Several weeks ago, I covered how Hyatt laid off most of its US-based customer service agents, instead choosing to outsource these jobs. Well, I just had my first experience with what I have to assume is one of these new phone support agents. After 74 minutes on the phone, I need a nap, because I’m cranky…
In this post:
An absurdly frustrating Hyatt call center experience
Before I share my experience, let me clarify that in theory, I don’t care where a call center agent is based, as long as they’re able to do their jobs in a satisfactory way. My issue is that all too often, when call center jobs are outsourced, the people put in those positions don’t have the training and tools they need to succeed.
Furthermore, I don’t in any way blame the frontline employees, but instead, blame the companies that hire them and then don’t give them sufficient training. With that out of the way, as a lifetime World of Hyatt Globalist member, I’ve generally found Hyatt’s call center to be one of the more competent ones, with agents (mostly) knowing how to do their jobs.
Today I called Hyatt for the first time in several weeks, and I think it’s safe to assume I was connected to someone on Hyatt’s new team. My request was simple, or so I thought. I wanted to apply one of my Suite Upgrade Awards for a Hyatt Prive reservation that I booked at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley.
So, how did that work out? Well, the call took a total of 74 minutes, and really, something was only accomplished in the last several minutes, when I was connected to a US-based “guest escalation” supervisor.
The issues started at the beginning of the call, as the agent had never heard of Hyatt Prive. She claimed I booked a “corporate rate,” and kept asking for details about what corporation I worked for. When I explained to her what Hyatt Prive was, she was confused, asked me to spell it out, etc. Eventually she said she’d have to talk to “customer care support” (can I just talk to them directly, pretty please?).
That process took around 15 minutes, for something that shouldn’t have even been a discussion, because there’s supposed to be zero issue with applying suite upgrades to Hyatt Prive rates.
Then came the process of looking up whether there was suite upgrade availability. This is something that should ordinarily take seconds. Somehow that took another 15 or so minutes, including me repeatedly being put on hold.
I asked her to confirm that she saw standard suites available, but she seemingly couldn’t figure that out. She said she’d then call the hotel to try to apply the upgrade, and I clarified the type of suite I’d like — a “Deer Valley Suite with Balcony.” The hotel has multiple types of standard suites, and in those situations, you can request which kind you’d like.
She obviously didn’t understand this contextually — “you want a deer suite with balcony?” Okay, no big deal, so I repeated myself multiple times, and she seemed to at least be able to repeat what I was saying. She then put me on hold to call the hotel to apply the upgrade, or something.
After an extended wait, I ended up being added to a three-way call with the front desk agent, who explained to me (if I understood things correctly), that Hyatt had centrally accidentally blocked me into the accessible suite rather than the one that I requested, and if I wanted to fix that, I’d have to cancel my reservation and book again.
I explained that I specifically told the agent the type of suite that I preferred, and that I had been on the call for close to an hour. Obviously it wasn’t the front desk agent’s fault, so I said he could get off the line, and I asked the Hyatt agent if she could please connect me to a supervisor.
After an extended hold, I was connected to Wanda, a “guest escalation” supervisor (I suspect these supervisor roles are among the only ones that haven’t been outsourced). Wanda was lovely, and provided exactly the type of service I’m used to at the Globalist line. She could actually understand what I was asking for, and in a matter of minutes, she solved the issue, contacted the hotel, and confirmed me in the right type of suite.
The whole process took 74 minutes. Wanda was a delight, and I feel bad for the fact that she probably only gets to talk to guests nowadays after they’ve had a terrible experience with someone else.
This is an absolute embarrassment, Hyatt
Historically, I’ve been a huge Hyatt fan. I mean, I’ve had top tier status with Hyatt for over 15 years, and I even have lifetime status with the program. I’ve long respected Hyatt because I felt like among the “mainstream” hotel groups, Hyatt cared more about customer experience than competitors.
Hyatt was smaller, and therefore had to try harder. For that matter, I felt like there was a genuine passion there for taking care of guests. Unfortunately as Hyatt has continued to grow and acquire an endless number of brands, I’ve increasingly felt like Hyatt’s spark is gone, and the company is increasingly like its competitors.
Look, it’s possible that I just had a very bad experience, but this certainly doesn’t give me a very favorable first impression of the quality of Hyatt’s outsourced call center.
