Hyatt has reportedly laid off nearly all remaining U.S. phone customer service agents. Last week it appears that roughly 300 U.S. agents were terminated, and there seem to be just 35 left. The hotel chain is also said to have dismissed 18 managers and the bulk of the U.S. chat team, leaving about 36 U.S. chat agents left.
Employees apparently received 24 hours notice before termination, and severance packages of $800 or less. There are no more physical U.S. call centers, with remaining local agents remote.
Hyatt’s front-line call work is now handled out of El Salvador and the Philippines (El Salvador identified for the newest wave; Philippines still hosts the larger team). El Salvador call center wages have been noted at ~ $400 per month for full-time, six day a week work – which is better than local average wages but significant savings for the company.
The My Hyatt Concierge team remains intact, but I’ve read that their managers were let go. Without U.S. phone customer service it’s not clear where their replacements will come from.
- In November 2023, subpar service from Hyatt concierges was the number one top elite concern with the program expressed at a meeting with Hyatt’s Chief Commercial Officer Mark Vondrasek.
- He expressed concern and an intention to improve the program but nothing has changed – and the pipeline to grow that program seems to be drying up.
Several self-identified call center employees reported on their layoff experience.
I went from joining a zoom call with the director of my team, to being forced to turn on my camera, to being told I was laid off effective literally immediately, to then having an HR rep say “you’re going to need to take notes now”, to me just saying. I’m sure all of this info is going to be in an email you’ll be sending to my personal address so please can I get off this call now?”
They literally shoved me out the door, sat there staring at me as I was crying and humiliated and confused. Then the realization hit me — how am I going to pay for my mortgage? Health Insurance? ETc. All while the HR rep and the temporary director of my team sat there in silence.
…a 5 minute zoom to lay us off with literally NO advance warning or foreshadowing. They literally said your Hyatt email is going to deactivate in about an hour.
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.
Now, there’s less need than ever to call. Hyatt has done a lot to improve its digital functionality. Awards can be transferred between members online. Confirmed suite upgrades can be applied online – as long as you’re not trying to do so on a discounted rate. Artificial intelligence should ultimately displace more telephone customer service. But we aren’t there yet.
I also don’t have an issue with offshore call centers as such, however:
- when companies are offshoring, they’re usually doing it to cut costs – and that extends to the training and technology extended to the offshore agents
- you may get inconsistent call quality – some customers who have spoken to offshore Hyatt agents in the past have reported roosters crowing in the background
- and tasks being undertaken by inexperienced agents who aren’t empowered to act tend to take longer – more time spent by the customer on the phone (Hyatt saves on costs by shifting cost burder to the guest)
In the days since this occurred my experience with Hyatt’s twitter team via direct message has been good. I have rarely needed to call Hyatt to begin with, though agents have been immediately helpful when cancelling reservations inside the cancel window (for instance, because of cancelled flights or illness made it unwise to travel). I don’t expect this to change my Hyatt experience much at all.
With Marriott pursuing a strategy of mass layoffs, and Hyatt having completed several acquisitions that likely leaves them bloated at several levels, this may also be viewed as part of a broader corporate culling.
Update: related, AI is neutralizing accents for foreign call center agents (WaPo, HT: Marginal Revolution)
Hyatt constantly screws over its staff. It’s time to boycott and shut Hyatt down once and for all.
I thought The Federal WARN Act requires that on layoffs of 100 or more workers be given a written 60 day notice? Does anyone else know more about how it works? Because this doesn’t seem right…
Great way to treat your employees, JB Pritzker and family.
Hyatt globalist here. I haven’t heard from my Hyatt globalist concierge in more than a year.
As I struggle to find an occasion to use my free night at one of their least desirable hotels, I realize that I am pretty much done with Hyatt.
Capitalism, baby. Isn’t that what all these business people want? Higher profits and screw the customers.
But you guys get pissed when Orange Man Bad threatens companies that pull this stuff.
Democrats (Pritzker) screwing the little guy again!
@TravelWarr – I am not an expert in WARN Act notices, however I believe these were largely remote workers. If a given reporting line of dispersed staff suffered fewer than 50 losses then WARN may not apply?
I’m surprised they get paid at all. The crypto-dictator Bukele has literal slaves from his torture prisons to do the work for free.
Happy to see everyone cares about workers now… oh, no, never mind, y’all just hate your perceived political opponents. Got it.
Sad, especially the way they were treated.
So the owners save big cash and all of that Social Security withholding doesn’t happen. Come on, people. There is a VERY easy way to solve this.
Enacted a federal tax on all 800-type calls answered outside of the US. We could start with $20 per call and if not enough, raise it. That money needs to be permanently allocated solely to the Social Security Trust Fund, and can provision cannot be amended.
