Accor Hotels - another major Customer Service Failure

There is one thing which always gets me extremely angry, and that is bad customer service. As management consultant, who lives a life of order and well laid out processes (at least at work), it is such a painful experience when easy processes don't work. Currently, I am tasked to develop a customer service centre for a big financial institution in Frankfurt, and one thing is for sure, the Accor Hotel way of doing things is something I won't train my clients in. 

The Situation: Twice a year Accor Hotels do have a major points initiative in their reward scheme. Last September it was called September Boost for which one has to sign up and then, once the conditions are met, one gets points credited to one's rewards account. The September Boost promised 10000 points (which equals €200) and the conditions were: 4 stays à 2 nights minimum from anytime September till end of December 2016. One needed to book by mid October and that's mainly it. 

Usually any bookings till deadline count, also bookings that were made before one signed up for the offer. But just to make sure I asked Accor's social media team about it and they confirmed this to me.

As one can see, they confirmed that reserved nights before the offer came out would count. So I trusted them. Of course, everyone can imagine what's coming up now. I'm waiting for my points till today. The interesting thing is my e-mail exchange. I am blue, they are red.

First e-mail: Roland to Accor on 25 October 2016:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I took part in the September Boost promotion and so far have never received an points and i have stayed and will stay nearly every week in an Accor hotel. I signed up in September and it is nearly November now. I should have at least gained the first two layers. Can you please check whether there is a system glitch? I have registered twice, just to make sure and the second time I got confirmed that I was signed up. 

Second e-mail: Accor to Roland on 30 October 2016:

Dear Mr. BRUNNER,

We refer to your email dated October 25, 2016.

To further assist you with the September offer points please provide the reservation associated with it.

We remain at your disposal.

Regards,

K.T. (name deleted for privacy reasons)

Your Accor Hotels Customer Care Service

Third e-mail: Roland to Accor on 30 October 2016:

Dear K,

As far as I remember, the September Boost offer should have been granted to the following stays: 

Ibis xxx, 4 - 7 October

Hotel Mercure xxx from 10 to 13 October

Hotel Mercure xxx from 24 to 29 October

Hotel Mercure xxx from 28 bis 30 October

For those 4 stays, each of them were longer than 2 nights, I should receive all in all 10000 points now. Can you please credit my account with them? 

Thanks and kind regards,

Forth e-mail: Accor to Roland on  4 November 2016:

Dear Mr. Brunner,

Thank you for taking time to contact us.

We refer to your request regarding "BOOST SEPTEMBER 2016 - YOUR EXCEPTIONAL NEW BONUS" offer.

We regret to inform you that your reservation from to at the hotel Mercure Hotel xxx, ibis Styles xxx and Mercure xxx hotel are not eligible to the offer.

After checking your bookings, those were not booked on 12/09/2016 as per terms and conditions of this offer.

According to the terms and conditions of this offer, the offer is valid only one time per member, for maximum 4 stays of 2 hotel nights minimum, booked through 12/10/2016, and done through 26/12/2016 in hotels participating in the Le Club AccorHotels programme. Receive a total of 10,000 points maximum: 500 points after your 1st stay, 2,500 points after your 2nd stay, 3,000 points after your 3rd stay and 4000 points after your 4th stay.

Looking forward to welcome you soon in one of our hotels, thank you for your loyalty in the AccorHotels Group.

Regards,

L. V.

Your AccorHotels Customer Care Service

Fifth e-mail from Roland to Accor on 4 November 2016:

Dear L, 

Your answer is conflicting with what one of your colleagues told me on twitter. 

I signed up for this offer, and i have stayed nearly every week afterwards in one of your hotels. This year so far 32 stays and more than 100 nights, tendency rising. And now I would like those points that were offered to me by signing up to that promotion. 

As you can see on my twitter feed I even ensured my reservations were valid. All I now do is to claim what has been agreed through signing up to this offer and actually seeking advice from your colleague. 

A screen shot of the chat is attached. 

Viele Grüße and kind regards

(ATTACHED THE SCREEN SHOT FROM TWITTER, see above)

Sixth e-mail from Accor to Roland on 12 November 2016

Dear Mr. BRUNNER,

We refer to your e-mail below.

We regret to inform you that your reservations were not eligible to the offer BOOST SEPTEMBER 2016 - YOUR EXCEPTIONAL NEW BONUS.

According to the terms and conditions of this offer, the booking date must be between: 12/09/2016 and 12/10/2016 .

