Starwood Archive

I’ve always been a big fan of Starwood hotels (that’s Westin, W, Aloft, etc.) — mainly because their points system is the best for earning points. Because of the points, I get to stay at nice hotels a couple of times a year on points (like the trip this week in San Francisco).

Today I learned via an email from Starwood and inside the hotel itself that you can now use Apple Facetime on your iPhone or iPod Touch to speak with their customer service hotline. Gadling reported that the program began last month.

The Facetime customer service option is only available during the day although I was unable to find any specific Facetime information on the Starwood web site.

Perhaps having a face-to-face conversation with a customer service rep will lessen the yelling, screaming, cursing that usually goes along with many customer service calls. It’s easy to do all of the former when you are hiding behind a phone but when you are “seen” will you want to be as aggressive?

A month ago Starwood Hotels (Westin, W, Sheraton, etc.) relaunched their main reservations and frequent stay Web site. While the design might be considered "pretty", I have found the site to be a mess in terms of usability and functionality. Features don't work as expected, rates change depending on which page you are on, content is impossible to find, depending on how many times you refresh the rates change, etc. I have tried booking several trips in the coming months and have found it to be a painful experience. For example, one of the programs that Starwood offers is called "Cash & Points" whereby you use some cash and some of your member points. It's a great program, except it's only available on the Web site sometimes. Loading the site at 7am yesterday, no go, 3pm yes, 8pm again no.

An article about the launch on Onine Media Daily notes, "Starwood Hotels & Resorts has rolled out a newly revamped consumer loyalty Web site with production support from Firstborn Multimedia."

Update: I received an email from a Firstborn Multimedia producer who notes that they only provided the design to Starwood and had nothing to do with the backend or the functionality of the actual site.

Flyertalk, the largest travel community, has created two dedicated threads to the new Web site. The first thread deals with bug reports and has over 180 confirmed issues. Not one message from Firstborn Multimedia or SPG (except for the customer service guy – who fyi is awesome). The second thread is a general commentary on the new Web site. It holds 380 responses, with the majority overwhelmingly negative. This post is a good example of the general concensus:

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it

Slow

Unreliable,

Slow

Ugly

Slow

Prices change between clicks.

Slow.

This flop is a great example of what Jeremiah is always discussing – how corporations aren't taking the conversational Web seriously. How much is SPG's reputation damaged by these issues? Are customers looking elsewhere for rooms due to frustration? So I ask, what's your rollback and customer notification plan? We know what happened with Skype and their lack of communication during the outage. As more of our Web apps move forward out of Beta, do you have procedures in place if an upgrade or functionality change causes major issues for your customers? If not, why?