Wyndham customer service outsourced?

[1Melanie]

I just booked a Worldmark/Wyndham reservation so had to call the general number to get to Club Pass. I was delighted and surprised that I didn’t have to listen to the loong recording and the annoying music. Someone actually answered the phone! I detected an accent. It seems Wyndham has outsourced customer service to the P.I.s. I’m glad that someone actually answers the phone but not happy that jobs have once again been sent overseas. is nothing homegrown anymore?

 

[dioxide45]

I don't know if it is outsourced, but do realize there are many people who live in the United States that have accents too. Also what are the P.I.s?

 

[bnoble]

Of all the things one could complain about when it comes to Wyndham, this one feels like a reach.

 

[sue1947]

Wyndham laid off all the local long time WM workers in Redmond, WA and outsourced to the Philippines (and others, I believe). It's been a few years and some of the knowledge lost has been regained, but a lot was lost. They still mostly have no clue how WM operates with II, for instance.

 

[1Melanie]

Of all the things one could complain about when it comes to Wyndham, this one feels like a reach.

Just concerned about my fellow citizens who may have gotten laid off. I’m glad it wasn’t me or someone I know who depended on that job.

 

[1Melanie]

Wyndham laid off all the local long time WM workers in Redmond, WA and outsourced to the Philippines (and others, I believe). It's been a few years and some of the knowledge lost has been regained, but a lot was lost. They still mostly have no clue how WM operates with II, for instance.

 

[1Melanie]

I don't know if it is outsourced, but do realize there are many people who live in the United States that have accents too. Also what are the P.I.s?

Yes but when you speak to two people, one with Wyndham, next with Club Pass, both with accents, my guess would be, outsourcing.
PI= Philippines.

 

[troy12n]

They outsourced the VC's to the Phillipines several years ago, it was 2018 or 2019 I think because I noticed the accent. I think owner care staff is still domestic, and obviously sales is. But this isn't a recent change. Some of the institutional knowledge went out the door as part of this transition. But that happens. Most other companies did this 15-20 years ago.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

If it helps keep maintenance fees down it sounds good to me.

 

[Sandi Bo]

I just booked a Worldmark/Wyndham reservation so had to call the general number to get to Club Pass. I was delighted and surprised that I didn’t have to listen to the loong recording and the annoying music. Someone actually answered the phone! I detected an accent. It seems Wyndham has outsourced customer service to the P.I.s. I’m glad that someone actually answers the phone but not happy that jobs have once again been sent overseas. is nothing homegrown anymore?

I think you are right. I also noticed better music, that is a plus. But, as an IT professional who has lost multiple jobs to outsourcing overseas, as well as seen reduction in pay as a side-effect, it's a hard pill to swallow. Some of the things I've seen over the years are pretty distressing. I always thought it was ironic, I worked for a company with the name America in it (without saying more) and they were outsourcing to Russians relocated to Moldova because of the restrictions around doing business with the Russians (and this was at least 10 years ago). That was why the outsourcers were in Moldova. They did bring over some amazing wine

 

[Rolltydr]

Of all the things one could complain about when it comes to Wyndham, this one feels like a reach.

Yep. Happy that a person answered the phone in a timely manner, but unhappy about where the person was who answered the phone?

Remember, the same people who placed us on hold with crappy music and poor customer service were “my fellow citizens who may have gotten laid off.” I’ll take being happy that someone answers the phone, regardless of where they live. When calling a customer service number, someone answering said call is a requirement. Where that person lives is irrelevant.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Might I remind you that most calls to customer service are due to website issues. Not acceptable to me that they introduce issues that require you to call in. I just spent an hour on the phone with our friends in the Phillipines. I'd bet my paycheck (except I'm now retired since my last job outsourced to India) that not only do the customer service reps not understand the difference between guest confirmations and guest allowances - but neither do the programmers. That glitch we are seeing with resale vs developer guest confirmations? Well there is a known issue they are counting guest allowances when they shouldn't. There is a ticket in. Meanwhile - we need to call and hold for an hour. Sure, I can be happy/thankful a person answered - but Wyndham creates these problems that are requiring calls to live people in the first place. What is that doing to our maintenance fees?