We thank you for your understanding and we remain at your entire disposal should you have any further requests.

Looking forward to welcome you soon in one of our hotels.

Regards,
S. K.

Seventh e-mail from Roland to Accor on 15 November 2016:

As one can see, I gave up calling them by their name but went back to "Sir/Madam" as every time someone else answered. 

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thanks for your reply, but you did not answer my concern. I signed up for the September Boost promotion and asked a colleague of yours whether it was okay for this promotion to have booked stays before the actual registration date of the promotion and he said YES. I trusted him and did not book any further rooms. Suddenly you are telling me I do not qualify. And that’s unfair, because I could have easily booked more stays since I am staying with your hotels till the end of the promotion period nearly every week. In fact, with all my stays I could have fulfilled three times the requirements for September Boost. 

Since I relied on your colleague’s advice I would expect now to get those 10,000 points. 

I have attached a photo of the actual Twitter conversation between your colleague and myself. 

In your reply I would ask you not to send me another automated and pre-fabricated message again but actually refer to the case I am making. 

Thanks and kind regards,

Eighth e-mail from Accor (Guest Relations Coordinator!) to Roland on 17 November 2016:

Dear Mr. Brunner,

We refer to your account regularization request related to the offer "Boost September 2016!"

In the first instance, we offer our sincere apologies for the processing time of your request. Please be assured that this is not a true reflection of the high standards upon which Accor prides itself.

As we have explained in our previous exchanges, we regret to inform you that your bookings # is not eligible this offer. Indeed, according to the terms and conditions of the offer: 

< The offer is valid only one time per member, for maximum 4 stays of 2 hotel nights minimum, booked between 12/09/2016 and 12/10/2016, done for stays through 26/12/2016 in hotels participating in the Le Club AccorHotels programme.>

Indeed your booking was made on 17/08. As mentioned by our Social Media team, we can oversee the fact that the booking was made before the actualsubscription to the offer, however, the booking dates, as well as the other conditions, must be respected in order to benefit from the offer.

We sincerely regret this situation, however, as we are bound by these conditions, we are unable to bypass them and for the reason outlined above, we thank you for understanding that we are unable to respond positively to your request.

Please note that all our promotions are conditioned by terms and conditions that are presented usually at the end of the offer’s description.

We deeply hope that this isolated incident will not leave you with a bad impression of our group. Thank you for your loyalty and we look forward to welcoming you soon again at Accor hotels.

Kindly,

S. B.
AccorHotels GR Coordinator.

Ninth e-mail from Roland to Accor on 21 November 2016:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thanks for your reply. 

Let me just reiterate: Even though I asked one of your colleagues via twitter whether my bookings were okay for the September Boost offer and he said „Yes“ you are not granting me those 10000 points. If he had not said yes I’d have made a few more reservations, as I have been staying in ACCOR hotels weekly; since from September till Christmas I’ll have 16 stays à 2 nights minimum. There are no other conditions I could have not met, as I booked them all via the internet. Basically, I cannot trust your own staff and it is tough luck for me that I did. 

Customer Service for me is something different. I’m a management consultant and am currently implementing a customer service centre for a big bank here in Frankfurt. I will copy our e-mail exchange for a case study and use it for a training session in how to not treat our most loyal customers. 

I am booked through till the end of the year with ACCOR hotels, but from January on and my next year in Frankfurt I will look for another hotel chain. I am not staying where I am not welcome and appreciated. And I am most certainly not begging for those points that should actually be mine. 

Thanks.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen and with kind regards,

And that's where we are today. This is absolutely horrendous. At least I can make a nice case study from it and present it to my clients as how NOT to run a customer service centre. It is not so much the €200 that I would have liked but the sheer stupidity of procedures that seriously get on my nerves. Obviously, I am a good customer; I have platinum membership and am very loyal. This year so far my account shows the following with 6 more stays (and 21 nights) in the pipeline till Christmas:

I don't think I am a difficult customer, in fact, quite the contrary. But I don't like it if they take the Mickey. And this is beyond taking the Mickey, this is stupidity, ignorance and a wrong understanding of customer service.  

__________________________________________________________________

On 24 November I posted on twitter that there is this blog entry and added @accorhotels; just to see if I get a response. The story goes on: 

Tenth e-mail from Accor to Roland on 25 November 2016: 

Case N°: CAS-1297798-V8V4Z4 

Dear, Mr BRUNNER,

Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience that has been caused which does not reflect the quality of service we wish to offer you.

