Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 291 posts

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

#261

Post by dudeinjapan »

Hakashiro wrote: post #232
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.

All the more reason to ditch Booking.com

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

#262

Post by incomplete »

mike10921 wrote: post #252
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.

booking.com is the spirit airlines of hotel websites. Even if it is half the price stay the heck away. If your stay gets fd up they literally do not give a flying f and will laugh in ur face for expecting any type of customer service.

but... you can't beat the prices. i've had one TERRIBLE booking experience, a couple of meh, but the vast majority of my experiences have been just fine.

heartburn avoidance: read the fine print (the cheapest rate(s) usually don't allow for cancellation/rebooking), and compare similar rates/condition across a couple of sites before clicking 'book'.

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

#263

Post by oblio »

Wiseacre wrote: post #241
oblio wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're not firing. They're jerks, trying to force them out by moving them to a crap subsidiary without benefits, maybe forced relocation to another country (!), etc. Firing people means paying severance. They want to avoid doing that and for obvious reasons in many countries that's illegal. I guess they figured possible lawsuits are cheaper.

It sounds like you are confusing being fired with being laid off.

Maybe I am. What's the difference and how does it apply to what I'm saying?

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

#264

Post by cultofmetatron »

booking.com's service is easy to use but I've had several issues with them in latin america

1. had a hotel cancal on me because I didn't "call ahead" ffs: I don't speak spanish

2. showed up to the "resort" looks like it had been abandoned for months. literally no one there. total ghost town

3. show up in town, try to contact the hotel to get directions. they told me they cancelled because I didn't show up on time despite me messaging them ahead of time that the only tow busses for the town arrive either in the early morning or late at night

4. showed up, price was suspiciously good. Yea the actual hotel was terrible. dangerous part of town and the rooms were one step above prison grade. of course I had already booked and poid so I ate the loss as I took an uber to a better hotel in a good part of the city. It had a 9 rating.

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

#265

Post by babyshake »

mike10921 wrote: post #252
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.

booking.com is the spirit airlines of hotel websites. Even if it is half the price stay the heck away. If your stay gets fd up they literally do not give a flying f and will laugh in ur face for expecting any type of customer service.

The last time I used booking.com the photo used for the listing was completely different than the room I was given at the hotel including the number of beds and some other major things. When I showed this to the hotel manager he just shrugged and didn't care. I opened a support ticket with booking.com and they never followed up.

It's a bummer how quickly we are descending into fully automated, no F's given customer support culture as a result of the very same technology that many of us have built careers around developing.

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

#266

Post by petre »

Nextgrid wrote: post #191
petre wrote: post #122

I got screwed over by their car rental division. Basically any mistake on your part voids any refund. I complanied to the European Consumer Centers network to see if I can recover at last part of my funds, but it gets more complicated as their transport division is registered in Manchester, UK which is no longer part of the EU. Needless to say, I am never going to rent any car through an agency again.

Card dispute?

Yes

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

#267

Post by nkmnz »

madaxe_again wrote: post #234
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…

I'd say some parts of your story cannot be attributed to the hotel room or even to the hotel as a whole, but rather to the place that hotel's been located, but let me ask the much more important question: what's that hotel's score on booking.com? To me, that sounds like a 3.6!

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

#268

Post by cannabis_sam »

Lol, booking.com sold me lodgings in Malibu, at a place that had clearly been shut down for months..

We ended up going to a motel in Thousand Oaks, BUT the customer service is what actually allowed us to deal with the fraudulent booking.

I’m gonna take a wild guess here, but this kind of outsourcing does not generally improve the service..

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

#269

Post by Wiseacre »

oblio wrote: post #263
Wiseacre wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you are confusing being fired with being laid off.

Maybe I am. What's the difference and how does it apply to what I'm saying?

Because when you are laying people off and giving them a severance, you are taking more care of them than you would be if you were firing them. That's the entire basis of this comment thread.
Post reply on HN