Wife died? Pay $853 rebooking

[Los_Pepes]

I wonder if public backlash led to the refund. I don't understand why the first person who answered the phone (or email) at Viking did not simply say "I am so sorry about your wife, let me get a manager and see what we can do." If he did actually do that and the manager still wanted to whack this poor guy with that fee, well.... I guess it is in the culture over there. Makes me chuckle at their new "Risk Free Booking" policy.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3515769/Tom-Ast-Loveland-Colorado-receives-853-rebooking-charge-wife-dies-cruise.html

Edited March 30, 2016 by Los_Pepes

[Mark_T]

I'm not really sure where this thread can go with this as we don't have any of the original parties to what was obviously a really badly handled call, but one that has already been rectified according to the news report.

 

We don't know what was actually said on the call, we don't know if the person who took the call was actually following Vilking policy or not and I doubt we ever will.

 

We can only have sympathy for his loss and for the problems he encountered and hope that he takes some comfort in completing the trip as his late wife wished...

[Los_Pepes]

I'm not really sure where this thread can go with this as we don't have any of the original parties to what was obviously a really badly handled call, but one that has already been rectified according to the news report.

 

We don't know what was actually said on the call, we don't know if the person who took the call was actually following Vilking policy or not and I doubt we ever will.

 

We can only have sympathy for his loss and for the problems he encountered and hope that he takes some comfort in completing the trip as his late wife wished...

 

We know three irrefutable facts:

 

1) He contacted Viking and told him that his wife died

 

2) They tried to hit him with an $853 rebooking fee after being told of her death

 

3) They only reversed their position after being contacted by the press

 

Does not look like stellar customer service to me.

[Mark_T]

I really don't want to get drawn into this too far, but to be honest we don't really know very much at all about what actually took place during the call or the way the charge was presented etc., we don't know if this is actually Viking policy or just a lone rep getting it very badly wrong or even just a complete misunderstanding.

 

We do know that in the end he didn't have to pay the charge and we do know that he says he is now looking forward to the trip again.

 

I've personally had to deal with similar calls in a previous career and regrettably you do often have to explain things that the person making the call is neither emotionally ready to hear and understand nor effectively deal with and what was intended to happen internally sometimes doesn't.

 

We also know that on occasions Vikings head office functions manage to drop the ball in a spectacular fashion before, usually, picking it up again and sorting it out.

 

This is why I said that I don't know where this thread can go, beyond wishing the gentleman well for his trip and for the future, anything else is just going to be a few rounds of random speculation and condemnation based on very little information ...

[Viking Cruises]

Dear All,

 

We wanted to let you know that a Viking Customer Relations representative has been in touch with Mr. Ast to extend our condolences and to issue a refund.

 

In a situation like this, it is our policy to waive a name change fee. However, it would seem that there was a communication breakdown when Mr. Ast first contacted us, and this policy was never stated.

 

It is unfortunate that he had to incur the cost initially, but the issue is now resolved, and we are glad to hear he is looking forward to the trip.

 

We appreciate the opportunity to respond.

 

Warm regards,

Viking Cruises

[spookyfudge]

Wow I would be a little concerned if we booked with Viking and God forbid something happened with my spouse!

 

Sent from my KFTHWI using Forums mobile app

[Mark_T]

Wow I would be a little concerned if we booked with Viking and God forbid something happened with my spouse!

 

The original post certainly had me thinking about the unthinkable too, but I'm glad to see that Viking have quickly clarified in this thread that it is not their policy to charge in this circumstance, as I would have expected...

Edited March 30, 2016 by Mark_T

[CruisingAlong4Now]

Not trying to be insensitive but isn't this what travel insurance is for? To provide financial protection against unfortunate events.

 

The OP apparently didn't want to spend the money for travel insurance. So why shouldn't he have to pay a rebooking fee?

 

Just saying . . .

Edited March 30, 2016 by CruisingAlong4Now

[Mark_T]

The OP apparently didn't want to spend the money for travel insurance. So why shouldn't he have to pay a rebooking fee?

