• Up to 50% discount when dining in participating hotels and restaurants
• One night’s complimentary accommodation that can be used at participating hotels across Asia Pacific
• Exclusive Member’s Only special offers and a minimum 10% discount off the best rate of the day available to the general public for accommodation
• Automatic enrolment in “A Club” at silver level so you can earn 50% more points
• Earn and redeem points at more than 2,000 Accor hotels worldwide
• Priority access and special offers for major tours, attractions and events plus Europcar
• Dedicated member’s website and call centre.

(taken from their web site)

In general, I’ve been happy with this.  I’ve travelled away from home often enough each year to justify the cost.  I’ve enjoyed the convenience of just calling the booking service to get a room reserved handy.

But (there always seems to be a ‘but’ doesn’t there?)…

In January this year, my wife and I had to travel to Sydney on about 24 hours notice for a funeral.

I did some quick research on Google Maps and Wotif to work out viable accommodation near where we needed to be to minimise transport issues.  There were Accor properties fairly convenient.  I dug out my Advantage Plus card and called the toll free number to make a booking.

Much to my surprise, the best rate they could offer was higher than Wotif.  I also had two free nights accommodation but was told there were no free nights available.  Being short on time, I thanked them and went and booked through Wotif instead.

To be honest, other than feeling a little let down by the experience, I didn’t give it much more thought.

…until a month or two later when I got a phone call asking me to renew my membership…

I had some concerns about value for money and told the caller that I wasn’t really interested in renewing and explained why.  This is where the fun started…

It’s all my fault:

At this point, they told me why it was this couldn’t happen, how I should have used their website to make the booking because “that always has our best rate”, and that I could have called my account rep personally to get it sorted.  I interpret this as someone telling me why what happened didn’t (or couldn’t) happen (i.e. it’s all my fault).  The person didn’t offer an apology or ask if there was anything they could do to help me reconsider.  I politely declined to renew and the phone call ended.

Thus began a series of half a dozen or so more phone calls with various ‘account reps‘ over the six weeks.  Each time they claimed to have no records of previous phone calls, and didn’t know why I chose not to renew.  Each time, when I explained why, they proceeded to once again explain why it was my fault.  Again, no offer of an apology and no-one asked what would help me reconsider.

At one point, I was offered a discounted renewal – $274 instead of $289 (and I could keep the two free nights I had accrued).  Wow!  A whole fifteen bucks! When this offer was made, I asked for an email confirmation (no credit card details without it).  They declined saying they didn’t have email.  I suggested fax but apparently they didn’t have that either.

The most recent phone call (I’ve lost count on exactly how many) was last week – now about four months after this started.  Again, the standard thing, they had no idea why I wasn’t renewing.  When I started to explain why and was, YET AGAIN, told why it was my fault, I hung up mid-conversation.

The guy called back so he could finish his explanation…

Since he rang back I gave up being as polite as previously – among other things I explained that I understood how their system was supposed to work but that it had failed in this instance.  Further, that at no point had anyone offered an apology or asked me what would make me reconsider my renewal.  Instead they’d insisted on explaining why it was my fault.

Even after making this observation, there was no apology and he didn’t ask me what it would take for me to reconsider.

Since it was clear I wasn’t getting anywhere I hung up again.

So far, no more calls – I wonder how long that will last…

What might have happened?

Somewhere in the first call (or two) if someone had just said “I’m sorry you had this experience, clearly something didn’t work like it’s supposed to at our end” or (preferably ‘and’, but ‘or’ would have done) said “What can we do to help you reconsider?” that would have helped.  At least it would have felt like someone was listening to me and understood that no matter what should have happened, the system failed, and at a time where I already had enough to deal with (i.e. a funeral for a relative and travelling at very short notice).

Accor Advantage Plus presents itself as part of a large international company.  Now I’m wondering.  Apparently, the company lacks any way to keep track of customer (dis)satisfaction.  The staff lack access to email and fax machines.  They appear to also lack sufficient customer service training to work out how to retain a customer – particularly odd given that accommodation is a customer service industry.

Back in March, I was mildly purturbed and, with a small sweetener may well have signed up for another year.

Now?

It’ll take a lot more than that and I’m not sure that’ll happen so I guess they’re going to have to live without my money.

After all the hassles of the phone calls that have each failed (what I think of as) basic customer service I no longer see any value in it.

As an aside, recently it looked like I would need to travel to Brisbane.  Lacking Advantage Plus, I went to Wotif to find somewhere to stay.  I found a number of properties that were more convenient than Accor at the same, or lower, prices.  Apparently I’m not going to have much trouble living without that card in my wallet.

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