If you had the ear of the higher ups at Starwood, what would suggest to make using your membership better? What are your biggest peeves
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Oh nodge... this thread is for you.
Hmmm. I'm not sure I can add much more beyond what has already been said so far, but here it goes. Hang on!
SVO’s Problem:
In my mind, most of SVO’s problems originate from a common source – its upper management, which treats all of us existing SVO owners (both developer and resale purchasers alike) with pure, unbridled, and unchecked contempt while it blindly pursues short term financial gains at the expense of long term survivability of its program.
SVO management thinks that it can do and say anything to us owners with impunity.
Examples of these activities include:
1. Inducing sales by promising owners who buy additional developer weeks that they will be entitled to
upgraded accomodations (if available), but then cancelling that benefit within weeks and some cases days of these customers’ new developer purchases.
2.
Promising real-time, on-line inventory checking and booking nearly 10 years ago, but still not delivering it.
3.
Deflating existing owner StarOption values by increasing the StarOptions required to stay at new resorts.
4. Dumping over
1 billion Orlando StarOptions into the system, thereby making internal exchanging into non-Orlando resorts that much harder for existing SVN members (but also doling out those dumped StarOptions in small 76,000 increments, thereby also screwing those single week Orlando owners out of internally trading into full sized units at prime resorts).
5. Routinely implementing double digit percentage annual maintenance fee increases, and its SVO crony-controlled HOA’s at some SVO resorts still calling for multi-thousand dollar special assessments.
6. Piling its upper management “team” with do-nothing VP’s with outrageous titles like (and I’m not making these up), VP of “strategic technology,” VP of “customer experience,” and my personal favorite VP of “owners services.” (The last title is more-or-less an inside joke, because that VP ‘s job actually involves serving as the SVO mouthpiece for REMOVING services for owners and occasionally trying to sell us all $25,000 African safaris at full price.)
More troubling to me though is how SVO management routinely makes major changes to its program while maintaining a code of stoic silence about these changes to us owners and potential new customers.
Examples of these activities include:
1. Silently switching from selling mandatory resorts to selling voluntary resorts.
Here is how we owners were able to figure it out. To this date, SVO hasn’t offered one official announcement of this MAJOR, MAJOR change to its system. Moreover, SVO salesfolks certainly don’t go out of their way to explain the consequences of this change to any new customers either.
2. Announcing new developments like Aruba (and I bet Cabo and maybe even WKORV-NN are seriously at risk of facing the same fate), but then arbitrarily cancelling those projects with absolutely no notice or explanation.
The weird thing is that even though SVO upper management refuses to engage us or even look us in the eye, it still apparently cares (at least in a passive, really creepy, dark corner,
orange eating, lurker sort of way) what we think of it. So much so, that it monitors our postings here daily.
SVO management is the idiot savant of the timeshare industry. It can build and sell top notch resorts in world class locations, but can’t manage its way out of a paper bag when it comes to day-to-day customer/owner service or even basic owner respect and honesty issues. To date, it appears that SVO management is entirely OK with that. Given the current economy and us owners’ need to have SVO survive in order to preserve our own interests, I’m just not sure that we owners can afford to be OK with it much longer.
Proposed Solution:
It’s not all bad. SVO maintains some very nice and enjoyable resorts. Plus, some of us get a leather luggage tag from SVO every couple of years or so.
Here is what I would do to fix things at SVO and have fun while remaining up with the current times while doing it too. Hear me out on this.
I’d do a reality TV series involving all of SVO’s top management. All of the VP’s would live together in a resort community, like say . . . Orlando. . . , and have to run a company, like say . . . .SVO, all under the watchful eye of the TV cameras. Someone would also have to track down the current SVO president on the golf course. He should probably make at least one appearance during the taping season just to prove that he indeed exists.
Each week, the VP’s would get a simple task to perform, like say. . . implementing an online reservation system or improving the elite benefits without destroying the entire program, and we’d all get to watch them flounder around and waste their time and our money like they are all currently doing anyway. Then, at the end of each episode, we owners would get to vote one or two VP’s out of management by calling a special 800 phone number.
We’d whittle down the current pile of useless VP’s to a manageable few hundred or so in preparation for the final episode, which would be taped in Vegas or at Radio City Music Hall in NYC. We’d hire three people known for having better customer service than the current SVO top management to serve as judges. I’m currently thinking a DMV worker, any Continental Airlines’ flight attendant, and maybe “PUCK” from that M-TV show “Real World.”
During the final episode, the then surviving VP’s would each come on stage one-by-one and say their names, their official titles, and what they “do” for SVO. We’d get to watch the judges all roll their eyes as the “VP of customer experience” tries to explain how his job is different from the “VP of owner services.” I’m thinking that a video montage showing how owners are currently forced to book their rooms by calling at 6 AM (Pacific Time) before panning to the “VP of Strategic Technology” could be nicely worked into the show.
At the end of each VP’s moment before the judges, the judges would then give each of them either a number 1 or a number 2, but not tell them what each number means. To build drama, the show would have color commentators trying to guess what the numbers mean based on who is being placed into each category. “Well, Jim. Everyone knows that the VP of Dishwasher Soap Selection was a real slacker this year. So, I’m sure the other Number 1’s are not happy to have her in their group.”
The big finale would be before a packed theater, with the VP’s all on stage. All of the property managers from each resort would be there and get front row seats in the audience. Owners and their families would fill the remaining seats in the audience.
The lights would dim, and the judges would call the show to order. Dramatic music would start to play. “PUCK” would call the “number 2’s” forward and ask them to stand in a line at the front of the stage. The volume of the music would increase. The camera would pan the faces of the “number 2’s.” The volume of the music would increase again. The “number 2’s” would look at each other. The camera would then pan the “number 1’s.” Pause for commercial.
Following the commercial, they’d do the whole panning and music thing again just for good measure. Then the DMV worker judge would say “NUMBER 2’s!” “YOU’RE SERVICES WITH SVO ARE NO LONGER NEEDED!” “EXIT THE STAGE IMMEDIATELY!”
Pan to the shocked face of the former “VP of Toner Cartridges” as he exits the stage. Then pan to the relieved face of the “VP of Parking Space Line Painting” in the “Number 1’s” line.
Wait! What’s this? Why is the dramatic music starting again?
Pan the line of “Number 1’s” who are starting to look a little concerned. Increase the volume of the music. Another commercial.
Back from the commercial. Do more music and panning. Pan the front row property managers too just for fun. Why not? It’s an hour show.
This time the Continental Airlines Flight attendant judge says:
“NUMBER 1’s”
“YOU’RE SERVICES WITH SVO ARE NO LONGER NEEDED! EXIT THE STAGE IMMEDIATELY!” (Pan to a crushed VP exiting the stage.)
PUCK immediately stands up and asks all of the property managers in the front row to stand up.
He says:
“PROPERTY MANAGERS!”
"YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO RUN YOUR RESPECTIVE RESORTS SURPRISINGLY WELL DESPITE BEING MANAGED BY THESE NUMB-NUTS EXITING THE STAGE!”
“CLEARLY YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN A FORTUNE 500 COMPANY!”
“YOU ARE NOW THE TOP MANAGEMENT OF SVO! PLEASE JOIN US ON THIS STAGE!”
The crowd cheers. Balloons and confetti fall.
Commercial.
-nodge (I think I may be watching way too much TV)
