Booking.com has defended its decision to outsource thousands of customer service posts to a third party company.
The Booking Holdings-owned brand will use global customer service provider Majorel to handle its call center operations, with the exception of staff at its Manchester and Amsterdam locations in the U.K. and Netherlands respectively.
The move, which according to posts on social media was outlined in a Zoom call by senior management, was heavily criticized by customers and some employees.
Booking.com's announcement came just a few days before what is rumored to have been a multi-million dollar ad appeared during the Super Bowl TV extravaganza at the weekend.
The company says the decision to use Majorel is to "leverage their industry-leading customer service expertise to help us scale up efficiently to meet the evolving demands our business."
The 2,700 positions will be guaranteed for a minimum of six months after Majorel takes over operations.
An official adds: "We believe that working with a team of dedicated experts is the best way to ensure we meet our customers’ and partners’ needs as we continue to expand the diversity of our product offering on Booking.com."
Booking.com laid off up to 25% of its global workforce in August 2020 (estimated to be around 4,500 employees), as the impact of the coronavirus pandemic hit.
At the time, owner Booking Holdings (operator of Agoda, Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable, Momondo and others) had operations in 65 countries around the world and around 26,000 staff across the group.