Among the outsourced call center agents, are Globalists somehow being prioritized for better trained agents? Because if not, that’s disappointing, and it’s a devaluation to what I’d consider to be a valuable Globalist perk. Meanwhile if the agent I spoke with was supposed to be one of the better ones, then I don’t even want to think about what kind of an experience other people may be having.
It’s just sad when Hyatt’s frontline phone support suddenly makes Marriott’s seem amazing, by comparison…
Bottom line
Hyatt recently outsourced most of its call center jobs, and I just had my first experience with this new call center. The simple task of trying to apply a Suite Upgrade Award ended up taking 74 minutes, and it was only the tail end of the call where anything was accomplished, when I got connected to a US-based agent.
I’m curious if I just had an isolated experience, or if others have found the new agents to be so poorly trained. This is one of those situations where I wish Hyatt would send out surveys or let you stay on the phone to rate an agent, because I’m not sure the company realizes the damage that interactions like this do to the perception of a brand.
If you’ve dealt with Hyatt’s new call center, what was your experience like?
The real question is why Ben did not just email his concierge and have them do it. Easy peasy.
My Globalist Concierge took 9 days for the last request. Not a big deal for me booking was 40 days away but I imagine others will have issues
This is so disappointing to hear. I thought Hyatt used to be a cut above, but clearly they have also decided their guests are commodities, their customer is the property owner. Honestly, mainstream hotel loyalty programs just don’t seem to offer that much incentive these days. As a frequent flyer I see the advantage of trying to maintain top-tier status, at least for the better airport experience. But US mainstream hotel chains have degraded service...
This is so disappointing to hear. I thought Hyatt used to be a cut above, but clearly they have also decided their guests are commodities, their customer is the property owner. Honestly, mainstream hotel loyalty programs just don’t seem to offer that much incentive these days. As a frequent flyer I see the advantage of trying to maintain top-tier status, at least for the better airport experience. But US mainstream hotel chains have degraded service and member benefits so, so much is the past few years that I don’t see any value proposition. The benefits simply aren’t that significant these days, and vary so widely between properties.
It’s sad to see Hyatt headed this way. I would have thought that their much smaller footprint would, as you say, make them work to differentiate themselves. But all these chains have ceased caring about guest experience at all. Their loyalty programs are correspondingly way less valuable.
It seems unclear if you had called the Concierge team phone number?
I called the globalist line last week. I think I was speaking to a Customer servic rep in the Caribbean. She was helpful but the noise from the chickens and roosters was overpowering! Extremely unprofessional and distracting
Two weeks back, I went through three calls and a chat to book my annual free night certificate (from holding the Hyatt credit card for ten years, now). The first agent never booked my room at all although she apparently messed with my account about 20 minutes later, leading me to getting a warning email (I froze my Hyatt card). Turned out she had only changed the formatting of my condo number from # to...
Two weeks back, I went through three calls and a chat to book my annual free night certificate (from holding the Hyatt credit card for ten years, now). The first agent never booked my room at all although she apparently messed with my account about 20 minutes later, leading me to getting a warning email (I froze my Hyatt card). Turned out she had only changed the formatting of my condo number from # to Apt and re-saved it, for some unknown reason.
I got on a chat and asked about the warning email I'd received and got back "hehehe it is just spam don't worry." Got off the chat and called the hotel again, this time I think I got someone at the front desk who confirmed my room had not been booked by the original agent, but did so. He was worried that agent 1 had asked for my full credit card number and suggested I call a different number to report it but when I did, the agent there was not concerned.
I think this is my last year maintaining that Hyatt card.
Was this the globalist line or concierge line? Really hoping the former...
Well, you probably could have (i) hung up and called again or (ii) had your travel agent deal with this?
Or Hyatt could have (i) hired or (ii) trained a competent agent?
Don't blame the victim.
Are you billing clients for all the time you’re spending commenting here?
Can’t bill clients that don’t exist.
The next shoe to drop: dynamic pricing.
Dynamic pricing just makes sense. Every customer has a different willingness to pay. If I have 100 rooms to sell, wouldn't I want the 100 highest paying guests? It would be capitalist malpractice to want anything else.
Short-term focus on "capitalist" shareholder interests, with no attention to the unmeasurable, is Marketing malpractice.