We would like to remind you that your booking was made on 17/08. in order to benefit from the offer, the booking dates, as well as the other conditions, must be respected.

Kindly note that our higher department is working this, we will get in touch with you shortly.

Thank you.Regards,
A. C.

Your AccorHotels Customer Care Service

Today is Wednesday, 7 December and I am still waiting for the "higher department".... I think I'll give up. One can only bear that much incompetence in one's life. 

__________________________________________________________

Okay, I tweeted again to see whether I got any reaction. And that's what I received: 

Eleventh e-mail from Accor to Roland on 14 December 2016:

It is an e-mail by "Member Assistance Level 2"

Dear Mister Brunner,

I have been solicited to answer you concerning your request to get bonus points relative to the "Boost September" offer.

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the time it took to give you a feedback, which doesn’t reflect the quality of our service.

It is with a great attention that I have read your comments and please be assured that I regret any deception caused during your first exchanges with our customer service.

I would like to reassure you that a total of 3 000 Le Club AccorHotels points have been credited to your account in relation to the Boost September offer.

These points were added for the stays from the 21^st to 25^th of November 2016 (500 bonus points) and from the 5^th to the 9^th of December 2016 (2 500 bonus points) at the hotel Mercure Hotel Frankfurt which were both made on the 6^th of October 2016. In accordance to the Terms and Conditions of Use of this offer, these stays were eligible to gaining bonus points.

However, acknowledging the confusion that this situation might have caused and to thank you for your loyalty, I am pleased to offer you 4 000 courtesy points, already credited on your Le Club AccorHotels Platinum Membership number xxx as an exceptional commercial gesture.

Wishing to keep your trust, on which we pay the greatest attention, I hope that you are having a delightful stay at our Hotel Mercure in Frankfurt.

Kind regards,

M. S.

AccorHotels Customer Relations Supervisor 

And that's the case. I will leave the interpretation of it to the reader. 

Earlier on, I had to write a message to their Customer Service Department because of some missing points for a stay in Lithuania this year... If they have a clever CRM system in place, they will probably think "Good Lord, that one again...." 

Feeding 5000 and walking on water with a full stomach

John 6:19 "They saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. But he said to them, 'It is I; do not be afraid'."  

Our boat on the Sea of Galilee, back in 2008 at our pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

My neighbour Sherine and I talked about my SALT story's moral from my last blog entry - look out for Sarahs and get rid of Lots and Terahs in your lives! And whilst we chatted along I said, "I'm wondering if the Bible could be used as management handbook", and Sherine suggested I should try and find out. And that's what I am doing, finding out about it. 

Last Sunday's Gospel reading was about 2 miracles - feeding the multitude and Jesus walking on water. Quite a challenge, to squeeze any management wisdom out of those 2 stories. Maybe I am getting an idea whilst thinking and writing about it...

Jesus and his disciples were at the Sea of Galilee; and after having performed quite a few miracles before, I think mainly healing stuff, he wasn't alone anymore, but followed by thousands of people. Jesus looked back and must have said something like: "Jesus Christ! How on earth shall we feed them?" His disciple Philip, probably shaking his head in disbelief, replied that even half a year's wages wouldn't feed them. They were basically in trouble. 

Disciple Andrew saw a little boy pass by who carried something like a picnic basket, and inside he spotted 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, probably a week's food supply for his family. Andrew told Jesus about the boy's basket. What is not known from the Gospel is how they managed to obtain the little boy's family's food. Did they kidnap the boy, threaten him to beat him up if he doesn't surrender, steal it from him and beat him up, mesmerize the poor sod, etc... All of this is not known. Also, what happened to the boy after he was "relieved" from carrying his nutritious burden? Did his mother get a hissy fit when he got home empty handed, did the father spank him for having to starve now? All of that is in a biblical grey zone. But then, what's more important, feeding a boy and his family for a week or giving 5000 fans a snack? 

The mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha where the miracle apparently happened. 

Back to Jesus: Once he heard about the picnic basket he probably thought, "okay, it's probably time for another miracle." They "obtained" the food and miraculously managed to feed Christ's 5000 strong fanclub. Hooray, done! Afterwards, Jesus told his disciples to "gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost" and they did and managed to fill further 12 baskets. The multitude saw this and said, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."

A little afterthought: I just hope the little boy got one of those twelve baskets, even though it would mean those were just leftovers. 

