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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

#281

Post by zwaps »

vinay427 wrote: post #239
zwaps wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you be specific then? Like, you are aware that you have a 2 week period minimum, and a 6 month period for defective wares. There's also many shops that have more than a 2 week period because it's good customer policy. It's not just Zalando, I checked the next biggest German store (Otto) and they have a 30 day free return policy.

By contrast, in the US it all depends on store policy and, apparently, luck. I had some pretty bad customer experiences in the US, and there was nothing I could do then.

For example, this whole Saga on GamersNexus (check other videos) is a good indicator that the US system may not be perfect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fnXsmXzphI

As Steve says in the video, in the US you have no recourse. There's no law. The shop in question didn't feel like being "nice" and the person is out of 500$. For Steve, this amounts to a scam, but the burden of proof is on him. For specifically this reason, the EU has a law that says otherwise.

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

#282

Post by devilbunny »

olalonde wrote: post #62

It's weird to see all those negative anecdotes about Booking.com. As a counter anecdote, I've used them several times and they always seem to have much cheaper prices then the competition. I was also able to cancel my booking once without issue after talking to customer support. PS: Not in any way affiliated with them other than being a satisfied customer.

I've used them - and will in the future - because my wife likes being able to take a bath, not a shower (long hair is hard to keep dry in a shower, but in a bath she just puts it in a ponytail), and curiously enough booking.com is the only site I've ever found that let you use that as a search criterion.

Never had to call customer support, though.

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

#283

Post by hakfoo »

olalonde wrote: post #230
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. Specialization and economies of scale. Best Buy's core competence isn't phone customer service. A phone customer service can specialize and develop tools and processes that Best Buy couldn't. They can also serve multiple companies with a smaller workforce due to increased utilisation rate (a bit similar to why cloud hosting has become so popular). > Also, the fac…

I have to wonder if they're identifying the right core competencies here.

A general-purpose call centre operator who supports 20 different firms knows how to set up phone systems and churn bodies, but they will, by nature, be unable to optimize around your specific customer needs and internal platforms. The customer-service experience will inherently be worse-- worse answers, more escalations required to get to an outcome, and potentially some resolutions simply not available to a siloed third party.

On the other hand, I suspect that's part of the way they've priced customer service. Getting customers ravingly satisfied with their experience isn't the goal, it's "just enough so they don't litigate or start leaving negative external press." The fact you moved down from "first-choice default go-to store" to "I'll also check Newegg and Amazon before my next purchase" doesn't really show up in this quarter's financials.

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

#284

Post by microtonal »

scrollaway wrote: post #177
microtonal wrote: post #29

Meh. They are just terrible. We once booked a hotel with a children's bed, which was advertised as an option on Booking.com . When we go there, no bed, and they could provide one. After much discussion, they allowed us to cancel the room and they would refund the 125 Euro. Except the refund never came. So, we contacted booking.com and have been passed between support personnel for months. At some point they wanted mo…

Not to say you’re lying but I find this extremely unlikely. Speaking as somebody who works in fintech but despises booking.com. The reason they wanted your bank statements is legitimate: you’re claiming you didn’t receive money they are convinced they refunded. Did you yourself look at your bank statements? A refund doesn’t always show up as a refund, it sometimes shows up as a cancelled charge. A bank might not noti…

Did you yourself look at your bank statements? A refund doesn’t always show up as a refund, it sometimes shows up as a cancelled charge. A bank might not notify you of that.

Yes. My wife keeps a meticulous administration, the 125 Euro showing up again would be noticed immediately. My impression was that Booking.com wasn't going to refund the money, but was pressuring the hotel to do the refund, and they either transferred it to an incorrect account or didn't transfer it all and was feeding Booking.com false information.

However, you can't be the middle man when it suits you (get a certain percentage for every reservation), but not be the middle man when it doesn't suit you. The proper approach would be for Booking.com to refund the money and then settle things with the hotel. But they are clearly not very customer-oriented.

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

#286

Post by [deleted] »

Wiseacre wrote: post #280
oblio wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the employees in this announcement are in Europe, where there is no "firing" (i.e. at-will employment aka employer abuse). There's only laying off with a severance and firing for cause, where firing for cause is by design > hard to do. And it's definitely not something that can be done to masses of people at once without all the government authorities coming to pay the offending company a visit ASAP. > That's…

You redefined firing to be whatever you want it to be. It's a bit nonsensical to assume all firings are employer abuse.

[deleted]

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

#287

Post by oblio »

GhostVII wrote: post #236
pjmlp wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

His point in Germany is that not only are you eligible for unemployment, you have to receive a severance package.

They've just pulled the rug from underneath you without it being your fault in any way.

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

#288

Post by clove »

mrtksn wrote: post #176
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…

The business revolves around bedbanks contracting hotels and selling them to retailers and aggregators. There are exchanges, there are hybrid models and what not. That's why "2 rooms left" kind if messages are almost always total BS because every hotel can have more than one bedbank contract or the contract can be flexible and you can't know exactly how many rooms are left but you can query if the number of room you…

I travel a lot and find that my area rarely has the majority of its hotels listed on sites such as booking.com. What would I have to do, specifically, to get these hotels listed and get paid for it?

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

#289

Post by mrtksn »

clove wrote: post #288
mrtksn wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The business revolves around bedbanks contracting hotels and selling them to retailers and aggregators. There are exchanges, there are hybrid models and what not. That's why "2 rooms left" kind if messages are almost always total BS because every hotel can have more than one bedbank contract or the contract can be flexible and you can't know exactly how many rooms are left but you can query if the number of room you…

I travel a lot and find that my area rarely has the majority of its hotels listed on sites such as booking.com. What would I have to do, specifically, to get these hotels listed and get paid for it?

Right, so you can create a startup that contracts these hotels and sell your contacts to bedbanks like Hotelbeds I guess? I haven't been in touch with the industry since a while, so I can't give you too many specifics advice.

A few years back, I remember a startup building a portfolio of Mediterranean(If I recall correctly?) hotels and end up selling the company to a bedbank for 30 Million USD.

If you are not looking into making this into a full blown business, I guess you can take a cut as an agent by hooking up the hotels with the representatives of the bedbanks. Look up for people titled "Market manager" and see if you can arrange a deal with them. Market managers are people responsible of adding new hotels to the portfolio of a company and manage the relationship with these hotels, they usually make good money from commissions. It also often involves things like resolving errors with the booking software, teaching the staff how to use the interface etc.

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

#290

Post by clove »

mrtksn wrote: post #289
clove wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I travel a lot and find that my area rarely has the majority of its hotels listed on sites such as booking.com. What would I have to do, specifically, to get these hotels listed and get paid for it?

Right, so you can create a startup that contracts these hotels and sell your contacts to bedbanks like Hotelbeds I guess? I haven't been in touch with the industry since a while, so I can't give you too many specifics advice. A few years back, I remember a startup building a portfolio of Mediterranean(If I recall correctly?) hotels and end up selling the company to a bedbank for 30 Million USD. If you are not looking…

I live in Japan and want to give it a shot. Can you give me the step-by-step? Am I supposed to just contact anyone in the hotel industry with a "market manager" title on LinkedIn and tell them I can contact hotels for them?
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