 

To be honest, we don't know that he didn't have travel insurance, and when I've been dealing with people in similar unfortunate circumstances matters like insurance cover tend to be far from their minds at a time when they are having trouble even explaining why they are making the call and why they need to cancel/change something like this.

 

The good news, if there is any in all of this, is that it has been confirmed that it is not Viking policy to make a charge in a case like this so it ultimately doesn't matter if he had insurance or not, the charge would be waived.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Mark_T

[Ozjohnno]

I agree that the article above does not give every little detail of what is a most distressing incident but once again it highlights the customer service or more importantly lack of it with Viking who seem to spend more time addressing incidents in these forums that should have never have gotten here if their customers had been given straight forward truthful answers when they first phoned in. I've been reading about incidents with their customer service division and the subsequent putting out of the fire by Viking on CC since I joined this board back in 2010.

 

One thing is clear. Viking either have the highest turnover of office staff or they simply don't care. I've found that it is not good business practice to be reactive all the time when some simple proactive measures can be put in place with a little training.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Ozjohnno

[Rosethorn40]

I read the article, and no where in the article did it state that they had reached out to Viking for a statement, i.e. their side of the story. See the above post from Viking in which they stated it's their policy to waive the fee in situations such as this.

 

I worked in a call center for years and years (Too many years actually), and in most call centers the person you reach is in an entry level position, probably fairly new (Turnover is high because of the shocking behavior people will subject CSR's to), and are sticking to a script. We don't know what happened here, but I would like to think if this had been brought to a supervisor or managers attention the initial outcome would have been different.

 

Even though no longer in the call center, I still speak to customers on an almost daily basis and jump through a lot of hoops fixing the damage caused by a well-meaning CSR who isn't a thinker but a processor (Follows the script).

[Rosethorn40]

I agree that the article above does not give every little detail of what is a most distressing incident but once again it highlights the customer service or more importantly lack of it with Viking who seem to spend more time addressing incidents in these forums that should have never have gotten here if their customers had been given straight forward truthful answers when they first phoned in. I've been reading about incidents with their customer service division and the subsequent putting out of the fire by Viking on CC since I joined this board back in 2010.

 

One thing is clear. Viking either have the highest turnover of office staff or they simply don't care. I've found that it is not good business practice to be reactive all the time when some simple proactive measures can be put in place with a little training.

 

I don't know about Australia, but in the US Call Center jobs are considered entry level, and many call centers have a very high turnover. The best and brightest will quickly post out to another position elsewhere in the company. There are many reasons for this:

 

Low pay-Almost all call center jobs are considered entry level

 

Deplorable working conditions-stuck on the phones for at least 7.5 hours a day (And that's if one gets two 15-minute breaks. My first call center job we got ONE 10-minute break plus an unpaid lunch during an 8 hour shift). If you take an unscheduled break to go to the restroom you may get "coached"

 

Unrealistic goals set by managers.-That includes how many calls you can take in a hour or day. Maintain error free QA scores, and get PERFECT QA scores from customers. Know those survey questions you take at an end of a call? Anything less than a 5 (Highest score possible) is considered a fail.

 

Angry customers who take all of their frustrations out on you. Not just the situation they are calling about (In which the poor person you are screaming at has no control over), but everything that is wrong in that persons life they take out on the CSR.

 

Whenever I post a position in my department I am overwhelmed with applicants from our customer service department begging me to rescue them from customer service. This is at a Fortune 500 company in which our CSR's are paid a little better than industry averages. They do get 4-weeks of training, but very little ongoing training because that is non-productive time. Quite frankly I would flip burgers or clean toilets before I would ever go back to a call center.

[JVilleGal]

Feel sorry for this poor man. Certainly seems he must not have protected his vacation with Travel Insurance.

As for Viking, well they just can't seem to help themselves. It would be entertaining except this poor man has lost his wife.

:(