 

[Sandi Bo]

And here's a fun fact -- data must be masked if offshore testing is being done (so no worries that your SSN, etc, is being viewed). However, there are some things that must be tested with the real data - can't mask it. For that, the offshore workers come over here and test on U.S. soil - with your real data

 

[Rolltydr]

Might I remind you that most calls to customer service are due to website issues. Not acceptable to me that they introduce issues that require you to call in. I just spent an hour on the phone with our friends in the Phillipines. I'd bet my paycheck (except I'm now retired since my last job outsourced to India) that not only do the customer service reps not understand the difference between guest confirmations and guest allowances - but neither do the programmers. That glitch we are seeing with resale vs developer guest confirmations? Well there is a known issue they are counting guest allowances when they shouldn't. There is a ticket in. Meanwhile - we need to call and hold for an hour. Sure, I can be happy/thankful a person answered - but Wyndham creates these problems that are requiring calls to live people in the first place. What is that doing to our maintenance fees?

My preference would be for Wyndham to outsource their entire IT operation. As you point out, “Wyndham creates these problems that are requiring calls to live people in the first place”. I totally agree. They have proven over the past 6 years or so that they have no idea how to design and maintain a simple, customer-facing, user-friendly website that provides all of the search and booking functions one needs to find and book resorts using all the available criteria that is, supposedly, at our disposal. The financial data is currently unreliable, as I understand the problem, in part because they outsourced the customer facing piece of the site but it still has to pull the data from the back-end and they either don’t play well together or Wyndham’s backend data is garbage.

So, imho, Wyndham’s home-grown, American made, IT department is the big culprit here, not their outsourced customer service department which has to handle all the calls we have to make because of Wyndham’s IT failures.

 

[Sandi Bo]

My preference would be for Wyndham to outsource their entire IT operation. As you point out, “Wyndham creates these problems that are requiring calls to live people in the first place”. I totally agree. They have proven over the past 6 years or so that they have no idea how to design and maintain a simple, customer-facing, user-friendly website that provides all of the search and booking functions one needs to find and book resorts using all the available criteria that is, supposedly, at our disposal. The financial data is currently unreliable, as I understand the problem, in part because they outsourced the customer facing piece of the site but it still has to pull the data from the back-end and they either don’t play well together or Wyndham’s backend data is garbage.

So, imho, Wyndham’s home-grown, American made, IT department is the big culprit here, not their outsourced customer service department which has to handle all the calls we have to make because of Wyndham’s IT failures.

And we might (or I should anyways) be saying off-shore vs out-sourced. Although you might be saying both? I'm okay with out-sourcing. I agree with you, current IT isn't cutting it. Do we know the current development work is done in the U.S.? I do not think off-shoring is the answer.

 

[Rolltydr]

And we might (or I should anyways) be saying off-shore vs out-sourced. Although you might be saying both? I'm okay with out-sourcing. I agree with you, current IT isn't cutting it. Do we know the current development work is done in the U.S.? I do not think off-shoring is the answer.

I have no idea where development is being done, and given the results we’ve seen, I’m not sure testing is done at all.

As for outsource and offshore, I use them interchangeably although I realize they aren’t always the exact same thing.

 

[geist1223]

My preference would be for Wyndham to outsource their entire IT operation. As you point out, “Wyndham creates these problems that are requiring calls to live people in the first place”. I totally agree. They have proven over the past 6 years or so that they have no idea how to design and maintain a simple, customer-facing, user-friendly website that provides all of the search and booking functions one needs to find and book resorts using all the available criteria that is, supposedly, at our disposal. The financial data is currently unreliable, as I understand the problem, in part because they outsourced the customer facing piece of the site but it still has to pull the data from the back-end and they either don’t play well together or Wyndham’s backend data is garbage.

So, imho, Wyndham’s home-grown, American made, IT department is the big culprit here, not their outsourced customer service department which has to handle all the calls we have to make because of Wyndham’s IT failures.

