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HotelTonight

Acquired by Airbnb

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Mistreatment by HotelTonight Remote CX Management, Over-worked, Stressful Environment - Anonymous employee HotelTonight Employee Review

1.0
Feb 20, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Working alongside amazing, smart, fun co-workers remote CX Chat/HT Aces (Concierge)/Email/Customer Experience Phone Ace. Make Your Mark by standing up for yourselves - rise up against the wicked.

Cons

The Dark Side of HotelTonight Customer Experience Remote Team. HotelTonight remote CX Management: CX stands for Customer Experience Comprised of a Vice President, Director, Senior Support Lead, Customer Experience Managers (CEM), Supervisors, and lastly Team Leads. Now it's time to grab a cup of coffee or tea. It's going to be a long read! When HotelTonight first started out the company culture was very refreshing. But in the end all good things must come to an end. HotelTonight got to big for their britches, and things went down hill quickly. Company perks or benefits doesn't matter to me, but the inhumane treatment of myself, and many others matters. Stop treating CX employees as if we're made out of bolts, steel beams, and circuit boards. We're humans for Pete's sake! Management are on a power trip, they don't help. They are just time card approvers/micromanaging people in the most despicable way. CX Management can help the team out by answering an email/call or two. All they do is sit in Hipchat all day/night practically chanting "check your phone status", "go green" non-stop throughout any given shift. CX Department is led by a bunch of over-paid people who are sitting on a high horse with a mentally of "we're better than you" and "we do what we want, when we want and how we want" without any disregard to people's feelings. They do not treat employees with respect; adults are treated like adolescence. If you are a cyborg HotelTonight is a good fit! Obtaining a solid position within CX is simply non-existent. HotelTonight CX is not a career. But good enough to save $money or pay the bills. Literally there's little room for growth. Positions are created for current management or given to their "favorites." From the head honcho of CX to the bottom of the chain of command they call management; are the reasons why HotelTonight CX is in turmoil. The morale of the team is at its lowest! CX is run like a prison, I felt like an inmate stuck in the "hole" monitored by ruthless wardens/correctional officers. We also have to beg to take a 15 minute break or 5 minute be right backs. Management expects you to be on the phones for the duration of your shift, no breathers in-between to finish or follow-up on tickets. Saying that it was STRESSFUL is an understatement! To make the company happy, you must live, and breathe HotelTonight 24/7; 365 days a year. You must make HotelTonight the top priority in your life. Home life doesn't matter expectations are unreasonable. You must go along with CX management cult-like bullying practices. •Extremely stressful chaotic environment. •A ridiculous high call volume, not enough bodies. •Favoritism at the work place. •A bunch of bias mean-spirited, presumptuous Team Leads, Supervisors & Managers. •Work efforts were never appreciated. •No respect from management. •Dinged in Hipchat constantly about trivial things. •If you're looking to retire or move up the ranks. Hoteltonight CX is not a career job. There's no room for advancement! •Going to HR with concerns is a waste of time. They work hand in glove to cover their tracks. •HUGE CX turnover rate. •They will take your brilliant ideas and make them their own - no credit. •Poor management skills. HotelTonight Higher-ups don't care about their employees, and just dictate unrealistic directives. •Repetitive weekly Continual Development. •Very unprofessional environment, bordering on toxic. •Blamed our computers for an incompetent Five9 program system is shameful. •Strenuous work shifts. •Severely Understaffed - CX Phone Aces are forced/harassed to handle a never ending incoming stream of phone calls, answer emails/guest replies queues. They crossed trained CX Phone Aces as backups to handle HT Aces (concierge), CX Chat and T & S (Trust & Safety). Again, no pay increase or bonuses. •ALWAYS Pressuring Aces to work OT (over-time) via email and sms text. •The hours are hideous 3 days 13 hours or 4 days 10 hours. •1 hour lunch, plenty of begging to take breaks or brbs (be right back). FACT: •The company will use and throw you out with the trash, when they are done with you. •Management will undermine you. If you don't go along with their mistreatment of others. Instead of helping employees improve & succeed within their perspective positions. •Management will bully you or find ways to get rid of you or put employees on 3 months probation. FACT: •Don't share any personal or confidential information of any kind with CX management, sadly they will use it against you. •Please know that when you send a query to any particular person on the management team. The query is shared among themselves, confidentiality is non-existent. •The same group of people "their faves" took sick/vacations days every week or other week (without providing a Doctor's note, vacation days approved), but others who they don't care for were always forced to provide a Doctor's note or requested vacation days denied.

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HotelTonight Response
10y
Thank you for raising these concerns. I’m sorry to hear you felt this way about your experience on our team. We care about each and every person on the team and value the human, authentic and effective support they consistently provide to our guests and one another. To hear that you felt this wasn’t the case is disappointing, but we will certainly take it to heart and will make strides to improve as a result. As you mention, we've built our Customer Experience team from the ground up to work remotely and we're really proud of the flexibility this has provided the team. Many members of the team have taken full advantage of this to pursue their own passions while working full time with us at HotelTonight. This has also allowed us to attract an amazingly talented team based on skill and not limited by geography. We recognize this also comes with a responsibility on our part so we take personal, continued development very seriously with weekly trainings, reward outstanding performance with our CX MVP program, and always take the time to ingest and improve based on the team’s feedback. Our efforts to recognize the team are based on performance and impact on the guest experience, not on personal relationships. We assist thousands of travelers every day, and with that comes a high-energy, intense environment in which many customer experience professionals thrive. This is consistent with what one will find in contact centers around the country. The main difference between most contact centers and ours is the level of service that you and the rest of our team provide, 24/7 and in a host of different languages. In this world, we do expect a lot of our team because we know that you’re capable of amazing things and we know that our discerning guests wouldn’t settle for anything less (nor would we want them to.) It sounds like the combination of the pace and remote working environment may not have worked for you, and we understand it's not the optimal environment for everyone. You've given me some really good things to think about, and I take this as a cue to double our efforts to be more transparent with our objectives as a management team and how each of them translates on all levels of the organization. Again, we greatly appreciate your feedback and wish you well with your career.

Explore other reviews about HotelTonight

5.0
Mar 7, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture and people to work wiith

Cons

Compensation for certain roles could be improved

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HotelTonight Response
7y
Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know your thoughts! We're proud of the culture we've built and are glad to hear it's resonated with you.
5.0
Feb 3, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

In my time with Hotel Tonight, I was able to get a lot of hands on experience. I was able to come up with User Experience (UX) concepts and User Interface (UI) designs and get direct feedback from the product team and management. As a designer, I wore many hats as I assisted with iOS, Android, and tablet designs. I was able to collaborate with the designers from the product team as well as the programmers. In my previous experiences working with design studios, most of my designs existed solely as concepts and rarely saw the light of day. At HT, I was able to come up with design concepts, collaborate, iterate, and saw most of it "ship" out the door in the form of actual app release updates (all relatively quickly I might add!)

Cons

I found the people at HT to be very friendly and didn't find anyone to be difficult to work with. HT recognize they need more design leadership and are making hires to address those needs. As an employer, I found them to be very flexible and accommodating. As a designer, I was occasionally at odds with the projects they chose to pursue for the quarter. Their approach sometimes feel too piecemeal and fragmented. While I appreciate the needs and goals of their business, to say it succinctly "good design is good business."

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HotelTonight Response
11y
Thank you very much for your feedback. Design is a huge part of the HotelTonight culture and a key priority (my first job was doing Photoshop design work, in fact). We will definitely continue to balance our business needs with our goal of shipping amazing product experiences. I appreciate you bringing this to our attention.
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