The Celebrity Treatment.....uh Huh!

[Danny Ocean]

Hi folks,

 

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to make this posting, however as both the President and CEO of Celebrity Cruises have ignored the letter which my certified receipts say they received 3 weeks ago, I have decided to "go public".

I have changed some names but, other than that, the experience and famous CELEBRITY TREATMENT are exactly as I related them in my letter to Mr. Hanrahan and Mr. Fain. To be honest I am not surprised that I have received no response. I remain however, both disappointed and saddened that apparently no one at Celebrity from the CEO on down gives a damn about their loyal passengers. Please read on and be forewarned that this is the REAL CELEBRITY TREATMENT.

 

Dear Mr. Hanrahan,

 

I am writing to express my shock and disappointment at the way I was treated by your representatives when I called the Captain’s Club this evening.

 

I called to ask how to make final payment with a Captain’s Club savings certificate on my upcoming April 13, 2007, Constellation cruise. I don’t have the name of the woman who originally answered my call, however her response that I should mail my certificate with my final payment and my credit card would be credited for the amount of the certificate approximately 30 days prior to my cruise did not make sense. I explained that the savings certificate explicitly said that the $150.00 cabin credit would be deducted from my final payment. As such, I questioned her response.

 

She then placed me on hold and came back after a few minutes telling me that I should e-mail Certificates@Celebrity.com and that they would process the refund approximately 10 days AFTER my final payment had been received. I again explained that the offer was not a ‘rebate’ offer but that the certificate stated that the $150.00 value would be DEDUCTED from final payment. She asked me to hold again and I requested to speak with whomever she was speaking to. When she demurred I asked again. She placed me on hold and approximately 6 minutes later, I was speaking with a gentleman who identified himself as “Mike”.

 

I explained my question again for Mike. To my shock, his response to my query about the certificate and final payment was that “you’ve already been told how to do that”. He further gave me directions that were different and had NOT been communicated to me by the female customer representative. I corrected him and advised that this was not what had been told to me. This gentleman actually had the gall to imply that I was lying and then proceeded to tell me that he was “sitting next to the woman who explained everything to me and that he heard everything she said.” To say that I was nonplussed by this treatment would be a gross understatement.

 

The gentleman then placed me on hold and when he returned to the phone he told me in a cold and condescending tone of voice that he had credited the certificate and that this was a one-time accommodation. Further, he belittled and bullied me by stating that all my files at Celebrity are now updated to state that I have exhausted any special treatment and accommodation that might be afforded me in the future. The very clear implication of his tone and phrasing made it quite clear that I had been an extreme annoyance to him. I replied that I neither requested nor expected any special treatment or courtesy. All I wanted was to know how to process my final cruise payment so that the fare would be reduced by $150.00 as stated on the certificate. When Mike condescendingly asked whether there was anything else that he could do for me, I responded, “No thank you, you’ve done quite enough for me tonight”. Mike then disconnected the call.

 

“CELEBRITY CRUISES WILL DEDUCT THE APPLICABLE OFFER VALUE FROM FINAL PAYMENT UPON REVIEW”

 

Mr. Hanrahan, those are the exact words printed on your certificate. I was attempting to get a clarification. I was belittled, rudely treated and frankly a bit humiliated by the way I was treated by your agent.

 

In your own words, Sir,

 

“Another intangible is our commitment to listening to YOU” ……..”After all, doesn't everybody deserve a little Celebrity treatment now and then?”

 

No one LISTENED to me, Mr. Hanrahan. Is this the Celebrity treatment of which you boast?

 

I seek no compensation, no special favors, and no upgrade. I DO request that the “notes” that Mike said that he placed in my files be expunged of anything other than the fact that the credit has been applied.

 

I enjoy your product at sea. I have enjoyed every single one of the 37 days I have spent aboard your ships in the past 21 months. I look forward to my upcoming east and westbound Constellation transatlantic crossings. I have been loyal to Celebrity and have been a vocal advocate for your line since discovering it in April 2005. The April 13th crossing is the one with which I will achieve Elite status in your Captain’s Club loyalty program. Your response to this matter will dictate how long you will continue to enjoy my loyalty.

 

Sincerely,

 

Danny Ocean

123 Main Street.

Anytown, USA

 

cc: Richard D. Fain

[suntan]

Danny, good letter. I'm glad to see that there are some people out there who know how to write a letter of complaint. You have provided names of the individuals you spoke to so they can check out recordings, if any, of your conversations with those customer service reps. You also quoted statements used by Celebrity which is a must when filing a complaint, because you can point out to them that what they are advertising is not what is being provided by their staff.

 

I don't know if you will get a response...you should. You should also receive a $100 onboard credit should be provided to you as a gesture of goodwill.

[Maya-Tucker]

This is just ONE of the reasons I will never sail Celebrity again.

