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...." 

Technocratic Thinking about Behaviour Change

It seems that my behaviour change entry sparked off the most interest from what I can see in the Google statistics about my blog. Reason enough to elaborate a little bit about the fact that behaviour change is not some mufty-flufty stuff, but has to be taken seriously when being in the process of change. 


Whenever I want to write down an actual process in a company which is ISO certified I get the remark "Hold on, I will bring the ISO files". I would then reply, "There is no need for that, as I want the real process, not the written down one" and with that remark I usually bump into a brick wall, which in return, I will bring to fall most of the time. 


There is this perception out there, especially amongst people who believe in structure, process, order and organisation (let me call them technocrats) that once a process is written down and communicated it is also lived and effective! I am afraid to say, but this is the biggest reason for downfall after major change projects. 


In the very most cases I can prove that real processes are almost always different from ISO ones, especially when processes and steps in those processes are depending on people rather than machines. This means, a process "manufacturing steps of a metal tool" is more likely to be ISO-true than a process "the daily planning and review meeting". The first is a mechanical process with lots of machine and computer based activities, the latter is solely depending on people's behaviours. 


So, why do particularly people based processes vary so greatly from the agreed ones which one can find in ISO books and any other official process documents? The reason is that behaviour change did not take place! 


Let's refer back to the "daily planning and review meeting"; I am sure, when it was installed, an agenda has been designed, a room planned, the participants chosen, and the chairperson has also agreed on running the show. "Fine", we think (we as in technocrats or junior consultants like me back in the 90s then), "they all agreed, we explained the layout of the meeting, it should run smoothly. And in the end, it is a very simple tool in the management system anyway; it's only a meeting". 


But what one forgets when doing so is:
- Have the chairperson and participants bought into the meeting?
- Did we train the chairperson in running an effective and efficient review meeting? 
- Have we ensured the agenda is widely understood?
- Is the chairperson able to confront all participants in case they miss deadlines?
- Has the meeting time and location been agreed and communicated?
- etc, etc, etc....


Whenever a new process is installed, it needs following up! This is mostly forgotten. Whenever people are involved, one needs to ask oneself whether they have received sufficient training and coaching in performing these tasks, even if those are only basic ones. Regular follow-up after sufficient training is also important. Think about the 3 phases of learning (please look it up again on my previous blog about behaviour change), mechanical compliance is by far a stage in the process of change a company wants to find itself in. 


And now sit back, take out your ISO book and review its contents! Have fun! 

Mazda - Warehouse Management (2)

The warehouse project was actually pretty successful. We implemented fully fledged management systems in all their warehouses, trained management in management skills, implemented relevant KPIs, a planning tool and master schedule, supervisory shop floor tours... Well, the fully monty really.

I never thought I'd ever become an expert in warehousing and distribution. In a later project I was able to deepen my knowledge in that sector even further.

Berlin

After that disaster in the US I was a bit fed up with consulting and tried to orientate myself. I moved to Berlin for a few months. I had first thoughts of working as freelancer. And the field I was most comfortable with was management training and coaching.

After I assessed my skills-set I realised that I lacked essential operational experience. I felt I focused too much on training; training had become my comfort zone. I knew I had to tackle the other side, too, the more technical and operational one.

It was in those days that I got a phone call from a headhunter who found my CV somewhere on the internet. My biggest asset, so he said, was my extensive training knowledge which would have been most beneficial for this consultancy he is looking to hire consultants for.

This company was based in Paris but I could live wherever I wanted. To cut the story short, I started with that company, moved back to London, and worked as consultant with training experience. The company does not exist anymore. Its name was IMR.

Post Mortem

Even though it ended all spectacularly dramatically I actually must admit I enjoyed those nearly 3 years with IMPAC. I cannot even tell how much I learned during that time.

I was able to stand in front of people and "perform" and train them on any subject. One learns to be fully flexible and able to anything in front of people.

I learned that the behavioural part when it comes to change management is even more important than the sheer operational implementation. Implementation of management tools is important, but in the end my client's managers and staff have to use them even after the project. And the role of the consultant is to make sure changes are sustainable and stick.

I learned how to coach and train my clients effectively.

I left the company with a big management consultant "toolkit" and am able to analyse and develop any area or department in any industry.

I learned how to deal with people within a team and be a good team-player.

And most importantly I learned how to "read" people's behaviours and take appropriate action. Some would call it manipulation, well, a minor version maybe. A disaster like the last project would never happen again.

Oh yes, most, most importantly I learned how to deliver results for my clients regardless whether I am technically able or not. Just go for it and "swim"!!!

Polish Supermarkets

I nearly forgot to mention one project I was on, and that was that Polish supermarket chain in Warsaw. That was in 1998 and only shortly after Poland finished as a socialist state and "turned western".

