Hyatt has reportedly laid off hundreds of remaining U.S. phone customer service agents. Last week it appears that roughly 300 U.S. agents were terminated, and there’s a report that 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. 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)