Companies realize it. They've measured it. Nielsen, Kantar, YouGov, countless firms measure perceptions. McKinsey, BCG, Bain correlate them with the bottom line. Guess what? Perceptions of a brand don't help the bottom line. Companies now know they can cut corners in service, leading to customer experiences such as yours, and take no hit in net revenue...
Companies realize it. They've measured it. Nielsen, Kantar, YouGov, countless firms measure perceptions. McKinsey, BCG, Bain correlate them with the bottom line. Guess what? Perceptions of a brand don't help the bottom line. Companies now know they can cut corners in service, leading to customer experiences such as yours, and take no hit in net revenue or any metric that actually matters to shareholders.
Please, every other commenter, spare me the drivel about hospitality companies not knowing how to deliver hospitality. Hyatt is an American publicly traded company operating in the world's most ruthlessly capitalistic economic milieu. Hyatt's mission is to deliver returns to its shareholders. Whatever semblance of hospitality occurs in the process is a byproduct.
Oh good, time out buddy is allowed back. Be good now. Remember what we talked about? Polite.
Yeah, be careful what you wish for, those who wished Hyatt to get bigger. This is what bigger looks like.
@Lucky. Why didn't you HUCA after a few minutes?
Did you call the regular line or My Hyatt Concierge? The Concierge line was always a lot better than the regular line anyway, and I thought you’d reported those were still onshore?
Granted it doesn’t help those without access to concierge.
Reminds me of when HA first outsourced their call center to the Philippines.
It was really really really bad.
Luckily, the agents have a good attitude and are smart and eventually with enough experience have become as competent as the old US agents. However, HA does not empower them to do anything so it can still be frustrating due to no fault of their own.
So maybe call back in 3 years and things will be just like before. :)
My goodness, if at the beginning it's clear the person has no idea what they are doing ("What Corporation do you work for?" "What is Prive?") why in God's name did you not HUCA?
So he can report how bad it is.
Thank you for writing about this, Ben. If you--as a Globalist--don't get decent customer support, it's clear the average Hyatt customer won't anymore. It's really sad since Hyatt had historically been so good to their customers. As someone else said on another thread, it really seems like Hyatt is now racing to catch up to Marriott.
P.S. Please consider writing about the Hyatt Zadar stealth category switch (check FT thread). If Hyatt isn't shamed...
Thank you for writing about this, Ben. If you--as a Globalist--don't get decent customer support, it's clear the average Hyatt customer won't anymore. It's really sad since Hyatt had historically been so good to their customers. As someone else said on another thread, it really seems like Hyatt is now racing to catch up to Marriott.
P.S. Please consider writing about the Hyatt Zadar stealth category switch (check FT thread). If Hyatt isn't shamed into fixing this issue, it's clear they no longer abide by annual category changes.
Welcome to America in 2025
All equities are overpriced and companies are doing any/everything to somehow continue that upwards trend
The customer doesn’t matter at all. Share price is everything. Expect even worse in the future
If you believe equities are overpriced, short them.
Maybe they're not so overpriced after all?
As someone who has run call centers that rep has probably been on the job weeks (or days) She will get better. I am not excusing it, but the rollover was bound to be rough. I would judge it in 6 months. But also Globalist should always get their Wanda...
Get what you're saying, but it's a non-starter to tell your customers to wait for you. You've got to be ready on day 1 and at any moment thereafter.
If you're a Paul, Weiss client and one of our junior associates isn't delivering for you, we're not going to tell you to judge us in 6 months. We're going to apologize profusely while writing off the time on your invoice.
Poor service, won’t deny that.
But did you consider sending them a DM via messenger? Normally pretty quick.
Facebook Messenger is GOATED for customer service.
This is just what happens to brands and companies when they change their purpose from actually running hotels and hospitality, to becoming a financial investment vehicle. Their executive incentives too.
On the contrary, I had an unusually pleasant experience with the lifetime Platinum desk at Marriott today. They were able to locate a group reservation for a conference next week, change my room type from a double/double to king bed (which required the property's authorization), and provide me with a confirmation email in a matter of minutes. Usually, their service is much worse than this, I find.
Now that I have top-tier lifetime status with...