Are you sure that Wyndham has not out sourced their IT to India?

 

[dioxide45]

I am not sure outsourcing the IT is going to matter. Marriott Vacations outsources and they have more problems than anyone.

With that, if I am paying my MF dollars, I would prefer it to be going to an onshore call center. I am okay with them standing up a backup offshore for peak times, but don't lay off all the US workers just to push the work where labor is cheap. I doubt anyone's maintenance fees went down when they offshored any work. It just meant more profit for the management company.

 

[bnoble]

Part of the problem with US call centers is that they are very hard to staff. It's hard to get people into them, and it's harder to keep people once you've trained them. The jobs are stressful and emotionally challenging, because you are dealing with angry customers for a good part of your day.

"If you paid enough, people would do it." And, I suppose that's true, but what's "enough" in this case?

For what it's worth, I'd prefer a domestic call center as well, and would be fine paying an extra few dollars in program fee to make it happen. But as long as they are competent, it's not a thing I'm going to find worth complaining about. YMMV.

 

[dioxide45]

My main problem with offshore call centers, and this is the fault of the companies is that everything is scripted and rigid. Thus I get "I am so sorry this problem has happened to you and I will see what I can do to help you today with this problem to make sure we are doing the best we can for you". Just get to the point already! I don't need long drawn out script that is meaningless to what my actual problem is and doesn't come from a place of genuine concern. I don't find this happening as much with onshore call centers, but perhaps it is just because I end up getting offshore call centers more times than not.

 

[1Melanie]

Wyndham laid off all the local long time WM workers in Redmond, WA and outsourced to the Philippines (and others, I believe). It's been a few years and some of the knowledge lost has been regained, but a lot was lost. They still mostly have no clue how WM operates with II, for instance.

 

[Jan M.]

If it helps keep maintenance fees down it sounds good to me.

Our program fees pay for the call centers and the website. That would be $0.68 per thousand points. Developer owners pay $0.70 per thousand points and the extra two cents is for Plus Partners. The program fees are billed along with the actual maintenance fees in your annual/monthly assessment.

I wonder if Wyndham is now cheaping out by outsourcing the call centers to help pay for the "&%$#π¥" website they inflicted upon us.

 

[1Melanie]

Yep. Happy that a person answered the phone in a timely manner, but unhappy about where the person was who answered the phone?

Remember, the same people who placed us on hold with crappy music and poor customer service were “my fellow citizens who may have gotten laid off.” I’ll take being happy that someone answers the phone, regardless of where they live. When calling a customer service number, someone answering said call is a requirement. Where that person lives is irrelevant.

Agreed, however, automated calls on everything (my last job, banks, Wyndham etc) these days is unnerving. What ever happened to good old fashioned customer service? I know I’m aging myself but, I still remember a time when you called a number and a live human being answered the phone and did not subject you to a litany of menus and numbers to get you to the person you need to speak to!! I guess that went away with pay phones and hard lines.
I still hate the idea that someone lost a job because theirs was outsourced. I doubt very much Wyndham is passing any savings onto us. A loong time ago I was a PBX operator. With all the menus at the end of that number I guess I would have been out of a job too.

 

[dioxide45]

I hate those menus, I suppose they are mostly there to weed people out that are either impatient or could have got their information or performed a task online. That said, I am not calling a customer service call center to do something I can do online. I am calling because it is a unique or one off situation that I already know the website doesn't support.

 

[Rolltydr]

I hate the phone trees, and the scripts, and the hold times as much as anyone. But, we’re never going back to a time when companies hire and train human beings to answer phones and fix problems. They’ve found a cheaper way to provide that “service”. Is it a better way? In my opinion, absolutely not. However it is much, much cheaper and that’s what owners and stockholders care about the most. So, that’s what we’re going ro get. Until they find an even cheaper way to do it.

Also, remember that in most cases, although it might not be listed in the phone tree options, you can dial 0 at any time and be connected to a real, live person if that is what’s most important to you. In my experience, that doesn’t necessarily mean your problem gets solved any quicker but it will give you the satisfaction of speaking with someone.