You’re Not Going To Believe Marriot’s Bad Service!

[ParkLogic]

I’ve just been arranging my hotel accommodation for my next business trip to the USA. I was looking at a number of hotels in the San Francisco area and decided on the Marriot as I’m a silver member with them.

I called up the hotel because the Marriot website wasn’t as cheap as either booking.com or orbitz.com. The helpful person at Marriot booking said that if I called +1 (402) 548 3575, “Look no further guarantee”, that they will match the price plus add a 25% discount. All they would have to do was verify my claims. Sounded a little too good to me.

Since I was already suspicious I screen captured the page with the cheaper rate (see picture) and saved it away just in case. The next day I received an email from “Look no further” that my claim of a cheaper rate had been rejected.

Its times like this that I just sometimes say, “That’s it, I’m going after these guys!” I sent them my screen capture (the entire one with the location and all the other details), which although not definitive (they can be faked) it clearly had the rates from booking.com and orbitz.com with a cheaper rate. Marriot then rejected the screen capture as not being proof. Now I was getting very irritated.

It should be said that at NO TIME did Marriot ever say that I had to take any screen capture, or do anything to get the discount other than apply. What amazes me is that their systems must be so bad that they couldn’t just look it up and say, “Hey, this looks like a correct one.” They claim that the price has now changed (it’s gone up – another surprise) therefore I’m incorrect.

Seriously!!!! Take a look at your systems and check the price at booking.com when I made the claim! Their terms state that the rate must be what was claimed at the time of their evaluation. OK, so let me understand this. I make a claim, they wait a while and presto the number has changed so my claim is rejected. How does this make sense from a customer’s perspective? It doesn’t!

What this shows is that terms and conditions are completely irrelevant if the customer has a different view of what was transacted. Particularly when the customer went to the trouble of taking screen captures etc. To be quite honest with you, this wasn’t about the money it’s about the principle. Marriot are completely jerks with the way they have behaved. Some of their emails where.....how can I say this.....politely insulting!

In fact, in one of the email transactions they state, “We provide impartial and fair claim evaluation based on the terms and conditions set forth by a team of lawyers at our corporate offices.” You’ve got to be kidding me. One, it wasn’t fair. Two, a team of lawyers in the corporate office!!!! No wonder the customer service is bad!

I had a bit of a giggle at one line in their recent email where they said, “There is no justification for any verifiably approvable claim to be denied.” Their verification process is flawed and is NOT customer centred at all. BTW - I agree with their statement....there is no justification.

What ultimately really got me angry was when the customer representative essentially called me a liar. I wasn’t really too happy with that.

I’ve only got one thing to say, “Marriot, welcome to the Internet and social networking.” When you get a customer really angry they are not just one, we are MANY. Feel free to pass this experience around and comment if you too have had similar experiences with big companies that think they can walk all over you.



This is my final email that I sent Marriot (excuse typos as it was sent from my phone)

Ok, so what you are telling me is that your own systems are incapable of verifying my claims.

Not only this, you are effectively calling me a liar because you are not checking your own system.

Just to let you know I plan on using this as an example of bad customer service. This will go out to around 10,000 people. My guess is this will then be passed on to in excess of 100,000 people...

What you need to understand that when a customer firmly believes in the validity of their claim and they provide evidence that no matter what you do it comes off as second rate.


Michael
Sent from my iPhone

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There's been no response so far......



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