A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us a text that a former Marriott customer service employee had apparently posted on the internet (we have not been able to independently verify this).
Marriott Bonvoy customer service has struggled ever since the program merger in August last year and reading the text below one can understand why.
UPDATE: This text apparently first appeared on Bonvoyed.com (access here) where Marriott current and former employees can air out their grievances in addition to frustrated Marriott Bonvoy members.
Here’s the former employee’s point of view:
I worked for Marriott for a little over 3 years. Marriott had a motto “Take care of the associates and they will take care of the guests.” In April of 2018 Marriott rolled out their new “Service Delivery Module.” At the same time, they stopped taking care of the associates.
Before SDM, there were several departments to contact. Sales, customer care, rewards, etc. Now, no matter who you call, you are getting a sales rep. If you need to get sent to “loyalty” you are getting a sales rep that 3 hours more of copy and paste training. If you get sent to “elite” they had 2 more hours of the same training. And just to add, it was SPG employees leading the training.
An entire new reservation system was forced on us that barely works because Marriott didn’t want to pay Oracle to use the system they had been using before. To add to this, the agents were able to call supervisors that would help them fix things. The supervisors are now ordered not to help. Everything has to be “make a case.” Cases are “supposed” to be resolved in 3 to 5 days. When I left, there were cases that were 4 months old untouched. The cases started in April. I’ve been told that since then, they have reached 110 million cases.
When the changes started in April, agents that had worked there for 20 years were walking out in the middle of their shifts. The company scrambled to hire a bunch of people with less than normal training. There are a lot of agents that are just terrible. There are still a lot that want to help but can’t. Even the former SPG agents are new to all of the system changes.
Marriott tried to change 50 things at once with them all working at 25 percent. It needed to change one thing at a time. Waiting until it was running well. Then make the next change. My former coworkers say there is a new change that is about to take away their last resort system away next week. Good luck.
So it is not IT like everyone says. Or usually lack of agents trying. It is the company not wanting to pay for a third party software anymore. And SPG training Marriott employees on a system that barely works. And neither company has used before.
I almost left out the best part. The CEO visited a call center for the first time ever two weeks ago. Best of luck travelers. Don’t blame the person on the phone. They are trying.
Conclusion
This getting a “sales rep” every time would explain most of the inconsistencies that Marriott Bonvoy members have been experiences ever since the merger. You get an agent that has no idea what she/he is doing, cannot contact a “supervisor” (another sales rep with three more hours of training) and merely opens a case that nobody may ever even follow up, open or solve.
It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if there really are 110,000,000 cases opened since the program merger. It would be interested to know how many of those have actually been dealt with and resolved.
Theoretically, it would be great to have one set of agents that could deal with anything from sales to loyalty program to customer service. Not sure if it is possible, however, considering how confusing and complicated the Marriott Bonvoy program is (have you read through the 70+ pages of Terms and conditions?).
It is frightening if the management and the CEO are so detached from what is going on with all the issues that are not just “noise around the edges” as Sorenson once put it.
This is probably why Marriott’s latest promotion isn’t just double points for stays, it’s double points for all events and meetings. Many properties are going over and above, giving triple points because Marriott has suffered a drop in meeting and events under the new program since meeting and event spend doesn’t count in whole or in part toward the $20,000 threshold for ambassador status and also doesn’t come with the previous 10 elite-qualifying nights per contract.
Last month, I had a Marriott Phone rep tell me, verbatim, to “shut the f*** up” when I complained about their mistake with applying my elite night benefit.
Former SPG employee—Marriott staff always courteous.
I absolutely agree. Marriott staff is always courteous. If (IF) you were told to “shut the fuck up,” you probably deserved it for being obnoxious.
Could be one of the new employees that have been hired to deal with this customer service mess after some of the long time employees have simply walked out.
You must have pushed somebody’s buttons pretty hard.
I am currently Titanium and suppose to drop Plat in 2019 cause i only stayed 50 nights last year 2018. Somehow my account still shows Titanium and my lifetime status shows I have 3 years as plat (suppose to be 4 if count 2018 cause I stayed 50 nights) and its almost mid March already there hasn’t been any changes. Is this normal or does anyone has this kind of issue too? I called customer service several times it did not help at all. Any thoughts?
For many years before taking over SPG, MR let ur status remain same if u r short some nights automatically. Never from SPG did I ever get that perk unless I call and pleaded my case on the phone!
Yep. Could be something from the old Marriott program where members weren’t often downgraded even when they didn’t exactly meet the nights criteria.
“And just to add, it was SPG employees leading the training”
+ “SPG training Marriott employees on a system that barely works. And neither company has used before”
SUMS IT ALL UP……wonder who bought who?
Angie: trust me, the Mormons bought Starwood and are calling the shots. Knowing Starwood had a stronger service reputation, they likely let some SPG people handle training. However, with Marriott tying their hands with crappy IT, lower standards and a rushed program, you can’t blame the former SPG people for poor training. Blame Mr. “Noise around the edges” Sorenson.
