Hyatt Moves All Call Center Reservation & Member Services (Except Globalist Concierge) Offshore

Some reports and posts online claim that Hyatt Hotels just completed another streamlining (cutback) program, shifting all their call center services overseas to be handled by representatives in the Philippines and – of all places – El Salvador.

According to information leaked / published on Reddit and various Facebook groups, the call center agents (which have largely been working from home anyway ever since the pandemic) have been let go.

While I usually don’t like the migration of call center services to offshore locations, I think that in the case of Hyatt, it really doesn’t make much of a difference anymore, as the quality of the agents has deteriorated so much over the years that it has become almost torturous to call them.

I recall that ~ 10+ years ago, Hyatt was the chain that used to pride itself on offering more premium customer service compared to the competition. However, all this changed and was undermined entirely when Hyatt allowed their agents to work from home.

I covered multiple frustrating experiences over the years involving surly agents who had zero competency or were not in the mood to work, many with a heavy accent. In addition to that, you could hear animal noises in the background (the most remarkable one I had was a rooster), kids screaming, and in one case, gunfire from a TV running. It’s clear that Hyatt was totally hands-off and stopped caring.

In a Hyatt Facebook group I follow, someone referenced this Reddit threat:

Now, there are many things swirling around the internet, but I decided to look into it further.

Here is a post of a (self-identified ex-employee):

This doesn’t sound good.

Another ex-agent reports similar:

Former employee with friends who used to work there till today. Hyatt built in person call centers in low income areas, including mine, then after covid they moved to remote work. So a lot of people in my area worked for Hyatt. This is gonna suck because we still have people looking for jobs since the last round of layoffs.

… 300 more folks were laid off today, if you like your concierge lines you better stress that to Hyatt, because they are likely on the way out too. You can’t promote someone to the concierge lines if there’s no one to promote from.

According to her, only 35 U.S.-based agents (likely Globalist Concierge managers) are left. Awful and I can only imagine that more people will either be let go or leave on their own accord over time.

And another report about the Chat team:

Chat has always been a hit and miss in my book. Even the most simple requests took forever and were carried out incorrectly.

According to Gary with View from the Wing, the new home for Hyatt Call Centers is now in the Philippines and El Salvador (hopefully not Bukele’s Mega Prison).

I also contacted Hyatt Corporate for their input, but haven’t heard back from them at this point.

Here are just a few of the Hyatt CSR-related articles I covered over the years:

Whine Wednesday: Deteriorating, Useless Customer Service Chat Through The World of Hyatt App

Whine Wednesday: Should Hyatt Just Drop The Useless World Of Hyatt Globalist Concierge Feature?

Hyatt Globalist Agent: We’re Not Supposed To Call Hotels Anymore To Assist With Booking Problems!

And these are just a few of the most pervasive issues with Hyatt. Right now, I have a Globalist Concierge in Asia that I got assigned upon request. She hasn’t been useful in any way, to be honest, quite the opposite. And unless I write personally, I never hear from her.

Now, it seems that the only way for World of Hyatt members to obtain a somewhat qualified agent trained in certain Hyatt matters is by becoming a Globalist, which requires 60 nights to be eligible for the concierge feature.

The good thing is that after the app and website have been revamped, you can now apply most of your upgrades yourself. There is very little to no reason anymore to contact Hyatt unless there is a technical issue.

If I receive further information from Hyatt corporate, I will update their response in this article.

Conclusion

Hyatt is closing its U.S. based call center operations and is sending the duties over to the Philippines and to El Salvador. This is worrying news because, especially common customers without Globalist status, now have no way to circumvent these offshore call centers.

The issue isn’t so much that they have operations in the Philippines but that they probably go for the lowest bidder. These service center operations can be contracted within several tier levels (usually 1-3), and unless you go for the highest tier with the smartest agents and provide the best training, the customer experience is horrendous.

I tried to call Hyatt’s U.S. numbers myself and indeed – no more stateside accent. Of course, if you live abroad, you can still call the European hotlines and speak in German, French, or in Japan where they offer Japanese services. But yeah, North America is toast.

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