Jesus knew that after feeding the crowd they wanted to "take him by force to make him king" (of course, who else would miraculously feed them all the time?). It probably daunted him that feeding them wasn't such a good idea because he raised unnecessary expectations. The Bible now says, "he withdrew again to the mountains by himself". How he managed to get out of this situation, I have no idea. Maybe it was one of those "Scottie, beam me up" moments that he just disappeared or that he miraculously made them fall asleep so he could sneak out. This is unknown. 

What's known though is, in the evening after it got dark, the disciples climbed onto a boat trying to cross the lake back home to Capernaum. A storm came up and it got pretty scary whilst rowing on the lake. Jesus was still in the mountains and probably just wanted to enjoy some "me time" but him being who he was knew that his disciples were in danger: "Can't I just leave them alone for one evening without them getting into trouble?" he must have thought, and super powers as he possessed he transposed himself from wherever he was in the mountains right onto the lake on which he walked towards the boat. They were terrified, but he said to them: "It is I, do not be afraid". Of course he saved their lives, hopefully telling them off for being stupid. And yet another miracle was performed on that day. Story over.

Can I draw any wisdom out of this for a coaching session or management training? It's difficult. And whilst wondering and pondering, my thoughts are suddenly evolving around whether Jesus was a good manager himself and what would I have told him in a coaching session. 

Of course, for this, one would need to assume that Jesus was more of a human being without adding too much of the divinity factor. It's sometimes bad enough to coach humans, but coaching the divine, I have no idea how successful I or anyone else would be. 

In a coaching session I'd probably discuss his business of performing miracles whilst on his ministry on Earth. What kind of miracles he produces, how "fruitful" they are, why he is doing them and whether they fulfill their purpose. I'd probably categorise his miracles into "healing miracles" and "others". The first are probably easy to explain, the why and how, but the latter need a deeper insight into the matter and probably a one-by-one explanation. An Excel miracle list would be of help.

For his feeding the 5000 miracle I'd ask and discuss some of the following questions and matters:

- Why did you want to feed them? 
- Did you think they would starve if you hadn't done so?
- What consequences did you expect from feeding them? 
- What other consequences did you expect if you hadn't fed them?
- Why did you know they wanted to make you their king? 
- Why didn't you just go for it and become their king? 
- Why did you feed them after all? What are the pros and cons of your actions? 
- Did you explain to your disciples why you fed all those people? 
- And if, did they understand and learn from this? 
- How did you deal with the little boy? 
- Did you steal his food and how did it feel? 
- How did you justify your action towards the boy and his family? 

And similar questions about the walking on water: Why did you do that? Could you have prevented this situation by better communicating to your disciples not to use a boat at night? Was it necessary to walk on water or could you not just stop the winds from blowing, etc? 

Of course, I cannot answer any of those questions. I am neither a theologian, nor have I had a chat with Jesus about it; anything else would be a sheer assumption, and one thing I learned back in the days when I started my career as management consultant - "NEVER ASSUME!" It has been helpful advice throughout my life. 

In fact, the more I am thinking about it, this gospel reading is a great example of showing what management consulting and coaching is all about - dealing with the impossible and unthinkable. Clients often approach me with all sorts of problems I have no clue about, like feeding 5000 from one picnic basket, walking on water, can sheep have copper in their diet; most essential is, to ask the right questions and to listen what the client has to say, and then draw conclusions from it and take action with the client. 

PS: I am wondering how many of those sermons I am going to think about and publish under the header "The Bible a management handbook"...

Being fully google-able!

I went on a blind date the other day. We said 'hello' and when I ordered drinks at the bar my date said "Ah yes, trying 4 new gins this year as part of your '45 list'." I looked somewhat bewildered and thought that someone really did some serious preparation for the evening. Apparently, I got googled with my first name, and my other blog, the travel blog, came up, in which one can read about those "45 things to do when turning 45". 

Back home I started to think about what happened. I was not quite sure if I should have been happy or not that I am "fully google-able" with just my first name plus one narrowing description. But then, what should I expect with my private travel blog having more than 500 entries and 100,000 hits? Digging further down in my thought process I realised that actually, I would have been ever so slightly happier if my other blog, this business blog, which I have been neglecting now for so many years, had come up. I parked that thought and life went on till yesterday. 

I met my friend Lorna, a very well established businesswoman with her own company, and we had a chat over a drink after a meeting. After the usual "how are you?" I told her about a coaching franchise that wants to sell me a course, etc, for which I should pay anything between GBP 21,000 to 61,000 upfront. We both agreed it's rubbish and our chat went on to self-marketing, web presence, and you name it, in order to do it all by oneself and not pay such horrendous amounts for a franchise where one doesn't know in advance whether it is good or bad. And there I was again - my neglected business blog, my not so important but successful travel blog, and my poor business web presence. 

