Is this seat taken?

Our family frequents the La Quinta Inn when we travel. They are the most dog friendly chain that we have come across. There is no additional fee for our pup and no deposit required.

La Quinta serves a free breakfast for guests. Generous seating is always available, but it has been our experience that finding a high chair is like striking gold; it just doesn't happen often at all. Why on earth would a hotel exclude a high chair from the seating options? It is not an expensive purchase. I wouldn't think it would impact any insurance policy since the hotel allows children. The lack of highchairs seems to be a ridiculous oversight across the chain.

But don't think that La Quinta is the only commercial enterprise offender. Dear Starbucks has a similar problem. Though Starbucks is even odder in practice. Our recent trip to a Bloomfield, NJ location revealed that the entire store only offered one highchair for patrons. One highchair? Do you offer one seat for adults to share? Of course not. Adults have generous seating options from the wooden wipe clean seats to the comfy cushioned chairs. But our small children get to wiggle on our laps as we look enviously on at the one parent that snagged the only available highchair. I'd like to say that this experience was unique to this specific location but that is not the case. Many starbucks only offer only the one highchair.

~Special Follow Up~

Before we were able to post this entry, we got a call from Morgan, Manager of La Quinta in Fairfield. It seems that the email I sent through the www.lq.com site complaining about the lack of highchairs reached an actual human being with common sense! Morgan apologized profusely and said that a few highchairs were being purchased today!!! He attempted to explain bizarre policy that doesn't make the various individual La Quinta Hotels account for high chairs on site. I won't even bore you with the bizarreness of the further explanation. Since I won't be back to the Fairfield La Quinta anytime soon, I will have to trust in Morgan and his dedication to righting the wrong. But high fives all around to what appears to be excellent customer service follow up for La Quinta Inns & Suites!

We also received an email from Starbucks in regard to the follow up to our experience that we sent via email on the corporate site. They claim that they are looking into the highchair issue. They also stated that free drink coupons were on route to our address as a way to welcome us back to their stores.

It was a day of good customer service follow up!

And this is what we look for.  We know that not everyday is a company's best day, and that mistakes happen.  We don't demand perfection.  Our question is: What does a company do about a problem when we bring it to their attention?

Both Starbucks and La Quinta made an effort to fix the problem.  Kudos to both!!