This is Customer Service?

[Loonbeam]

It's also worth noting that you were approaching a major holiday weekend, that leads to higher call volumes and typically less available staff.

 

Given that you were booked via TA, you would be pretty low on the callback list as they need to respond to direct customers first...

[GUT2407]

I didn't think they'd even talk directly to you when you booked with a TA. As the TA is then their customer not you.

[ar1950]

Princess - like all the mass market lines - averages 8 bookings for every cabin before the cruise actually starts.

People change their minds, cancel, upgrade, downgrade, move to another deck, another cabin category, another ship, another itinerary, another cruise line, cancel, re-book, etc. That totals 15 transactions for each cabin for each cruise.

The bigger Princess ships have 1750 cabins, multiplied by 15, that's 26,250 transactions for one ship, for one cruise.

Then we can multiply that by 16 ships; it comes to 420,000 transactions every 10 to 14 days. Many of those transactions require lengthy telephone calls.

 

How many sales agents do you think Princess employs?

Around 200.

That requires those 200 agents to each complete 2100 telephone calls every 10 to 14 days.

Could you do that?

Would you have extra time to chase a few extra calls on the side?

 

Could they add more sales agents?

Of course.

Would you be willing to pay for those extra agents?

Of course not.

 

Wow! That's one heck of a lot of potential phone calls. Always good to hear information from someone on the "inside". Thanks for the insight. :cool:

[shredie]

Wow! That's one heck of a lot of potential phone calls. Always good to hear information from someone on the "inside". Thanks for the insight. :cool:

 

Of course, it begs the question: do the phone reps over-medicate? :p

[rdsqrl]

Of course, it begs the question: do the phone reps over-medicate? :p

If I had to talk to some members of the cruising public (not you or Shepp, of course!), I'd certainly be over-medicating.

 

[GUT2407]

If I had to talk to some members of the cruising public (not you or Shepp, of course!), I'd certainly be over-medicating.

 

 

 

If had to deal with some of the people who post here, :eek: there'd be no such thing as OVER medicating. :cool:

[ar1950]

If had to deal with some of the people who post here, :eek: there'd be no such thing as OVER medicating. :cool:

 

Now that make enough sense that it is funny and not funny at the same time..... wow.......:cool:

Edited July 5, 2015 by ar1950

[caribill]

 

How many sales agents do you think Princess employs?

Around 200.

That requires those 200 agents to each complete 2100 telephone calls every 10 to 14 days.

Could you do that?

Would you have extra time to chase a few extra calls on the side?

 

 

When you call a TA and the TA has to call Princess, is it one of these 200 agents the TA speaks to or are there others that deal with the TAs?

[pablo222]

When booking through a TA, all matters and communications relating directly with the cruise must be through that TA.

 

I generally book through a TA. I had one move-over offer

where princess was so anxious that I accept that they called

me directly to negotiate. This was about 18 hours before

embarcation.

[Loonbeam]

There are TA direct lines, who it goes to depends on load and which TA is calling (some of the preferred get different access). The system routes calls based on experience and skill sets. The top TAs get routed to more senior agents (not always a good thing). Some of the very top TAs may have a direct contact

 

When you call a TA and the TA has to call Princess, is it one of these 200 agents the TA speaks to or are there others that deal with the TAs?

[ontheweb]

There are TA direct lines, who it goes to depends on load and which TA is calling (some of the preferred get different access). The system routes calls based on experience and skill sets. The top TAs get routed to more senior agents (not always a good thing). Some of the very top TAs may have a direct contact

 

I once had a 3 way conversation between myself, my TA, and a Princess representative that my TA had called. I had called my TA because I had received different information from a Princess representative than I had from him (about whether there was a transfer from London to Dover).

 

The representative we spoke to sounded much more knowledgeable than the previous one I had reached at random. BTW, my TA's information was the correct one; they did not have a transfer to the ship from London, only had one the other way.

 

I have a feeling he was able to get one of those senior agents you referred to.