FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Marriott Bonvoy ‘Ambassador Elite’ Level : experiences (2020 and earlier)
Old Sep 15, 2018, 11:21 am
  #714  
RogerD408
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: South Florida
Programs: AA LTG (EXP), Hilton Silver (Dia), Marriott LTP (PP), SPG LTG (P) > MPG LTPP
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Originally Posted by bhrubin
I also received the aforementioned email yesterday—even though I obviously already have an assigned legacy Ambassador who I also already know will continue to be my assigned Ambassador in the new Marriott era.

Clearly, this was an automated email to everyone who has Ambassador service. Presumably, they have completed the manual and/or any other IT checks to be sure that their pool of Ambassador elites are truly qualified for the Ambassador service. I’m sure the IT fiasco made those checks more challenging than they had asssumed. No surprise there.

Clearly also, the obvious delay in new Ambassador elites being assigned their new Ambassadors has a lot to do with the obvious Marriott IT fiascos from the systems merge.

I think many here are mistakenly conflating a weakness of Marriott IT with a weakness in the new level of Ambassador service. There is no evidence at all of any weakness for the Ambassador service. There is evidence galore of IT fiascos causing delays with just about every Marriott elite function imaginable. Let’s be sure not to Improperly scapegoat Ambassador service and Ambassadors for the failure of Marriott IT.

Marriott IT caused the delay in new Ambassadors being assigned until this coming week. Marriott IT also caused the delay with already assigned Ambassadors not always receiving communications from their guests, giving the (now obviously false) impression that Ambassadors weren’t responsive.

It turns out that Marriott IT has sucked big time. Everyone now knows that. It doesn’t follow necessarily that Marriott Ambassador service will not impress as much (or as little) as it did in its legacy SPG days.
Actually, the blame for all these issues falls much higher than the Ambassadors or even the IT staff. We have no idea when IT got their marching orders. We have no idea what resources were made available. We have no idea what training material was generated for the customer-facing staff (Ambassadors and CSRs alike) or when it was (if it was) distributed. Management has failed, let's not shoot those on the front line.
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