Neal, sorry I have to disagree…personally I think Marriott have a stronger service reputation and I do like their hotels because their prices are reasonable. My best advice to all the spg loyalists is to keep staying at the spg chain and don’t bother with the Marriott hotels. If you decide to give ur loyalty to Bonvoy, then you’ll just have to live with their ‘inept’ IT system for now until it becomes ‘perfect’?
Angela. I think you must work for Marriott. Everything you post says all is well and only SPGers are complaining.
Are you Arne in disguise?
It really is a CF er BonVoy
Azamaraal: Even if she isn’t Arne in disguise, they share the same confusion about how supposedly ‘great’ Marriott’s customer service is/was. Who knew Marriott loyalists were so susceptible to “alternative facts”
I get her view as well and I don’t believe that the reader comes as a Marriott mouth piece at all. Marriott and Starwood just were completely different animals.
Marriott didn’t come to Vancouver until after we retire…..I am Canadian. Also we both worked really hard, able to retire in our early fifties after 30+ years with a Canadian airline so now just traveling around the world and stay at Marriott hotels and their spacious timeshares. Honestly I had no problems so far w/ the merging such as elite night credits/travel certificates/points etc BUT on my end I always try to anticipate what could happen if staff did not send in my folio properly, usually I remind them nicely.
I already said above that I believe that Marriott took reasonably well care of all of their guests while SPG really looked after their elite members exceptionally well.
He and his cronies on the board definitely had bonus money tied into completion date IMHO
And these Marriott execs are suppose to be smart people. They are taking a great brand and running it into the ground out of sheer stupidity and arrogance. How about if some Marriott execs actually staffed the phone for a couple of hours. They would quickly learn what had to be done. .
Perhaps Frank Lorenzo is making a comeback.
That is the exact word. Arrogance
This is usually the problem that I expended on the conclusion part. the upper management is often so detached from day to day operations that at the end they have no clue what is actually happening.
Marriott really bonvoyed this merger.
We’ve all been bonvoyed.
Bonvoyed us my new favorite word to hate.
Someone actually started a website called http://www.bonyoyed.com where you can post about your horrible Marriott experiences. Check it out. The horror stories are incredible!
We wrote about the website few days ago.
Marriott HomeBoy
More proof that Marriott just doesn’t care. They had a reasonably functional system and Starwood had one as well. All they had to do was pick one. How could they possibly Bonvoy up a binary choice? The truly sad part is that ol’ Arnie thinks that there will be no repercussions from treating his people and his customers as enemies.
Arnie strikes me as one of the religious zealots that believes God is on his side.
I have seen that type that can’t acknowledge any wrongdoing because he was chosen for greatness
I’ve done large-scale, complex projects as my career and this sounds like a classic case of project gone wrong. Looks like their CEO is falling for the cover stories from his IT people if he calls this “noise around the edges”!
Sadly, they are past the point of no return, so there is no quick fix. It’ll take them many months or even years to hire and train staff, adjust processes, improve the IT systems and work through the backlog of cases…
I’ve moved my business elsewhere and will give them another try in a few years. If you are a Marriott loyalist, you better be prepared for a rough ride…
I agree. There were large bonus’s (or required savings needed) on the table to have this merger completed by a certain date. Somebody pulled the trigger cause it benefited them and not the customer or company
This entire mess is entirely of Marriott’s making. The original date to merge the loyalty programs was at the end of last year and they brought it several months forward. Considering where we are now even that doubt would have been questionable.
I just feel like they are doing these on purpose just to rush everything and push peoples away so the number of loyalty members can be reduced to a level that they can handle…
Respectfully disagree. In any merger there is an attempt to bring together technology and culture. We saw how poorly they did on the technology (although I do like the new BonVoy app) and the culture couldn’t be more different.
I always viewed Marriott as more casual family travelers and SPG as more business travelers. Business travelers expect status to be acknowledged and strong points redemption/earnings offers so that aspirational trips can happen sooner
Marriott took generally good care of all of their guests while not doing anything great to their higher elite members. SPG wasn’t very good program for average Joe but Platinum members were very well looked after.
John…you summed it up nicely! Before this takeover mess, Marriott GOLD matched to Spg GOLD—no lounge benefits at Spg hotels yet there is for Marriott’s lowly gold members(moi) Also Spg considered “stays” instead of “nights” which is more beneficial for members to attain status a lil easier.
Marriott’s marketing department struggles to provide offers that are meaningful enough to incentivize behavoir.
O/T The AMEX Bonvoy card offered 100k points to be earned if you spent 100,000 USD. The points could be earned in increments of 25K once 25,000 USD was spent.
That’s nuts. Marriotts points are so watered down now. I spent 1300 on a 4 night business stay and earned about 27,000 points. What genius thinks 100k in spending is worth 100,000 on that card. Total buffoons
If they got rid of Oracle, the pain is probably worth it, and they are probably saving money overall given the $$ Oracle wants.
Oracle runs/owns Micros/Opera that most restaurants/hotels use. Thought that it would be some sort of gold standard?
Hi John – Goodness, this is absolutely stunning. Worse than we thought, and we already knew it was really bad. Many thanks for sharing this article.
Even the app is a pile of rubber dog dung. Seriously it’s bad, bad bad