Originally Posted by
1120
I think this whole fiasco will end up in Harvard Business Review as a cautionary tale. I’ve been through plenty of M&A in my career and it’s common for one side (generally the acquired) to feel burned by the process.
It’s less common for both sides to be unhappy and that takes real talent from management.
Of course, I acknowledge that shareholders and property owners may feel differently.
Communication has been very poor! What a HBR study on alienating customers.
Unfortunately, the SPG side has been more vocal on expressing their issues even though the new approach is much more SPG oriented, which is far less consistent than Marriott regulars expect.
A lot of this could have been avoided by better communication, surveys of best guests, and enforcing standards at hotels.
I'm not a Delta regular, but they send me a survey after every flight.
Just sending surveys after every stay to Titanium and Ambassador level guests would involve minimal cost and result in significant cheap improvement.
1. Were you greeted as a ______
2. Were you provided with lounge access
3. Were you offered a breakfast choice with a hot protein
4. Were you provided with a suite upgrade
Originally Posted by
Muerz
I honestly wish only half of all those saying they jump ship would actually do it. But I don‘t see that happening. Lounges and hotels are as full as they‘ve always been and the rates remain sky high above the competition (at least where my travel takes me).
Personally, I was under the impression from FT that there were significant widespread problems. Additionally, from my own difficulty in booking reservations with the app/website being frequently down, I expected the company would be seeing significant problems.
All that being said, its clear from the 3d and 4th quarter 10Q's that Marriott is doing just as well as its competitors.
Originally Posted by
Mustang Sally
It's an excellent social media poke in the eye for a company that has run roughshod over the concept of a loyalty program. Despite multiple requests for clarification and help, Marriott has been largely deaf to their most loyal customers
Status renewals. Breakfast policy. Lounge access. Points not posting. Points inaccuracy. Promotion sign-up. Honoring promotions. A total IT cluster cluck. Inadequately trained help-desk staff. And being beaten over the head with pages of terms and conditions that are all too frequently unintelligible and open to interpretation.
I agree the company has been pretty deaf.
That being said, so far in March, there are signs that it is starting to come together.
1. Points are automatically posting again at the proper rate
2. Lounges I have been in have exceeded brand standards with additional fish/meat/cheese at breakfast not required
3. All properties have greeted me at the proper level
4. Mega bonus brand posting posted properly without the need for me to call -- after the initial glitch, of course, posting only two brands
5. Suite upgrades are happening again
6. Ambassador continues to respond in a timely manner
7. App and website now allow be to download bills from all properties
8. Website is mostly working
9. Mobile key is mostly working at several Marriott properties
10. In the earnings call, Arne acknowledged there are actual problems
I suspect a lot of resources and attention were diverted to the state actor data theft problem or some of this would have been taken care of earlier. So, other than the website being intermittently down, things are definitely moving in the right direction.