Outsourced Travel Websites
This is a tough post that no one wants to see in print.
Outsourcing is a dirty little secret for many companies, internet companies included. Although no company wants to talk about it, it is in fact a large issue because it affects the bottom line of these companies while it hurts the local economy. The travel industry has felt this impact as well. It is too easy to outsource call center and technical jobs to places such as India. But if jobs keep going away, who is going to have the money to travel and give it to the very same greedy companies that started the downward cycle?
Our belief is that if you are calling from the USA, you should get an employee from the USA. If you are calling your favorite travel agent from Great Britain, you probably want to speak with someone from Great Britain as well. Someone who knows the area and can speak your language.
Popular travel website companies that outsource many jobs include Expedia/Hotels.com, Orbitz, Priceline, Travelocity and Cendant Hospitality (Super 8, Days Inn, Ramada, Wyndham, Baymont, Wingate, Travelodge, Howard Johnson, Amerihost and Knights Inn).
We can swear that AllStays.com does not employ or outsource any job under our control. We don't worry about a stock price and we don't send our own customers out of the country, wherever they may be located. Our website is built here, stored here, programmed here and maintained here. We strongly push for customer service jobs of all industries to remain in this country. Whether we build an office in Las Vegas, London, or Paris, we'll hire locally for that office. For full disclosure however, we do use a outside phone call service center run by another company that remained open in Texas. This company has now begun to outsource some of these positions as well and against our wishes but out of our control. Although we don't agree with this tactic, we are powerless against it at the moment. Until another solution is found, that is what is happening whether we like it or not.
So how can you avoid the outsourced position when booking travel? Book online right here. Our servers are housed, serviced, secured and maintained in America. Nothing so much as a graphic image on this site was built anywhere else.
A more complete list can be found from CNN's Lou Dobbs, as a resource for this information here.
Outsourcing is a dirty little secret for many companies, internet companies included. Although no company wants to talk about it, it is in fact a large issue because it affects the bottom line of these companies while it hurts the local economy. The travel industry has felt this impact as well. It is too easy to outsource call center and technical jobs to places such as India. But if jobs keep going away, who is going to have the money to travel and give it to the very same greedy companies that started the downward cycle?
Our belief is that if you are calling from the USA, you should get an employee from the USA. If you are calling your favorite travel agent from Great Britain, you probably want to speak with someone from Great Britain as well. Someone who knows the area and can speak your language.
Popular travel website companies that outsource many jobs include Expedia/Hotels.com, Orbitz, Priceline, Travelocity and Cendant Hospitality (Super 8, Days Inn, Ramada, Wyndham, Baymont, Wingate, Travelodge, Howard Johnson, Amerihost and Knights Inn).
We can swear that AllStays.com does not employ or outsource any job under our control. We don't worry about a stock price and we don't send our own customers out of the country, wherever they may be located. Our website is built here, stored here, programmed here and maintained here. We strongly push for customer service jobs of all industries to remain in this country. Whether we build an office in Las Vegas, London, or Paris, we'll hire locally for that office. For full disclosure however, we do use a outside phone call service center run by another company that remained open in Texas. This company has now begun to outsource some of these positions as well and against our wishes but out of our control. Although we don't agree with this tactic, we are powerless against it at the moment. Until another solution is found, that is what is happening whether we like it or not.
So how can you avoid the outsourced position when booking travel? Book online right here. Our servers are housed, serviced, secured and maintained in America. Nothing so much as a graphic image on this site was built anywhere else.
A more complete list can be found from CNN's Lou Dobbs, as a resource for this information here.
Labels: about us, news, rip offs and cons
2 Comments:
Although I agree on confusions we may have talking to customer support located in Philippines, Mexico, India … I do not see how we can stop this from happening. Companies are and will keep looking for ways to reduce costs as long as it makes sense for their business. It is a market law and there is nothing we can do as long as economy uses those laws. We may create as many road blocks and barriers for them – other ways will be found. Not necessarily better ways…
There is only one thing people can do. Do not buy from those guys. Go and buy from who takes care of local people. But it does not even sound realistic.