An interesting aspect of the job was that we needed full-time translators all the time as nobody spoke any other language but Polish and Russian. That was tough and slowed down the project progress. From its layout, the project was close to the furniture retail one. It was a skills project with optimisation of the management of supermarkets. So, management training was an essential part of it, especially coaching with those translators acting as intermediators. I sometimes wondered wether I coached them or my clients.

I must admit, I did not really like the working environment there. We had a project room without windows and it looked more like the Führerbunker. The hotel was dreadful and food and service absolutely appalling. I was not a friend of eastern Europe then.

It took me a few years to become an absolute admirer of eastern Europe. But those stories will follow in much later blog entries.

Salad Processing

One of my skills projects which I took part in as a trainer was the salad processing one. This company had 2 sites, one in Magdeburg and one in Stuttgart and they produced ready-made salads which one can buy in plastic bags in the supermarket or any of the fast-food chains.

After an analysis of their business processes it was clear that they wasted salad in the cleaning and "production" process. So, in a project we defined a cucumber as mascot, and developed posters where it was taught how to cut lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, etc. In the aftermath I find it amazing what kind of projects one can have.

So, basically, we trained them how to clean different kind of salads and lettuce. We measured the outcome, but I must admit, I have no idea anymore how successful the project was. I think it went well though.

I did mainly deliver the management training and coaching, especially in the east German site. Main problem in that site was the lack of any management skills and I had to train them from the very beginning. On the west German site the main problems was that nobody understood anyone because too many foreigners were working there speaking all sorts of languages. So, I gave training and coaching in German, English, and French. That was fun!

I got a video camera for Christmas and I used it mainly to record the role-plays when I trained confrontation skills. I loved it, so did they. It was a very powerful tool.

A Client from Hell

My next project was in Goslar, also in Germany. It was a huge furniture retailer and we did the headquarter's operations and one pilote furniture shop, which would then be extended to all the other 50 retail outlets.

Anyway, as usual, we were not overly liked in that company as everybody knew we dealt with cost savings. Especially the administration director hated us. He was very hostile in my workshops, did not say anything, just sat there with his arms folded poisoning the training.

Anyway, this director kicked everyone out who visited him, and I mean all my colleagues - the project director, the project manager, and the consultants. He told them the worst things one can imagine, screamed, and threatened the success of the project.

Well, there was me left who had to see him and do some coaching. The project success was in my hands as the project director said, as in case he kicked me out, too, the project would probably close prematurely. Not that I would not like any pressure, but that was rather much.

So, there I was, all alone and on my way to the appointment with him. I knocked on the door, opened, and there he sat at his desk, the usual hostile face, arms folded, looking disgusted. I had no idea what to say, he told me how much he hated my company, my training, my colleagues, I suppose me too, and the project. I felt he was just about to kick me out, too as he looked at me like king cobra before it bites the little rabbit.

Within a nano second my brain went into attack mode and let me calmly spit out a message which was like this: "I am sorry to say that you are the worst ever manager I have trained. All your employees dislike and disrespect you, your management skills set is appalling, you poison your department with your bad tempers, and you are threatening a project which would bring millions of savings for your company." He looked at me as if I were the reincarnation of all evil spirits. I stood up and left the room before he could throw me out.

A day later the project director was allowed to visit him, he opened up towards the project, but only under one condition, and that was that I had to leave the project. I think he was somewhat embarrassed to see me. So I went. But at least I knew it was up to me that it could go on. Of course that was never communicated into my own company, but the director and manager harvested all the "good wishes" directly from the board. Officially it was their success. Yes, that's also management consultancy, having to swim with sharks rather than goldfish.

My next project was a salad processing one in Swabia and somewhere around Madgeburg.

Hannover

After Austria I was sent to a project in Hanover. It was big, with about 5 or 6 consultants, 1 trainer (me), and a project manager. The company produces conveyor belts and they are the biggest ones worldwide to do so.

If I remember well, as this was 10 years ago, I had 8 workshop groups and 8 sessions per group. Each group consisted of about 8 people in average. This equals up to 64 workshops, 64 participants, and around 500 coaching sessions. The topics were the usual ones with very little input from the operations department.

I was on that project for several months. I must admit, I have forgotten further details. It was mainly a production project with the goal to raise efficiencies in the factory.

So what Austria?

Now what is the conclusion from my 2 Austrian projects, what did I learn and take away?

Most important for me was to learn that clients can be real "bastards" who try to make your life a misery. That was my reality check. Training is not just happy clappy show time stuff, but an area where they drop their frustration and one needs to deal with it effectively.

I also learned how to deal with the whole variety of clients. One trains 1 subject and the response can be amazingly widespread. I figured out that the ones who nod and say "yes" to everything can be the worst participants as they do not really apply anything they learned, whereas the ones I struggled with were my best trainees; once we came to an all-satisfying conclusion they finally did it and changed their behaviour.

