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Originally Posted by hockeyinsider
(Post 30550877)
This email would have been much better if they had ate the cost of sending a printed letter via the postal service to each customer or at least used software to customize the email and thank you for your given status.
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Originally Posted by X-ON
(Post 30551965)
I stand corrected, however spending 250K-450K USD a year (vs. paying 450 USD) in annual fee) as substitute of a Hilton Diamond challenge ... it is not impossible but hardly a substitute
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Originally Posted by christianj
(Post 30549231)
...not sure why they would waste our time sending out an email like that without addressing the elephant in the room when it comes to program integration.
Originally Posted by JBord
(Post 30549567)
I'll agree with others that the email said very little. But it certainly shows how Marriott is in a no-win situation.
Originally Posted by CCIE_Flyer
(Post 30549595)
...a corporate message such as this should've at least included something tangible...
Originally Posted by GUWonder
(Post 30550119)
Renaming the loyalty program is an indicator of further devaluations to come — and worse and more frequent devaluations than before, if I had to make a guess.
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Originally Posted by hockeyinsider
(Post 30550877)
This email would have been much better if they had ate the cost of sending a printed letter via the postal service to each customer or at least used software to customize the email and thank you for your given status.
I suppose on the customization point, there's probably a 50/50 split. Some people feel their status needs to be acknowledged at every opportunity. I don't personally feel the need to have my status stated back to me in a letter, or at check-in, or really in most situations. In fact, in situations where I'm with a coworker, I actually prefer they wouldn't -- It's just personal preference though. |
Originally Posted by BearX220
(Post 30552508)
Lawyers wrote this. They cannot admit fault. They cannot crack open any liability risk. They cannot allude to / promise anything tangible. They can barely say anything. That is how business communications work today.
Of course -- all programs of this nature undergo predictable, inevitable devaluation owing to inflationary pressure and dumb money-supply management (e.g. too many points in the "economy."). This is a universal force. I'm surprised at the howls of pain on FT whenever another program is diluted. It's as natural and expected as the sunrise. But the issue here is also that not only is Marriott hell-bent to rush into devaluing the program, they are also willing to make it worse and more painful for customers than it needed to be by rushing the so-called program integration. There is no good reason for Marriott loyalty customers to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of being punched by Marriott just because some hits were to be expected by some substantial minority of the program customers. The lawyer review of the communication seems to have not stopped Marriott from at least acknowledging that some of its customers have been annoyed by the program integration hassles — probably because most of those customers most deeply messed up by Marriott in this regard are those with some of the most business given to Marriott hotels as by measure of points accumulation history of such members’ accounts. |
Originally Posted by Newman
(Post 30550461)
Sadly, some here won't stop their Marriott-bashing until they get Arne Sorenson's head on a silver platter. It's really kinda sad they sink so low as to attack a holiday greeting.
Newman |
Originally Posted by JBord
(Post 30552546)
I'm not sure I follow. Paying for postage would have made it "much better"? Is that because you or some others would have felt better about the print and postage serving as some type of penalty for Marriott? A printed letter is just waste that ends up in my garbage can, and I think most people don't feel a need to punish Marriott (nor do they really care about the overall issues being fixed), they just want their own issues fixed because they are annoying to them. I'm not particularly "green" but I don't see a point in wasting paper when an email will do.
I suppose on the customization point, there's probably a 50/50 split. Some people feel their status needs to be acknowledged at every opportunity. I don't personally feel the need to have my status stated back to me in a letter, or at check-in, or really in most situations. In fact, in situations where I'm with a coworker, I actually prefer they wouldn't -- It's just personal preference though. There are ways you can customize the email through the bulk-mail lists that would have made this look more personalized and less like a copy-and-paste form letter. My guess is this letter was reviewed by 20 different people from investor relations, public relations and media affairs, the loyalty division, general counsel, and likely the chief executive officer before it was sent. It probably took a week to draft. |
Originally Posted by GUWonder
(Post 30552010)
That would be a waste of paper |
Originally Posted by hockeyinsider
(Post 30552792)
Marriott sends out at least one mailer every year to all of its program members so it's not like they don't do this. To me, the email correspondence would have came off as more genuine and sincere had it been sent even if it was an auto-pen signature.
There's another perspective too, that many customers would probably be angry if they received paper. There would likely be a thread on here complaining about how they wasted paper rather than sending an email. There's a thread somewhere about people who are upset about the plastic shampoo bottles in rooms, because they aren't eco-friendly. To be clear, that's not my issue -- I just don't see the point of paper here unless it's coming in an envelope with some type of redeemable certificate (and even that could just be placed in my online account). |
Originally Posted by writerguyfl
(Post 30551950)
Had Marriott offered points to everyone, it's clear that you'd be happy. Other people would undoubtedly see the offer as offensive because the underlying problems haven't been fixed.
