Readers, and Starwood, React to Starwood Customer Agitation

My wife and I traveled in October and stayed in a SPG hotel. I was on business, and my wife accompanied me, it was wonderful. Before the end of the week the valet/concierge desk out front, and the staff behind the counter at the Westin greeted us by our names. We felt valued.

These days we travel infrequently and try to stay at "interesting" or boutique (but not crazy expensive) hotels when we are not staying with friends or family, and though the Westin is part of a big chain we were treated like we are when we stay in one of the much smaller boutique or small chain (Kimpton, Magnolia, etc.) properties. We were not expecting that treatment, but we did enjoy it.

Yes, it is easy to set the bar low and thus always meet or exceed expectations, or as one commenter said, "never fail to deliver." But let's be honest, if the price per night is the same cost +/- 5%, and one hotel chain consistently provides with a well worn room and indifferent staff while the other consistently provides you with a room that looks and feels new and an attentive staff, most people will chose the one with the new feeling rooms and the attentive staff.

Oh, wait, how could I be so insensitive? I just realized that you like the well worn rooms and inattentive staff. I feel so silly.

It was interesting reading through some of the comments, particularly the ones at the extremes. As a SPG Gold member who earns his status mainly through weekend and vacation stays, I have never gotten the raspberry mousse nor care to get it.

What I have gotten is plenty of amazing upgrades on weekends, since most SPG Platinums who would normally get these upgrades are at home. For the infrequent traveler, SPG Gold is the easiest status to attain that offers 4 p.m. checkouts, which make leisure travel in particular so much more relaxing.

I love Starwood. Their hotels, up and down the chain, are clean and pleasant and their staff is helpful. And no, I don't have crazy amounts of points. I HATE Marriott. Their hotels are old and dirty and their staff is rude (with the exception of Ritz Carlton, which I generally cannot afford). So despite having virtually no Starwood points, I am distraught over the merger. When I am forced to travel for business and stay in a lower-end hotel because clients are cheap, I want the hotel to be clean and pleasant and I know a Starwood hotel will be.

I worked in retail for many years and dealt first hand with customers most of the time. The large majority were nice people. But there were always demanding, rude and irrational people to keep you on edge. After all the customer is gold and they are always right so you did your best. As a customer myself I have found that the "desk people" at the majority of hotels I have used, are just plain lousy at their job. No sense of urgency, outright rudeness, and no concern for your needs. Frankly it has always amazed me. Also see overworked people who simply don't have enough help on the desk. Management needs their bonuses but cutting back efficiency only leads to bad service and mediocre sales.

"More manageable promises — for example, making late checkouts subject to availability, as Marriott does"

Does Marriott consider this to be a benefit of their frequent guest program? I don't use any chain's frequent guest program, but frequently ask for late checkout. And sometimes I get it, subject to availability. That seems to me to be good customer service, not something that should be considered to be a frequent guest perk.

Change is everywhere in business and to be expected. Starwood could have learned a lesson in communication from American Airlines. Change away! But at least communicate in a way that's respectful of your customers. http://www.yourthoughtpartner.com/blog/hit-or-missive-starwood-you-can-l...

In an effort to make everything a class issue, apparently the NYT and its commenters have missed a very real issue. Marriott is so known as not caring about customer service that even the thought that it would take over a company dedicated to customer service was enough to frighten customers. I personally choose not to stay at Marriott's because of multiple bad experiences. I am not talking about chocolate mousse but rather real issues such as being told despite advanced notice that I would be checking in at 9pm at night that my room was not ready for me and wouldn't be until midnight because they gave it to airline staff for a few hours to make extra money. If I wanted one of the several empty hotel rooms, I would have to pay more because it would be an upgrade. Another great one was when two employees were too involved in personal conversations to bother giving me a package. If I now have to avoid Starwood too, it severely limits where I can stay for business or pleasure.

I'll take Starwood's diverse mix of properties over-promise and not always delivering over Marriott's low-bar and boring/generic properties any day.

Hotel loyalty is fickle and frequent high-end travelers will always be courted. When Marriott-Starwood sees their bookings drop, perks will be reinstated for these people as a "new" feature.

Starwood business travelers are getting a free perk on their Companies money.
Maybe they could save Company money by staying at less expensive (but nice) hotels rather than try to advance their own self-interest.

