Sad: Hyatt Outsources Most US-Based Customer Service, Phone Support

If you notice a difference in the quality of customer service at Hyatt, particularly via phone and the chat feature, there’s probably a reason for that…

Hyatt lays off most call center agents in United States

View from the Wing flags a Reddit post about how Hyatt has reportedly laid off a vast majority of its US-based customer service employees, including those who provide phone support.

While Hyatt has long had regional call centers around the globe, until last year, the company had a lot of phone support agents based in the United States. However, there has been a project in recent months to change that, and it’s reportedly now almost complete.

Over the past eight or so months, a vast majority of US-based agents have been laid off, and have been replaced by new call centers in El Salvador and the Philippines. As I understand it, there are still some managers based in the US, and the My Hyatt Concierge employees are also largely based in the United States.

However, other than that, it seems that most employees are now based abroad. Apparently the negative changes have been in the works for years. At the beginning of the pandemic, Hyatt closed its major physical call centers in the United States, instead moving people to home offices. Now all those jobs are being outsourced.

In terms of quality, there’s nothing inherently bad about outsourced call centers. The issue is that all too often, the goal isn’t just to save money with lower ongoing salaries, but companies also try to save money with training. There’s often such a knowledge gap between tenured US phone agents and outsourced ones, and this will no doubt lead to customer frustration.

So if you notice a lower level of service at Hyatt’s call centers, now you know why…

It’s sad to read what people say about working at Hyatt

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people who were recently laid off by a company might not have a very favorable impression of it. However, it’s discouraging to read the experiences that US call center agents had with Hyatt in recent years, and how they claim the experience of working there went downhill over time.

Like this comment:

I used to work for Hyatt – I was a Care agent. When I first came to the company – it was an incredible place to work – they truly cared about their employees – in a span of 5-7 years the culture has changed. Everyone employee is just a number – no one matters. It sucks. So happy I got away. Blessing in disguise for sure.

Or this comment:

Let’s not forget they’re making people sign NDAs if they take the severance packages in the amount of $800 or less. Hyatt says Care but they don’t Care about employees. I always say, happy employees=better service=happy guests. They played us like a fiddle

Or this comment:

It’s incredibly annoying to be constantly told how much Hyatt Cares then to be faced with this. At the summit meetings a few months ago we were assured our positions were safe, and that we would be working with the foreign call centers. They would work the hours that we were closed.

However in checking my emails on the way out I noticed that we received one where Teleperformance was noted, and that they planned to open up a team in El Salvador on November 18th. Seems like that all worked out fine for them, and they sent out the emails meeting invites by the end of the day to fire us.

So during my shift I get a notice that I have an important meeting scheduled the next day (my day off) at 9:00 am and not to share this info. (It was at this point the panic set in) …

The meeting to lay us off was so unprofessional. People couldn’t get in, or they were unaware they had been scheduled. I had one person resort to calling me on teams to find out what was going on, and frankly she deserved to hear that from her employer not a coworker. It was just them blandly telling us “how hard this is for them” and that we no longer have jobs. I’m sorry but the alligator tears are just too much.

I don’t know about y’all, but every day I had at least one person tell me how thankful they were that English was my first language, or that I wasn’t AI when calling in, usually with less kind words but you get the drift. I can see how moving the call centers is in the best interest of the shareholders, but it’s definitely not in the best interest of the guests.

I’m upset because I feel like I was misled about the security of my job. My fears had directly been addressed at an in person summit and I was told not to worry. I received a promotion and consistently had fantastic scores on my calls. My feedback from guests included compliments such as “her kindness almost made me cry” and I thought I was doing this for a company who would at least care enough about me to fire me in a compassionate way, instead of a bungled teams meeting.

Hyatt has long differentiated itself with trying to treat people better and offering a higher level of customer service, so it’s unfortunate to see that at least in some areas, that commitment isn’t there anymore.

Bottom line

In recent months, Hyatt has reportedly laid off hundreds of customer service staff based in the United States, including call center and chat agents. At this point, there’s just a small number of US-based agents left, in addition to managers and My Hyatt Concierge staff.

Instead, Hyatt is increasingly moving its call centers to El Salvador and the Philippines, which I can’t imagine will lead to a great level of service.

What do you make of Hyatt outsourcing its US-based support?