Thursday, May 22, 2025

We're Here to Serve You, Because Member Service Matters

When service falls short of expectation, the impact leaves a lasting impression

By Wayne Prins, Executive Director

I live near Edmonton with my wife and two young girls. It’s a pretty area, and there’s plenty of nature and scenery to enjoy. That said, I have come to love southern Ontario—particularly in the warm months.

Last summer, I was very excited to book a vacation with my family to the Niagara Peninsula to show them a beautiful part of the country they had never seen before. The big splurge was a three-night stay at the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel.

I told the girls that Niagara Falls would take their breath away. I was confident the experience would be awe-inspiring. I imagined us waking up to a panoramic view of the falls—just like the pictures promised.

Exhausted after a long day of travel in 30-degree heat, we checked in and took the elevator to our floor. The girls ran down the hallway ahead of us with our room key, both wanting to be the first to glimpse the falls from our lofty perch. They swung the door open and rushed in. Instead of a bright, view-filled room, they stumbled into a dark room with no window! It was a broom closet turned hotel room at the “Fallsview” hotel.

We appealed to the front desk for a new room, but it was high season, and there wasn’t a room to spare. Then we asked for a refund, because this wasn’t the experience we thought we had purchased. But such a courtesy was not considered—buyer beware!

My bias for politeness and understanding gave way to a powerful indignation and demand for justice and fairness. I escalated my complaint to increasing levels of management until I was finally emailing the area manager for the hotel chain, and still I achieved no satisfaction.

Customer service matters. When actual service falls short of expectation, the impact leaves a lasting impression.

CLAC prides itself on providing exceptional member service. We exist to serve you, to meet the high service standards you’ve come to expect from us. I believe we do an excellent job of member service, and our member satisfaction surveys verify it. We also monitor member complaints, and we measure bargaining unit retention as a key indicator of service provision. Our track record on these scores is impressive.

That said, I know we’re not perfect. Sometimes, we fall short of our own service standard. Having experienced this type of disappointment myself, I really don’t like the thought of any member leaving an interaction with their union feeling the way I felt at that hotel.

Our commitment is to provide you with excellent service every time you engage or interact with us. This commitment is core to who we are. It’s embedded in our vision and mission statements, and it’s evident throughout our strategic plan. It’s how we’ve grown to become one of the largest independent unions in Canada, and it’s how we’ll continue to be a leading union into the future.

I invite you to let us know how we’re doing. If you’ve received excellent service, let us know. And if we’ve fallen short of your expectation, we want to hear that too. We’re here to serve you because member service matters.

We're Here to Serve You, Because Member Service Matters

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