Whether staying at a hostel and enjoying diverse wanderers or lodging at a Starwood and dazzled by a server prepping for graduate school, it's genuine experiences which distinguish journeys from McTravel.

So let me get this straight. The wealthy and the business class who work for the wealthy are complaining that they might get a little bit less service, such as no more mousse or individualized food, at their upscale hotel (which I've never heard of until now). I actually had to keep reading this entire article to see how stupid the topic really is. And maybe this is one of those embedded ads anyway? I guess I'll stick to a higher rated Super 8 for 50 to 70 bucks and buy my own mousse (when it's half off at Kroger). I don't relate to this conversation.

As a leisure traveler, the Starwood Platinum program has added to my family's travel experience. Suites overlooking the Arno River in Florence. Bicycle explorations with concierge staff in Bejing.Private boat rides at the Excelsior in Venice (when it was Starwood) Walking tours of local areas in Mexico Experiences offered to us that required human thought and graciousness. The human factor seems so abscent from travel these days.
This aspect of the program gave travel a personal touch-which seems to be missing in so much that we do.

I have been a Starwood customer for years when traveling on business, and a Westin customer from the days it was Western International and pre=Starwood. I am now retired and do not travel as much. I always hated Marriotts's, even its high end chain like the JW Marriott because customer service seemed so low in its prioritization charts. If the merger goes through, I gather that the Marriott way of doing things will take over. Perhaps this is great for Starwood shareholders, but not for its customers. I look at Starwood with disdain for selling out to the mediocrity of Marriott. From a customer's point of view -- and why should that matter -- a merger with Hyatt would have been ever so much more palatable. As Jay 65, below, points out Marriott is a very middle brow operation.

As a Starwood shareholder from a very low point, I shouldn't complain, but I feel the middle brow Marriott operation is low balling us. I tend to stay at independent hotels or clubs, but I feel the Westin, W, and St Regis brands are worth more without being anchored to Marriott. Justice Department? where art thou re anti-trust. I am in no hotel affinity program, but I understand the concerns of the Starwood members.

You've missed the core VERY important issue in your articles, The problem is it gives Marriott+Starwood too much market share and excessive pricing power, ie. it basically creates a Marriott/Hilton duopoly in almost all small-mid size markets, and even in large city downtowns and prime locales. If one looks at eg. Austin downtown core and immediate vicinity, M+S probably have ~40% of the rooms and Hilton chains have another 30-40%, and the remainder are mostly expensive (4 Seasons and upscale boutique, i.e. not price competition). That's a problem in terms of affinity prgms, but it's a bigger problem re: local market pricing power.

As mentioned, Marriott has a relatively poor/high-threshold affinity program because *they don't have to*, i.e they have so many hotels, it's not necessary. If Marriott+Starwood merge, both M+S Hilton actually are *dis-incented* to maintain good affinity programs, because corp. customers now have almost no mid-market choice in most large towns/small-med cities, and very limited room supply alternatives even in large cities, so affinity programs are just waste eating into duopoly profits.

The more important econ. issue is that M+S and Hilton can now effectively dictate room pricing for med-large conventions and general *corp* biz travel in med. size, and even large cities because they control a large majority of total available room inventory. That's the main problem.

No surprise that hotel chains coddle their top spending customers, as do airlines. They key point, however, is that service-industry mergers almost always result in the service dropping to the lowest common denominator between the two merged companies; integration of the combined companies is poor and takes too long, and the merger premium has to be made up with a lower overall cost of service per head in the bed. Read the statements of Marriott to its stockholders as to the "cost synergies" and the like, and reasonably presume that will be the future.

How sad.

I would like a falcon baked into my Starwood Marriot apology cake. Raspberries are for less frequent travelers than me.

Nice teaser at the end Josh. Anyone who knows hotel loyalty programs knows Hyatt's Gold Passport outranks them all. Those Diamond bennies especially the breakfasts, the in-room coffee service, the suite upgrades - are something I miss. I'm not expecting anything as a result of this post, not even a falcon delivering me a cake.

So tomorrow will there be an article about Mr. Walters' reaction to the article about Mr. Walters' reaction to the first article about his reaction to the merger? Can the falcon please bring me a top to spin?