What I do not understand is why some of those guys separate from the “bad company”. “Our website is built here, programmed here and maintained here”… “AllStays.com does not employ or outsource any job under our control” – what a good way to segregate yourself.
So, it is not under your control to stop using www.travelnow.com, which an overbranding solution powered by IAN, which is Expedia company that uses content from HRN… Did I just read that Expedia was among bad guys sending our jobs offshore?
So, please, stop using half of the truth – it will be a lie. Do something instead. For example, stop using anyone who outsources, make your product competitive and then make yourself proud of what you have achieved.
PS
Just to make it clear. Yes, I work in travel, but have nothing to do with AllStays, Expedia, IAN, HRN or any other companies mentioned in the post. The only reason for my post is to share my personal opinion. I would be glad to change my opinion if I am wrong and author of the original post shows me that.
Thank you for bringing up a good point for us to elaborate on. This is a great controversial subject that I hesitated to bring up.
I did mention that we are using partners that are outsourcing jobs which we have no control over. We were promised one thing and are eventually getting another. This has happened more than once. This in turn leads to numerous complaints to us from customers that we are sending their calls to India and they can't be understood.
Take the customer that said they were going to Texas and wanted a room in Paris. They were then offered a room in Paris...France. That customer service rep could have been anywhere in the world and still be confused by the same city names, but because of the dialect issues and lack of US knowledge (what is Texas), it adds up to trouble and mistakes.
We hear from people who have lost their job to outsourcing, have to travel to a family funeral and then have to book with someone overseas. They have to look at this same problem anytime they go shopping in the stores.
So I wanted to clarify to customers that it is not our policy or decision to send calls to places where they can't be understood. It is out of our control at this time and we are not happy with it. I sometimes think about if there is a way to avoid that but there isn't at this time. Unless we don't do any online booking at all and just point to other sites. (And we have seriously thought about it) Even then, we would be pointing to sites that outsource jobs, give them more revenue while we make nothing at all. With recent changes in the world, it is simply impossible to avoid this challenge.
AllStays.com does link directly to properties. What we were pointing out is that if an irate customer wants to avoid outsourcing, don't call us or any of these other big corporations. Go direct to the front desk of the hotel. Either through the direct website link or by direct phone. Both of which AllStays provides and are then cut out of the loop for that booking. That is the only way for that particular customer to avoid it. (And hopefully that hotel is using all legal employees but that is another issue.)
We do work with parts of companies that are in turn part of Expedia and Sabre (Travelocity). They are fine companies trying to maximize their company profits and stock prices at the expense of service and local jobs. That has become a fairly common practice in many industries so this is nothing unique.
We would love to see calls routed to a variety of call centers if possible. This both improves communication and phone call quality. US calls to a US based call center. European calls to a European location, etc. But this is also only viable if there was enough business around the world.
There isn't any inherently "bad company" involved here. It may be viewed as a bad decision or the bad effects of a money making decision. I can't fault a company for wanting to make a profit but I do like to question those that make many millions of dollars in salaries and in turn cut jobs to make even more money. The money is held at the top and does not filter down to as many people to drive the economy that these very executives rely on to serve them. If one makes a $12 million salary, shifts jobs to save $3 million, those people that lost a job can no longer afford to travel and in turn it brings less money into the company in the long run. This is a recent economic trend that doesn't work in the long run. Where does one draw the line? I don't know. Is it 5, 10, or 100 million? I don't know. Customers can eventually no longer be good customers if they are buried in debt and do not make a decent wage.
Market forces should make everything work but it's not going that way. We should buy milk and produce from local farmers, but that's no longer possible in most places.
It's a tough issue but a great one to think about and discuss. There are no easy solutions, right or wrong, left or right. Thank you for sharing your opinion and catching me on a heavy handed post that was crafted too much out of the sunlight.
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