On the contrary, I had an unusually pleasant experience with the lifetime Platinum desk at Marriott today. They were able to locate a group reservation for a conference next week, change my room type from a double/double to king bed (which required the property's authorization), and provide me with a confirmation email in a matter of minutes. Usually, their service is much worse than this, I find.
Now that I have top-tier lifetime status with one hotel brand, I feel much more compelled to 'sleep around' with independent hotels & alternative lodging (inns, resorts, an occasional Airbnb), which are often a far more enjoyable experience for 20-30% less cost. When I need a 4pm checkout or club lounge access, Marriott's always there but not having to ride the hamster wheel has made me enjoy both my business and work travel much more this year.
Hyatt's old call center was completely miserable. I've had agents pretend to be supervisors, hang up on me, answer the call with "Hyatt, what do you want!?". They were shockingly shockingly rude.
That's not even mentioning that one of their agents accidentally merged my account with another person's, told me to "stop bothering them" when I pointed out I suddenly had an extra 20,000 points and 5 free nights that I hadn't earned, and then...
Hyatt's old call center was completely miserable. I've had agents pretend to be supervisors, hang up on me, answer the call with "Hyatt, what do you want!?". They were shockingly shockingly rude.
That's not even mentioning that one of their agents accidentally merged my account with another person's, told me to "stop bothering them" when I pointed out I suddenly had an extra 20,000 points and 5 free nights that I hadn't earned, and then came back and went "oops, we made a mistake". Then they deleted my Hyatt profile, and took (I counted) 12 emails with the corporate customer care team supervisor before they managed to restore everything the way it should be.
Pure misery. I'm sad people lost their jobs but not even Marriott has ever treated me that badly. Actually all of Marriott's agents that I've interacted with have been friendly, helpful, and empowered. It's mystifying.
Not to dismiss your experience (sounds awful), but it doesn't seem to be the typical experience. I've contacted hotel programs numerous times, and Hyatt was definitely a cut above Marriott and awful IHG. That seems more in line with the typical experience.
This is where AI, or what Corporate America considers AI, should be best used.
It's not about letting people slack on their intelligence responsibilities.
It's about streamlining customer experience, eliminating all the little contextual and cultural middle-men that make all our touchpoints so volatile.
I just got back from a work trip that involved, in 24 hours: seamless rental car pickup, seamless toll roads, seamless online check-in, being halted by a real...
This is where AI, or what Corporate America considers AI, should be best used.
It's not about letting people slack on their intelligence responsibilities.
It's about streamlining customer experience, eliminating all the little contextual and cultural middle-men that make all our touchpoints so volatile.
I just got back from a work trip that involved, in 24 hours: seamless rental car pickup, seamless toll roads, seamless online check-in, being halted by a real human in a lobby and involved in a non-sensical conversation for 10 minutes about how I was meant to be a guest at that particular crummy Hyatt Place, seamless food ordering from DoorDash and then seamless Customer Service when they forgot my beverage, seamless check out, seamless ordering at a Bojangles order box with a voice-recognition (yes, AI) system.
Which part was not like the other?
I regret to inform you, you do actually share the world with other human beings. I know this may come as a shock so I'll give you some time to process.
That's cool, Connor. I started my work life at age 14 volunteering for a literacy program in the South Bronx. I worked through hs and college in customer-facing jobs to pay my own way through school in addition to the PLUS loans my parents took out and paid off promptly (a program gutted in the latest federal budget). I worked in healthcare strategy to ensure low-income people didn't lost coverage and got access for 12...
That's cool, Connor. I started my work life at age 14 volunteering for a literacy program in the South Bronx. I worked through hs and college in customer-facing jobs to pay my own way through school in addition to the PLUS loans my parents took out and paid off promptly (a program gutted in the latest federal budget). I worked in healthcare strategy to ensure low-income people didn't lost coverage and got access for 12 years. Then I sold out to ensure I was one of the award-winning leaders in disease advocacy in healthcare marketing. And in semi-retirement, I devote 100% of my time to non-profit causes. So I have processed all I need to. HBU?
lol peter thiel up in these comments loving the robots and hating on other humans
found our little time out buddy
If given a choice, I would still choose Ben's experience over your's every single time.
Genuinely sorry you had to endure that marathon call, Ben—sadly not surprising given how these outsourcing decisions prioritize cost-cutting over the customer experience that made Hyatt's service worth paying for in the first place.