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Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

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Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#201

Post by ricardobeat »

bertil wrote: post #197
nolok wrote: post #87

Disregarding how horrible it is to do that this way, ... The employee says he's french, so either he didn't have a french work contract, or what he is saying is untrue. While you can transfer an employee from one company to another, it must protect every employee advantage, his history, etc ... So he has the same severance as on his original contract, with the original timeline (his time of employment isn't reset to…

> The employee says he's french, so either he didn't have a french work contract, or what he is saying is untrue. Most likely he is employeed in Amsterdam, where Dutch law applies. There’s local contract (for sales) but CS are concentrated in Amsterdam.

It was said that NL and UK are not affected, so that can’t be it.

Also the move would definitely be illegal in the Netherlands too.

Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#202

Post by stewx »

nkmnz wrote: post #200

I once booked the worst hotel room on earth via booking.com - I spare you the details, but when I picked the lowest rating on every single scale on the booking.com feedback form, the resulting score was something like ~3.5 out of 10 – instead of 0 points! So, whenever you're looking for a a place on booking.com, keep in mind that the places are rated on a scale from 3.5 to 10, not 0 to 10.

What's important to know about Booking.com review scores is that customers do not choose the scores, per se. They ask you a series of questions like "was the bed comfortable?" and if you say "yes" to all of them, that's scored as a 10/10.

Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#203

Post by vkou »

wraptile wrote: post #190
xsist10 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Booking owns Agoda https://www.bookingholdings.com/brands/agoda/

wow TIL. It almost feels that the hotel industry is just cancer all the way down.

If you think that's bad, talk to the people who actually work at the hotels.

They... Do not have great things to say about their experience working with a lot of the aggregators.

Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#204

Post by vkou »

grujicd wrote: post #180
telesilla wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is, we need a functioning hotel aggregator, and AirBnB needs a competitor. For me, booking.com for European travel has been overwhelming positive in experience, happy with the increasing Genius offerings. I don't use them for apartments however, I don't feel I trust them for that and prefer AirBnB. I also hope they stick around and maybe find a way to make all the cash they feel they can make without ruin…

Also positive experiences with Booking since 2005 :) What AirBnB gets horribly wrong is hiding exact location of property. In some cases, 200-300m make all the difference, e.g. directly on the sea coast or 10min up the hill, which can happen when the road goes around. Or is it directly next to a noisy club or in a quiet street behind. Or for skiing, whether you’re directly on the track or not. Probably all my searche…

> What AirBnB gets horribly wrong is hiding exact location of property.

Without hiding the exact location of the property, they'll have other problems, like having the illegal part of their rental stock get discovered and shut down.

Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#205

Post by GhostVII »

kuu wrote: post #101
charcircuit wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it illegal to fire people in Germany?

The thing is that in many countries of Europe (an maybe somewhere else too) we consider that a company is not only a way for the owners to make money, but they have a social value and responsibility. Therefore you cannot just fire 200 people to hire another 200 cheaper, because that's a way to increase only company's profit but not society benefit. And if you fire them, you need to compensate them properly. Of course…

So it sounds like in Germany, you can fire people to hire another 200 cheaper, you just have to compensate them for that firing. Just like in the US if you fire someone without cause, they get unemployment payments funded by their previous employers unemployment insurance (which goes up the more people they fire).

And this isn't even relevant to what is happening with Booking.com. No one is being explicitly fired, they are being moved to a new company with different job requirements. Which as far as I understand, is constrictive dismissal, so the right thing in this case is for Booking.com to give all their employees the option of being laid off instead.

Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#206

Post by GhostVII »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #94
charcircuit wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it illegal to fire people in Germany?

I did not say, that is illegal to fire people in Germany. Nonetheless as an employer you have to obey the laws making firing cumbersome. Laws, not made by slave drivers...

In the US this would probably be constructive dismissal, so similar to what would happen in Germany. And referring to slavery when talking about the current US laws seems somewhat irrelevant

Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#209

Post by gigaflop »

dazc wrote: post #143
grogenaut wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually true with many online booking systems, especially the ones people actually use. I've been told this using at least 10 different booking sites at over 20 hotels since 2005. At one major chain in downtown Cincinnati the clerk brought the manager over, who looked at the rate, and proceeded to pick up the phone and contact corporate to adjust the rate up, they manager told me they were losing money at th…

I wonder how they can be losing money on a room that would be otherwise vacant?

Turning over a room (to make it habitable for a next guest) costs wages, and that's just the bare minimum cost that I can think of. There are probably a dozen hidden costs associated with allowing someone to stay in a room.

Re: Booking.com is moving its customer service staff to an outsourcing company

#210

Post by globular-toast »

vondro wrote: post #65

Just skimming through the comments, there is some negative sentiment about Booking.com. So I came to say, that over the years, I've used Booking.com numerous times, without any single problem. Yes, there are dark patterns (13 people are looking at this offer right now, etc.), but free cancellation was always free for me, reviews matched my experience, information matched the reality. Sorry to hear about the layoffs,…

The only problem I've had with booking.com was when I ended up in a place that would have been bad for an AirBnb. It seems to be a similar problem to Amazon. I had the impression that I could expect the places on there to all be at least professional. It seems I'm not alone as everyone I've told about it has been surprised that such a place was on booking.com. It would have been expected from AirBnb.
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