# DRI - Cutomer Support and Communication the worst we have ever experienced



## RLS50 (May 19, 2016)

After almost 6 months now, I can say without question that in our experience...so far at least...DRI probably has the worst customer service of any major corporation I have ever dealt with.   We have had so many problems with our account after the transition from Gold Key if I chronicled all of them here it would sound like an absurd exaggeration.

I have spent all my career working for Fortune 50 companies.  We have 10's of thousands of internal customers and 10's of thousands of external customers.  Both internal and external customer support is something that is taken very seriously and measured and monitored at the highest levels of the company.

So it is shocking to me how disorganized and inefficient customer support at a publically traded company like DRI seems to be.

It isn't the individual people that work inside DRI that I have found to be the problem.  When you actually get a representative they are nice and try to help.  The problem is their systems and processes of trying to get to the right person who can help you or trying to track issues or get communication.

This company has entire owner support departments you call and almost never get a live person to answer the phone.  You get forced into voice mail and told to leave a message for a call back in 24-48 hours.  You follow those instructions.  Nobody ever, I mean ever, calls you back.    You don’t even get an email back from them acknowledging your call or issue.    

You can always get someone from Owner Services (even though you sometimes have to wait on hold for a very, very long time), but there are certain things they can’t help with so they have to send you back to…you guessed it…the departments that are so understaffed they almost never answer their phones and don’t call you back or even send you an email when you leave those voice mails they instruct you to leave.  

As an owner, if you have any issues at all that you need help with beyond paying your bill or booking your week, you may spend many hours on the phone and repeating the process for weeks or even months trying to follow up on a paper trail (that you have no visibility to) and nobody you can get ahold of to communicate the status of your issue.  

Oh, and that assumes the process doesn't get dropped, lost, or broken inside DRI along the way and nobody communicates to you what happened.   It just gets lost, like the whole problem never existed in the first place.   You as the customer have to keep calling and trying to get a status and explain to them what is wrong and start the whole process over again.   It's like a dark comedy.

I have no idea why people pay DRI the amounts of money they do for such poor customer service.   Their management fees are near the highest in the industry but for what?    They certainly don’t seem to be investing that money in modern customer support systems or the staffing levels in certain departments required to actually support their customers.   

I mean we also own timeshares with Marriott and Starwood, and I know those companies aren’t perfect, and that owners here on TUG have complaints with them at times.   But man if you really want to appreciate how great Marriott and Starwood is to deal with on a relative basis, buy and own a timeshare managed by DRI.

I know from speaking with multiple owners that we are not alone in our experience.    Seriously, it has been so bad and so broken relative to what professional customer support and communications actually looks like it is hard to fathom.


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## dougp26364 (May 19, 2016)

We had been DRI owners since 1998 up until we accepted their deed back offer and relinquished our weeks back to them. The funny thing about DRI is Stephen Cloobeck, DRI's founder. When he started the company with Polo Towers they had great, dare I say industry leading, customer service. 

Then he stepped away to pursue other real estate development interests and even considered running for the governor of NV. Customer service took a noticeable nose dive.

He returned when the opportunity to buy out Sunterra presented itself. Customer service once again became a priority and they were among the better companies.

Now he's left again and what happens? Customer service takes a back seat and goes to hell in a hand basket. 

While I will never regret our initial purchases with DRI, I'll also never regret giving those weeks back to DRI some 18 years later. They had become to expensive to put up with the BS going on now.


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## Karen G (May 19, 2016)

*Try DRI Facebook page*

I have had the best results with contacting a live person who could help by posting on the Facebook page of a bank about a credit card issue and on the page of a resort where we own.

Here is the page for DRI.  There is even a link to click to send a message that says they'll respond within an hour. It's over on the left down a little in green.


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## tschwa2 (May 19, 2016)

Also if you want to contact them through email through your account page, you need to check to agree to this before the message will send:


> By checking this box, I agree that the above information is correct and authorize Diamond Resorts International Marketing, Inc., and/or its affiliates and successors to contact me regarding promotional offers at the above address by mail, cell/telephone number with an automatic telephone dialing system, or e-mail, regardless of any prior election to the contrary. I understand that I am not required to give consent as a condition of purchasing any goods or services.


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## WBP (May 19, 2016)

tschwa2 said:


> Also if you want to contact them through email through your account page, you need to check to agree to this before the message will send:



Why am I not surprised by the behaviors of these DRI thugs.

Let me get this right, one buys a timeshare from DRI (at some ridiculously inflated price to pad DRI's pockets), then you pay DRI an annual maintenance fee - - you are DRI's customer - - but DRI won't agree to communicating with you by email, unless you consent to being badgered by DRI's telemarketers and marketing programs? 

Wow! DRI has really big balls.


