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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

#231

Post by kylebyproxy »

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,…

From the perspective of someone on the front desk side of things, I always got a sinking feeling whenever I saw a reservation come through Booking.com. They must do 0 CC validation, because their customers were the only ones I ever had payment issues with, and it happened regularly.

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

#232

Post by Hakashiro »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #50

Any Booking.com engineers reading this are welcome to apply to join us a TableCheck ( https://www.tablecheck.com/en/company/jobs/ ) We see Booking.com's online travel agent ("OTA") model as fundamentally predatory/parasitic to hospitality operators. Our business is designed to cut-out of the likes of Booking.com and other middlemen--let the operators own the guest data and build direct relationship with their guests.

Booking.com employees are bound by non-compete clauses so you will never get anyone directly from Booking.com in your company.

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

#234

Post by madaxe_again »

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.

Unless you had to drive over broken car windshields to get there, unless you were greeted at the barbed wire festooned gate by a man in a string vest with a hole in it from where he perpetually picked his bellybutton, unless the room had a bucket of decomposing semen and condom soup in the corner, unless you got up in the morning to find two pimps taking turns to beat a girl on the hood of your car, I promise you you have not stayed in the worst hotel room on earth.

Mind, it was only 500 tenge for the night, which wasn’t bad for the only hotel in a 200km radius.

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

#235

Post by Jenk »

thriftwy wrote: post #219
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.

I think any Booking user knows that 8+ - awesome, 7+ - okay, less than 7 - handle with care. At least it's more consistent than "star ratings"

That's known as the Net Promoter Score.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score

In summary: 1-6 are demoters (will talk negatively of their experience to others), 7-8 passive (probably won't talk about their experience), 9-10 promoters (will talk positively about their experience).

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

#236

Post by GhostVII »

pjmlp wrote: post #214
GhostVII wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, th…

That is not legal in Germany, because that requires a new contract, which you can refuse to accept and have to be compensated for. Meaning, it does happen, but it requires the workers and union to accept it actually takes place, the company cannot just decide on their own that they will do it and that is it.

Sure, so similar to in the US, where if the company changes your contract you are eligible for unemployment if you refuse.

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

#237

Post by Jenk »

supergeek133 wrote: post #220

My first large employer was Best Buy, and at the time (and I believe still?) a large majority of their phone customer service operation was outsourced. I will still never understand why companies do this. Your quite literal last line of defense (and sometimes first) with a customer is people that aren't directly accountable other than a corporate contract? Never made sense to me. Also, the fact that they are generall…

> I will still never understand why companies do this

Literally cost. That's it. An example from my own experience:

UK Cost center, salaries started at £18k.

They moved this operation to the Philipines. Starting salaries of PHP350k - the equivalent of just under £5k.

Cutting the cost of salaries is much more easily quantified than the cost of a damaging customer service.

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

#238

Post by mingusrude »

jlengrand wrote: post #233

To me, deciding to outsource customer support and hiring are huge red flags. People / Customers are not at the center of the company any more, but behind a wall. Incentives get shifted, and core business becomes a service. Not a good news.

I worked as a consultant with a phone operator who were insourcing their inhouse sales (telemarketing) after having it outsourced. What they had discovered was that by outsourcing that function they had lost a large chunk of their overall talent pool that they could recruit from to almost any other function (especially sales of course).

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

#239

Post by vinay427 »

zwaps wrote: post #188
vinay427 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the EU? Most instances were in Switzerland as I mentioned, although a few were in the EU. Some weren't defective items but rather unneeded items. Returns based on changing one's mind, even if the item is in unused condition and remains re-sellable, seems to not be a "thing" in at least several European countries whereas American consumers typically expect these consumer protections not by law but by convention.…

You have, by law, two weeks to return any item you bought online for any reason whatsoever, and you have 6 months essentially "no questions asked" return for defective items - on top of the actual warranty periods (that, again, are by law). As far as conventions go, I check some larger retailers from Europe, like Zalando, and they offer a 100 day return policy [1] by convention. Maybe Switzerland is the outlier here?…

Zalando is famously an exception in multiple countries I’ve been in, to the extent that some shop there because of their lenient return policies. I’m not sure how unique Switzerland is here. It seemed relatively similar in Germany, for instance.

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

#240

Post by netsharc »

soco wrote: post #138
herbst wrote: post #96

On contrary what most people have experienced booking helped me multiple times to get my money back. When travelling SEA for cheap I ended up in hotels that were lying about the rooms more than once. A room without windows, described as balcony room for 2 weeks and shit like that. Shady hotel owners don't care, and discussions can go on forever. However simply calling booking and have them call the hotel for me fixed…

For me it didn't work. They said it's the decision of the appartment owner to not refund and that was it - even after dozens of calls.

I wonder how viable it'd be to issue a chargeback.

I guess in grandparent poster's case, the hotel owners were afraid of booking.com and caved into their demands, while in your case, the owners knew booking.com and you can't do anything.

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