Princess Call Center Has To Be Bad Business For Their Business

[Princessfan20]

What a nightmare.  Waited for over 45 minutes and then get someone reading from script and seemed to have very little understanding of Princess program offers.  They were clueless and refused to transfer me to another agent.  This call center has to be a disaster for Princess.

Princess really seems not to care about customer service anymore.  Please bring back the seasoned and competent agents and save us all some grief Princess.

[mlmbar]

I can beat that! I was on the phone for FOUR hours with Celebrity trying to locate my credit card reward points that I had redeemed against my payment and some were missing. Hold for 40 minutes .  spoke to three different employees who had heavy accents and had no idea what I was talking about,.  On hold each time I that I was asking for someone who I could understand. After three hours of holds, and accents the final person flat out told me he had no idea and gave me another number to call.  BINGO! This gentleman knew what I wanted and how to locate missing redeemed points. He even took my payment. Had the first three just given me the correct number to get my solution instead of transferring , holding and lying, I could have saved four hours!!!!   

[PrincessLuver]

I really miss the Princess CSR's before this recent change.  I wonder if Princess just let all that experience, knowledge of product and goodwill go.  I feel sorry for those agents if that happened and what general incompetence customers get when they get put through to Princess' new call center.

[WhyNot4fun]

I can beat both, but I dont want to relive the negative experience, I'm still pissed.

I've made 4 reservations on other cruise lines due to Princess consistent poor pre-cruise experience. Oktoberfest cruise had been cancelled 2 years in row for "unknown" reasons and nobody ever explained why, nor did they care. This year final payment was due 9/8 and on May 31 at 2:50am I got an email saying I had to pay in full by 6/1 or cancellation. Yep, by the time I read it, I had already been cancelled. Hours and hours to fix, unbelievable. Excursions lost, back to back cabin was gone, now have to change rooms🤬

[ontheweb]

These are all horrific, and Princess deserves to lose bookings over them.

 

I just also want to say not all corporations are like this. I went to pick up meds for my wife and she was told they was a co-pay of $37.99 when according to the information sent by the insurance company it should only have been $5. 

 

The pharmacy explained the problem and said to call the insurance company to straighten it out. I called and the hold was very short. The rep said it could be fixed, and she would take care of it. I mentioned the refill was needed by Friday. She said it would be taken care of that day or the latest the next day (today), and that she would call us and the pharmacy when it was straightened out. She called a few hours later.

 

Now that's customer service!

[OttawaJohn]

10 hours ago, PrincessLuver said:

I really miss the Princess CSR's before this recent change.  I wonder if Princess just let all that experience, knowledge of product and goodwill go. 

 

Typically, yes, they just let it go.

 

Executives have no idea about proper service and quality of service.  I've had this discussion many times with senior level people.  They truly think anyone can do a call center/service job, and that it's going to be easy and seamless to transition from an inhouse team to an outsourced one.

 

They have their agents train their replacements on a time crunch and dismiss any reports of the new team not be ready or capable as whining or complaints from people about to lose their jobs.

 

Then, when it becomes obvious there is an issue, they can't just go back without fear of looking like idiots, so they accept it and let it ride for long enough until they can transition back without it seeming like backing down.

 

Then the cycle repeats.

 

Years of experience and tribal knowledge is dismissed to 'save money', which gets the exec a bonus, even as it costs the company loads in the end.

 

[damiross]

On 7/10/2023 at 6:08 PM, PrincessLuver said:

I really miss the Princess CSR's before this recent change.  I wonder if Princess just let all that experience, knowledge of product and goodwill go.  I feel sorry for those agents if that happened and what general incompetence customers get when they get put through to Princess' new call center.

They probably did.  I was a victim of my company firing me and 1799 other people with lots of experience.  The CEO, for the first time in the company's over 100 years history, hired a CEO from outside the company.  She, just like whoever decided t get rid of American based CSR, prefer lower pay over great experience.

I remember my first cruise in 2015.  The service I got from the CSR was the best.  Now, on my next cruise (January 2024) and the cruise I just took in April of this year the CSR service ranks about 5 out of 10 stars.