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## WBP (May 19, 2016)

tschwa2 said:


> Also if you want to contact them through email through your account page, you need to check to agree to this before the message will send:



Why am I not surprised by the behaviors of these DRI thugs.

Let me get this right, one buys a timeshare from DRI (at some ridiculously inflated price to pad DRI's pockets), then you pay DRI an annual maintenance fee - - you are DRI's customer - - but DRI won't agree to communicating with you by email, unless you consent to being badgered by DRI's telemarketers and marketing programs? 

Wow! DRI has really big balls.


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## RLS50 (May 20, 2016)

dougp26364 said:


> We had been DRI owners since 1998 up until we accepted their deed back offer and relinquished our weeks back to them. The funny thing about DRI is Stephen Cloobeck, DRI's founder. When he started the company with Polo Towers they had great, dare I say industry leading, customer service.
> 
> Then he stepped away to pursue other real estate development interests and even considered running for the governor of NV. Customer service took a noticeable nose dive.
> 
> ...


Doug,

I have followed your DRI comments in other threads, so your perspective as a longtime owner about the influence of Cloobeck is interesting.   

I suspect the problems with DRI customer service, since they have gotten so much larger since 1998, is more about process than anything else.   I actually don’t see a process…at least not an efficient ones required to properly service tens of thousands of customers.

It isn’t like any of our individual issues are that complex.   As I have stated previously, the individual people at DRI, when you can actually get a live person, have been pleasant and seem willing to help.     The problem from our experience seems that there is no modern customer support process in place.  The lack of process leads to a lack of transparency, lack of communication, and issues that frequently get dropped or lost.

Whatever reason you call for, your issues and any updates just get added to the notes in your account, and every time you call about an outstanding issue…assuming you can even reach an actual person on the other end of the phone…they have to read thru those notes to familiarize themselves with the problem all over again.   So you have to keep re-explaining the same issue over and over again every time you call back (because days or weeks may go by with no resolution).   I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

There appears to be no single owner inside DRI of any issue that can drive resolution from start to finish.   I mean if you demand to speak with a Supervisor, or you get the right DRI representative who wants to help you bulldog an issue and reaches out personally to different DRI departments (assuming they can reach one of their peers on the phone in another department) and is willing to coordinate the internal maze inside DRI…you might get somewhere…maybe.   

But there seems to be no modernized incident management process where a customer should be assigned a ticket or problem number for every issue.  There seems to be no measurement against how long those incidents remain in open status.   No visibility to who inside DRI “owns” the incident and is responsible for ultimate resolution.  No tracking of whether those customer issues were resolved, or how much time it took, what went right, what went wrong, etc.   The metrics generated from tracking this information can then be reviewed weekly, monthly, and annually to identify weaknesses, and continually improve the process.   

The process stuff I am talking about that appears to be missing inside DRI is basic customer support methodology used successfully by many public companies that have to support and service many thousands of customers.   Amazon keeps 244 Million active customers happy (mostly) because their process is so well managed and organized.   They constantly monitor and work to improve their customer support processes.  

Having nice people or having people that want to do a good job isn’t enough when you have 10’s of thousands of customers.    You have to have the right process in place.   Without the processes in place I am describing, a company with many thousands of customers can never provide successful customer service and will spend their days stuck in an endless loop of whack a mole. 

But pretty much everywhere on the internet, including the DRI Facebook page, you read the same complaints over and over again from person after person.  DRI gets contacted and the customer never gets the promised follow up, call back, never gets an email, never gets any communication or direction of any kind.    I have had DRI representatives openly admit these problems to me on the phone.   I have been told more than once that they hear this from many customers.   So multiple people inside DRI acknowledge the problem…but nothing changes.   

One can only assume this means that DRI management just doesn’t care or that DRI doesn’t have the right level of experienced management to know how to implement standard customer support processes.   It is possible management inside DRI may not even know or understand how to build a modern and efficient customer service organization.   They seem like they are stuck in a mindset of how companies did customer service 30 years ago.  Whatever the reason, DRI management does not seem to be giving their customer service representatives the support systems and processes they need in order to have a chance to succeed.

I am confident that DRI will never be able to provide great customer service if they continue along with the same processes…or complete lack thereof…in place.


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## RLS50 (May 20, 2016)

Doug,

Just to add, if DRI wants to continue running things status quo with the same 1970's customer support methodology, they have to address the problem of customers calling but never being able to get an answer from certain departments, or getting forced into voice mail, but never getting the promised call back in 24-48 hours.   

That is pretty inexcusable from any company...bad process or not.    It isn't professional and shows a complete lack of respect for their customers.

Honestly, the fact that totally ignored phone calls and emails from customers is so common and so pervasive in their customer support model should make every single person completely avoid purchasing any additional services or packages from them.


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