Originally Posted by
Kacee
Seriously? First they increased the load on each Ambassador from like 200 to 600, making it impossible for the Ambassadors to provide meaningful personalized service. Then they canned most of the Ambassadors and completely ended personalized Ambassador service. Ambassador service basically no longer exists.
Originally Posted by
longtimereader firstimeposter
It's my personal opinion. In the 8-9 years I've had an Ambassador I never received a 'personalized' experience. I honestly prefer to reach out to a team who can get things done as opposed to waiting for one individual to respond. Sure, in the past year they've removed personal Ambassadors but I wasn't travelling anyway.
Under SPG you were assigned a specific Ambassador who got to know you somewhat, arranged small gifts like a bottle of wine or checked on your room upgrade. Under Marriott, no one proactively contacts you and your request or email gets thrown into a pool where the agents seem to be paid by the number of contacts that they respond to. Nothing to do with the quality or accuracy of the response. When an agent said she could not modify my reservation at a Times Square property that had been open for 10 years because they had no record of the hotel's existence (and she had my reservation number) I called it quits.
SPG was not massive, they really had to work harder. Marriott is too big and does not care about customer service at the individual level. It may well be that the Ambassador program SPG ran is not cost effective for Marriott, I don't know. But Marriott clearly is not that concerned with the much diminished service level the Ambassador program provides today.