Now, which member of Congress is going to vote against additional money for the Trust Fund? Use the tax code the same way it is used as a so-called “sin tax” to reduce unfavorable social behavior, such as tobacco and alcohol. Only in this way it is used to affect corporate behavior instead of individual behavior.
I think the main call center was in Omaha… not sure Nebraska has a WARN notice requirement or not
JB pritzker is a total tool. The democratic William Howard Taft without any of the intelligence and more of the LBs
Sad from a company I once respected
I expect customer service to go into the toilet much like IHG
Shocking from a company that was once a role model in customer care
They are a bunch of thieving street whores @ HYATT corporate to let this happen
With large corporations shipping their call center jobs offshore left, center and right, I’m surprised Hyatt took this long to do it. I took their lead and I’ve been shipping my travel spends offshore.
*I* like the 800-number tax idea, but this administration’s apologists will slam-dunk ANY tax idea that their buddies call up and complain about, so it’s not going to happen no matter how much you erroneously think a majority of congress wants to fix the funding mechanism for Social Security. Any move in that direction would endanger their buddies’ already-ordered extra yacht. And besides, the Republican Party has hated Social Security since 1935, and has tried to eliminate it consistently since it was enacted.
Ignoring the politics and service quality issues, what I’ve been reading lately is that call centers in economically disadvantaged countries with lax international laws are ripe for fraud. Apparently, the employees lack both the knowledge and the motivation to detect fraud, and in addition, many are at an income level in which they can be easily bribed. Not a good combination. Obviously, the fraud issue is vastly worse in financial call centers than those in the hospitality industry, but I would still be guarded about monitoring the statements of any credit cards used in Hyatt accommodations.
Roosters crowing in the background doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not in an office environment. My old office was in the Ybor City part of Tampa, where there’s tons of wild chickens running around. I would be on the phone sometimes and they would crow loudly. Can only imagine what the customers thought.
To be fair, customer service from a call center in the Philippines is often better than the United States and certainly better than a Spanish-speaking country. The Philippines has one of the highest, if not the highest, English fluency rates in the world. Plus, the people are polite and there’s a genuine service culture. Your average Filipino probably speaks better English than your average American, who has a seventh or eighth grade reading level.
Don’t these corporations who are moving their employees offshore realize that sooner or later, here in the US we won’t have any workers with jobs, and hence, who is going to be paying to buy the product?
This is unfortunate. Directly-employed American call center employees are almost always far more helpful than offshored ones. Language barrier issues aside, they’re just usually a lot more knowledgeable about policies and have more flexibility to fix things and work with customers when something goes awry (whether it’s the company’s fault or not.) And, especially in an industry like travel, there will always routinely be stuff going awry, both on their side and the customers’. I’ve always had great customer service from Hyatt’s U.S.-based employees in the past, so this is really unfortunate to see. I’ve long favored Hyatt properties over other chains, but if this is the direction they’re going, I’ll likely be spending fewer nights at Hyatts in the future.
And, customer experience aside, that’s an atrocious way to treat your employees. They should at least get a decent severance package, especially for the ones who have been there for a long time.
If Hyatt is treating their loyal employees this way then it bodes very ill for the way loyal customers will be treated in the future. We’re next.
I thought jobs were pouring, POURING, back into the United States? Oh yeah, turns out that’s another lie that takes very little work to debunk.
Only until AI agents get cheap enough to replace them.
I’d love to see if there is a way to charge tariffs to these companies until they move the jobs back to the US. That would be putting America first!!!
This sucks, I moved from Marriott to Hyatt and maintained Globalist, , their service and support has always been excellent.
JB Pritzker, the liberal Governor and huge Hyatt stockholder screwing his employees is nothing new. I thought this was something hard core Republicans only do, NOT ! Wealthy democrats love $ as much as capilist Repulicans like the President. I do like the tax idea on all call center calls out of the U.S.
So, I’ve been having a thought of late. Hear me out…
One of MAGA’s points about immigration is that we have able-bodied Americans who can do this work. But…we hear on the other side about economics, training, and ramp up costs. And we need quick wins to show why taking care of our own first can be a good thing. So, why not…
Tell every corporation operating in the US that they have 365 days to repatriate every, any and all foreign call centers back to the US or one of its territories or be hit with a 25% tariff on all monies earned in the US?
It:
1. Hits the intent of nationalism: take care of our own first.
2. Helps bring jobs to communities that can benefit most quickly. Stand up in person and/or virtual call centers in rural and urban communities in need of entry-level jobs…with benefits.
3. Addresses immigration argument that undocumented immigrants are stealing jobs from Americans. In this model youn can’t get a job without clearing the government verification process.
4. Could add approximately 1 million jobs in a year. Help people in communities in need get connected with these jobs while getting hired on merit, and everyone wins.
What am I missing?
Corporate greed.
No way! Shocking…