete background information.
This feedback does not involve any claims or demands for compensation. I merely hope that your hotel will move beyond procedural justifications and genuinely address the multiple shortcomings in front office management, staff training, customer communication, and on-site operations during peak hours, as highlighted by this incident.
I respectfully request that management conduct a comprehensive, objective, and thorough internal review of the phone recordings from that evening, front desk service procedures, employee information verification, and on-site entrance management. I also request that you formally verify the issues of inconsistent employee information, service dereliction, and lack of empathy, and provide me with a complete and sincere official written rectification response.
I look forward to your serious investigation and formal reply.
Complainant: Guest in Room 701
Stay Period: May 17 – May 19, 2026
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