A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us an email about issues he is having with the Ambassador program and even getting a reply at the moment.
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You can access Marriott’s page for Ambassador program here.
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Here’s the email from the reader:
We are quite frustrated despite being patient for more than 2 months.
ALL of our messages to Ambassador go into a black hole. We do not receive replies from anyone there including supervisors.
Our Ambassador went AWOL on Aug 18th hence forth. Every, and I mean every message she said she didn’t receive.
Despite finally after 2 weeks getting an email from her, she replied to our email which had all of our correspondence directly below. Which shows a lie she didn’t receive or see because it is right there in her reply.
Finally on a phone call, she admitted she wanted to quit. I believe it was only frustration as she is a mature women with a lot of experience. But certainly overwhelmed, but also denying seeing any of our messages.
Even the Ambassador we spoke to on this weekend and last weekend said its a bit crazy with so much coming in and going out.
Even an Ambassador supervisor we spoke to a week ago last weekend. She hasn’t replied since, despite our several follow ups to her by phone and email.
We continue to write and call Ambassador. The same to Marriott. But no replies and of course no solution.
We don’t have inside information but it certainly this activity is suspicious, who is doing what? We saw the report in the spring that Ambassadors may go from 200 clients to 300, and some will be let go.
Overloaded?
Under-trained?
Lash back to Marriott by Ambassadors?
Marriott ultimate goal to end Ambassadors?
Marriott has not ended the Ambassador program but perhaps they are dumping it down by expanding the number of guests each must handle from 200 to 300. They just made the program official for Marriott Rewards members too.
I would assume that the number of Ambassador eligible guests will go down in 2020 once the $20,000 minimum spend kicks in and you cannot credit multiple rooms towards earning it.
The experienced Ambassadors that would like to take care of their guests like the one that the reader has must feel like most of us do – frustrated.
Marriott pushed the program merger through when their IT platform was not ready. Many of the processes that were automated on SPG platform must be manually processed under Marriott and are prone to problems and mistakes such as the Your24 cannot be processed online but your Ambassador must email the request to property. Waste of time and resources.
Conclusion
Many Marriott employees are equally frustrated and left in dark as are we. They are dealing with systems that aren’t functioning properly and are opening tickets to get issues resolved.
I would assume that employees that are good and simply don’t want to deal with the stress and the mess that the Marriott is in just leave.
It won’t help that Marriott is increasing the workload of these Ambassador by 50% by moving from 200 to 300 guests when they don’t have the correct automated resources in place. How are they supposed to provide personalized service?