Today, I am giving it another go and work on 'The Naked Consultant'; this blog. My target is to throw my name out and get some serious business web presence; and I want to do it by writing about 'coaching being the new consulting' with regular/weekly updates. 

PS: My date two weeks ago went really well. We are Facebook friends now. And let's see what the future has in store. 

What's now?

I ranted on enough now with most of my projects I was involved with. Chronologically, it is 2003/2004 now. Since then I have worked for my main client in their supply chain. Initially, we implemented a lot, now I am mainly working on re-implementation and amelioration of the installed systems.

What I generally do and did for my client: I would go to a business unit, and they are organised worldwide, analyse the situation, come up with recommendations for improvement, built a business case, and install the improvements. I mainly work in supply chain planning departments, factories and distribution centres.

The countries I have been involved with so far with this client: The Netherlands, Belgium, France, South Korea, China, Hungary, Poland and a tiny bit of UK.

What I want to do from now on in the blog is to write a bit more about the tools and methodology I used in the last couple of years.

The Dullest ever Press Release Written (by myself)

“DIY Consulting”, a clever way to gain strength from within when cash is scarce.

In times of no money in the market companies cannot afford to spend huge amounts of cash for management consultancies, but especially now they would need their services the most. Using freelancing ex-consultants who specialised in coaching and mentoring would be an extremely interesting way of still cashing in savings, implementing change initiatives, however avoiding the high weekly invoice.

What is good about consultancies, they come in, analyse the situation, come up with savings and how to cash those benefits in with a potential project, the do the work, create momentum, and they leave again. By then, the company will have hopefully saved what was being agreed, but to an expensive price.

A little calculation for a small project: Day rates of a single consultant are around GBP 2,000, a small to average sized project team would consist of 3 people, and project length would be about 5 months (20 weeks). This equals to GBP 600,000. Applying a Return-on-Investment of 3:1 the savings potential is about GBP 1,800,000 on an annual basis.

Cashing in the savings is nice, but the question most CEOs have to answer when employing consultants is, whether the fee is justified; their invoice is often weekly but their savings are mostly delayed, with that risk on the client’s side. Besides, consultancies may oversell, and consultancy-internal inefficiencies are also built into that daily rate for which no client wants to pay.

Apart from the actual knowledge they bring into the organisation whilst helping them attaining the results, their main advantage is that certain pressure they create and the need for urgency (mainly because they are expensive and people get scared dealing with them).

In hard times like a looming recession the pressure is on anyway; consultancies should find it hard to sell this most important tactical tool.

Time for another calculation exercise: The company is hiring a flexible freelance consultant, who has exactly the same knowledge, on an hourly/daily basis. This saves them from having a full team of consultants in house. The work is done by key management and an internal task force team. The pressure is on, the freelancer is milked for his knowledge, gives training, coaches key personnel, shares his external view, hence acts as sounding board and helps enabling the company to cash in the savings themselves.

Say, GBP 1,000 daily rate, 3 days per week, 5 months project, equals GBP 60,000, probably even less as towards the end 3 days a week is rather much. Does this mean it is the end of management consultancies? Of course not.

Huge change programmes still need to be managed by them. But one thing is for sure, times have changed and the simple approach “Oh, I have a problem, let’s call a consultancy” is no longer applicable. Companies need to rethink how to renew themselves from within with as little cash expenditure as possible. Buying in knowledge from coaches and mentors might be of great help.

Another Blog for this World

I have never read Jamie Oliver's book "The Naked Chef" as I am pretty useless when being put in front of an oven and prefer someone else to take over this nasty task. But the title of the book is fabulous. So I do what consultants do best, I steal it and sell it to the world as something fantastic. Well, maybe not steal, let's call it adapt, change, re-invent, alter, improve, spice-up...

I want to write about my life as management consultant; my dealings with clients, tools I implemented, tactics on projects, war stories, some technical advice, everyday tips, how to handle a 'client of hell', how to fire people, and so forth.

Why am I doing this? I am a freelancing management consultant and corporate coach and have read a couple of self-marekting books recently. They all suggest (in fact it is more like an imperative) that one needs publicity through the web. Here we go, another blog for this world is born.

I intend to update this blog very frequently and invite everyone to take part or share ideas and comments.