I learned how stressful it can be to have 2 clients at the same time in 4 locations. In any 2 weeks period I had to give 11 workshops and 60 (!) coaching sessions, and that for about 4 months. And I won't mention the whole travel issue.

These projects were also intense due to the internal (as in consultancy) politics. I had to deal with a bully of a project manager who was also incompetent, the other project manager just blackmailed me back in Switzerland, so I was not the best friend of her, the consultants were not well trained and only freshers, and my support director had no days to visit me on my projects and coach me in how to do my job.

It was tough, but I do not regret it. Not in the aftermath anyway, as I learned so much. I can hardly describe how steep the learning curve is once you are on your own and the clients expect results and of course do not care about our internal hick-hack.

After I left those 2 projects I was sent to Germany to another one. But that's on tomorrow's blog.

Austrian Logistics

My other project in Austria was a multilocation one based in Vienna with subsidiaries also in Linz and Innsbruck. The project focus was logistics as it was a freight company that needed sorting out their internal efficiencies.

For this project I developed the training approach and also gave the actual training and coaching.

Meetings with the top-client in Vienna were not always easy as he used to scream and swear his lungs out. Some of his staff was scared, some did not care anymore as they knew they'd get screamed at anyway.

I don't remember too well what happened in those early projects, but I have the slight feeling that they ran out of money and it could not be finished. But that was after the training.

From the Innsbruck site I got a reference. I translated a bit of it and pasted it onto my website. In case anybody is interested.

I remember that training there was fun. At least more fun than in the other Austrian project. Did people finally change their behaviour? I am not so sure about the Viennese managers, as they did not seem to get get out of their firefighting mode, but the Innsbruck site was a very successful installation indeed.

Again, I was a junior consultant then; today I would approach these difficult situations of either Austrian project differently.

Concrete Heads in Austria

My first project as a freshly baked trainer was in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. The location was about an hour south of Vienna in the most rural part of the Burgenland. The client was a local producer of concrete, the people working there were most stubborn and did not talk a lot.

The project manager was a pushy Dutchman with insufficient German language knowledge (not good in rural Austria), the full-time consultant was brandnew with no experience whatsoever, and there was I, the part-time inexperienced trainer who had 2 projects at the same time.

To say it bluntly, the project was an utter disaster. The client's management team absolutely hated us. They arrived to my workshops sitting there with their arms folded telling me that this training was a complete waste of their time and that they did not intend to participate.

I did the training anyway as good as I could. I remember vaguely that they tried to plot against me by telling lies of what I said in the workshops to get me out of there. They did not only block the training but mainly the operations department's efforts. They rebelled till the owner was forced to close the project prematurely. What a nice start of my career as trainer!

I DO NOT WANT TO DISCREDIT MY CLIENT AS I DO NOT MENTION THEIR NAME, I ONLY TRY TO EXPLAIN FROM A CONSULTANT POINT OF VIEW AND A PERSONAL ONE WHAT IT MEANS TO DEAL WITH DIFFICULT CLIENTS.

Training, Training, Training

After I survived that training camp and returned to Europe I also switched from the operations to the training department and kept on doing training till I quit my job with that company 2 1/2 years later. For myself but also within the company guidelines I established a couple of rules. Below a few:

- Training can only be to accompany the implementation of changes and management tools by the operations consultants (remember, I was one when I did that purchasing department),
- Apart from team building events, I like training to be on site and not in some fancy location. Training is all about applying new management tools, and for that one needs to be surrounded by reality,
- Training should be around 2 to 3 hours every 2 weeks or so. In between every training session each participant must get a 1-2-1 coaching session of about an hour,
- Till week 10 of the project at least 3 sessions should have been held in order to ensure the desired behaviour change,
- Training has to be interactive and is not to be mixed up with teaching. Tasks will be given after every workshop and those tasks are the foundation for the personal coaching session.

In those years as trainer I led 200 to 300 workshops, coached around 200 clients in ca 1000 coaching sessions.

Florida Boy

The best training I have ever received and also the toughest was the one in the company headquarters in Florida. It was really tough. And in those days my English was not as good as it is today.

We learned how to determine training needs, several management simulations, how to organise and roll out training sessions, how to coach people, how to deal with tough clients during coaching and workshops, etc. It was a 3 weeks course and every day we got homework to do.

Week 3 was role-play week. Now, those were tricky. They had a special roleplay room which was fitted with hidden cameras and microphones. TV sets were placed throughout the company, and also in the CEO's office. Whenever there were any role-plays done one could tune in.

Role players were often board directors of the company. So, as a young junior consultant you suddenly had to role-play with one of the big boys. In case they did not like someone they simply fired that person. Also, in case the CEO tuned in in his office and he found the role-play horrible he ran down and fired the role players.

In the training course before ours apparently 50% of trainees were fired.

Well, I was not, nor was any other person in our course. But I have never been that nervous.