Marriott Communciation -- Lack of Recent Stays
 

Marriott just sent out an email regarding my lack of recent stays. I don't know if anyone else has gotten it, but here is the verbiage:

I took the survey and let them know my concerns since it was a conscious choice on my part. You would think they would address you by name rather than "Values Marriott Rewards Member".

A bit of a rant: I received one of these a few months back. I was staying at an annual rate of ~90 nights a year at relatively expensive rates (usually $250++ per night). I gave extensive feedback as to my significant reduction in stays (2 paid nights in past 12 months). Main feedback I gave: overall value proposition of MarriottRewards, primarily around the limited recognition of platinum members despite the highest tier in the hotel space (75 nights is a lot!). In my very high frequency stay life I was only upgraded to rooms beyond concierge level twice. Once it was a single night stay at the Marriott in Troy to the presidential suite and the other was after complaining about bed bugs at the Courtyard near Logan airport. And that was after the front desk initially denied that they had any rooms to accomodate me in and I demanded to switch hotels - only then did they offer me a suite and this was at 2am on a one night stay after which I doubt they could have sold the room. I've stayed at countless Starwoods and (to a lesser degree) Hiltons and gotten room upgrades.

Not only have I yet to hear back anything, on my most recent stay I was treated no differently than my many non-status colleagues who were checking in at the same time. This was as a newly minted 'gold' after being a high value platinum (soft-landing). You'd expect such a large company would have good CRM systems to instruct a specific hotel to try to recove a once-valuable guest. Instead I was only acknowledged as an elite member via my room card. No offer of a better room, no mention of concierge lounge, no "Welcome back to Marriott - its been a while." I'm not saying other chains are that much better but you'd think if you lost a high value customer you'd try to attempt a recovery of some sort.

Whats the point of the survey if nothing is done with them?

Ah, this is exactly the point, it is a survey of many people. They don't care about you or me, they care only about lots of yous and mes. Unless your survey is echoed by enough folks to represent significant revenue to a multi-billion dollar corporation, they really don't care.

It would be nice to see the statistically correlated results from many of these surveys, but of course we never will.

I just wanted to give an update. I filled out the survey earlier this week and I received this email today:

My translation: It was fun while it lasted, let me know if you're in town next summer and want to grab a drink.

I NEVER fill out any surveys that take more than half a minute--unless they compensate me handsomely for doing so.

Sorry--but my time is WAYYYYY to valuable.

On occassion, I will write personalized letters--and then I expect (and usually receive) an appropriate response.

agreed!
 

I wholeheartedly agree.

It doesn't matter who the survey is from - Marriott, UPS, whoever - when the cover page says "10 - 15 minutes of your valuable time" - i hit the little x in the upper right hand corner.

OTOH, i have found that personal emails to the hotel usually get a response.

+1

I honestly filled it out because I wanted to tell them what's wrong with the hope that they might actually take it to heart. The canned response leads me to believe I was wrong, which is a shame. I've had hundreds of nights at MIs and would love to keep on with them to get my lifetime status, but I just don't see it as beneficial to me.

I received the same email. I went into great detail why, in 2008, I spent nearly all my business and personal nights at Marriott (336 nights to be exact!) and in 2009 I spread the wealth around to other chains. I think I spent somewhere around 150 at Marriott in 2009. Anyways, something about having to "ask" for upgrades at the front desk (which I stopped doing), no free internet (I know that is changing), variances in lounge offerings, etc, etc. I really spent some time spelling it out. Heck, I had just been invited to a Hyatt focus group and was paid $250 for my opinions - and I JUST became a diamond there less than a year ago.
For some crazy reason I have some loyalty to Marriott and I want to see the Marriott Rewards program evolve - so I figured I would offer up my suggestions/constructive criticism. At the end of the survey it noted that someone would be contacting me soon. Well, that was 2 weeks ago. And I haven't heard a peep! Even if someone called me at this point - I don't think I would be willing to discuss it much.