Finally, don't forget that while many people have had major challenges, many others have not had any issues. Giving points to everyone to compensate for problems that only a portion of members experienced is not something any company would do. Respectfully, I think your expectations are not in line with that reality. (Note: I'm not saying you personally aren't due compensation. I'm merely saying a blanket gesture to everyone isn't the way to address the problems some members have had.) |
I read and wondered in this day of useless email, spam and such not what was the purpose?
Probably on a check list of informing the consumer, just like the security breach email too. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, probably won't come in an email but read it on some other site. |
Originally Posted by Cledaybuck
(Post 30552609)
I believe the platter should be platinum. Silver isn't worth anything.
I receive the email as well. While I understand some people who badly affected with the issue will not be satisfied, but I can guess majority of members are have no or very minor issues with MR Yes, the points and nights credis was slowly post on August-October. but on my November stays everything post as usual. |
Originally Posted by kaizen7
(Post 30553304)
Yes, the points and nights credis was slowly post on August-October. but on my November stays everything post as usual. |
Originally Posted by Newman
(Post 30550461)
I believe that you mean that Marriott has exceeded unreasonable customer expectations.
1) Have a website which works: It's 2018, not 1998. Is it too much to ask for a website which actually works? I'm talking the basics -- to search for hotel rooms, BY PRICE, and be able to successfully book a room! Just last week I tried, twice, to book rooms for this week using Marriott.com and both times, the website crashed and became unavailable. I moved those stays over to Hilton where I was able to successfully do this task in under 2 minutes for both bookings. Let's remember that the original MARSHA was created in ~1972, so Marriott's had 46 years to play with technology. Marriott.com's woes began a bit over a year ago when they re-platformed their operations from MARSHA to "The Cloud!" Rather than fix the underlying issues, marketing got their way and the website's look changed multiple times in the past year. Then add in a merger on top of that mess. Down the road in business schools, do expect to see chapters on how NOT to perform a corporate merger, especially systems merger, to discuss this case. 2) Have call centers which work: Call center wait times skyrocketed on the Marriott side well before the August cutover. Further, specialist teams (elite agents, Marriott Rewards agents, reservations agents) were all stripped of their titles/positions and thrown into a general phone queue. A jack of all trades is a master of none. As a result, phone wait times grew to unreasonable (waiting 45-90 minutes on hold) wait times as representatives were now working with things they were unfamiliar with. I don't know what Marriott has done with staffing their call centers, but the overall gist on FlyerTalk seems to indicate the current CSRs aren't well-trained, nor are they always pleasant. I came to this party as a Marriott loyalist and from MY perspective, the call centers are well below the standards we had about a year ago. There was some hope that the dust would settle after the systems integration happened in August, BUT just like the broken website, calling the Marriott 800# feels more like calling 1-800-COMCAST. 3) Communicate to stakeholders: It's not just us chickens getting the shaft here -- the hoteliers are also being treated about the same. Like I posted in another thread earlier in the year, it's like Marriott hired the Iraqi Information Minister to do their PR. "Nothing wrong here! Just some noise on the fringe. Everything's fine! Ignore that when you go to Marriott.com, the website doesn't load. Or that hotels can't access the reservation systems. Everything's fine!!!!" I think a lot of us (including the hoteliers) would feel more confident in Marriott's abilities if they came out early and said, "Obviously, things aren't going as well as expected. Please be patient, we are working on it. We've hired outside consultants and teams to help us expedite the fixes" Instead, we're given a 29 Ways to Fail promotion, which couldn't even work because of how bad their IT systems are. This could have been (mostly) prevented. For the IT systems merger, someone, somewhere should have been screaming "STOP!" and management should have listened. It had to be obvious to someone in the organization that the new Marriott.com platform wasn't ready for prime time. Until it was ready, it made no sense to continue pushing the integration forward. For items 2 & 3, look how Kroll has handled the Starwood IT security breach compared to how Marriott has handled their merger. First, they immediately come out and say that they screwed up. They then gave a relatively detailed account of what happened. Last, they say what they're doing to fix it and what steps customers can take. They even established a special call center with agents dedicated & trained specifically on how to handle this issue. Everything on this, so far, has been by the book on how you should handle a situation like this. As I type this, I'm working on a merger in the transportation sector. Due to the intricacies of the case, we are being forced to merge much faster than we wanted to. BUT, we've wisely decided to leave things status quo as much as possible. Other than payroll & insurances which are being combined due to logistical factors, everything else is being left separate. Both sides of the merger are having regular meetings and trying to take the best of both companies to be the plans for the future. |
It's clear that someone at Marriott International needs to do a proverbial seppuku over this.
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