[Susan-M]

Danny ... a well written letter and worthy of a response from Celebrity - hopefully one is on its way as it's hard to imagine that they would ignore your letter. I've had excellent customer service from Celebrity and would be extremely disappointed to experience what you did. I too have very much enjoyed our Celebrity cruises ... I thought it was very gracious of you to end your letter complimenting Celebrity. Please keep us posted.

[c-legs]

:eek: Good evening, Danny.

 

Quite a good letter...well written, poised, factual, actually polite.

 

When such a letter does NOT get even an acknowledgment from == X ==,.....what on earth will ??

 

Another sad and annoying exemple of a company offering a superb onboard product but absolutely atrocious shoreside ( both pre & post cruise) service. This is == X =='s worst downside, worsening over the years, dangerously close to finally eradicate all the other excellent facets of its operations.

 

Good luck, Danny

 

Cheers

;)

[two rabbits]

:eek: Good evening, Danny.

 

Quite a good letter...well written, poised, factual, actually polite.

 

When such a letter does NOT get even an acknowledgment from == X ==,.....what on earth will ??

 

Another sad and annoying exemple of a company offering a superb onboard product but absolutely atrocious shoreside ( both pre & post cruise) service. This is == X =='s worst downside, worsening over the years, dangerously close to finally eradicate all the other excellent facets of its operations.

 

Good luck, Danny

 

Cheers

;)

 

 

Danny, Excellent letter and you did a great job in documeting what happened. I have also had the "privilege" of talking to Mike. His attitude was just about the same as the "Celebrity Treatment" that you have received. I am pretty sure that I have also had my "file updated", not that it makes any difference to me. The treatment that some receive from the so-called customer service department is hard to believe, unless you have been there. I wish you better luck than I had in resolving your complaint.

 

C-legs, I think that you have expressed very well what a lot of us have noticed. I for one am very sad to see this happen. As you said the excellent facets of Celebrity's operation are being eradicated by the shoreside service. IMHO this has already occurred.

[brigittetom]

I got the same treatment from a Captains Club rep after our last Zenith cruise. That dept. sure has changed over the last few years.

 

I called the CC about 5 years ago with a complaint. It was our anniversary cruise and they used to bring a cake to your dinner table for special occasions. A waiter came by, showed us the cake. I said "oh how nice, thank you". I thought the waiter had taken the cake back to cut. After about 10 minutes I asked my husband what happened to our cake and he said it was delivered to another couple who also had an anniversary. Okay, we don't even eat dessert and would have ordinarily been long gone but the fact that he brought the cake to show us was beyond me.

 

I talked to a gentleman at the CC desk and said that I would have no problem with not having been offered the cake but that turned out to be an embarrasment for us in front of the others at our table who didn't order dessert because they thought cake was coming. The gentleman ask if a $250. credit would make me feel better about the situation. I told him that I didn't expect a credit, I just wanted to make them aware of this weird situation. He insisted on sending us the credit voucher anyway. When we received the voucher, he had given us each $250. credit. Now that was customer service. We certainly didn't expect anything and this was way above and beyond but I felt at the time that someone really thought we as passengers deserved to be treated well and it started out our loyalty twards Celebrity and only Celebrity.

 

With recent years of verbal volleyball with the ground staff, we have diverted our loyalty to whatever cruiseline offers us the best itinerary and price, being Princess, Hal, RCL, and Celebrity.

 

DannyOcean, I hope you do finally get a response because you deserve one. You also deserve better.

[fsr44]

OK, I guess I don't understand what the big problem is. You had me until you quoted this:

“CELEBRITY CRUISES WILL DEDUCT THE APPLICABLE OFFER VALUE FROM FINAL PAYMENT UPON REVIEW”

 

"Upon review" would seem to indicate to me "after the fact". They receive your payment, they make the review, they deduct the value. That sounds like what they tried to explain to you. I could understand this level of ire if they were not giving you the credit, but they did, just not in the fashion you expected. I'll take your word for it that the folks on the phone were snippy, but if that rises to the level of sending certified letters to CEO's, then you must be used to getting much better customer service than I generally receive. I don't find the Celebrity phone people to be outstanding, but they're pretty much in line with the people who man the phones at any number of customer service centers I call.

[caviargal]

These coupons are supposed to be deducted from the amount due for final payment. Collecting and then crediting is not only administratively silly but very confusing for the consumer.

 

As a TA who was used these for myself and for clients on both RCI and X, that is the way it has always worked for me.

 

Sorry for the frustrating experience! I wish they would use the same service reps on X for Elite that they do on RCI for Diamond; there is no comparison in my personal experience.

[Susan-M]

I have also had the "privilege" of talking to Mike.

 

The OP indicates that

"I have changed some names"

Mike's name likely falls into that category as the OP only mentions 3 names, and the other two appear not to have been changed:)

[RJL58]

After 27 cruises both me and my mum had a bad experience with guest relations on board,.On entering our CC cabin on deck 8 there was a extreme smell of acleaning fluid detergent not air freshner like they wanted us to beleive,this lasted for 4 days before it started to subside.WE visited guest relations on numerous occasions and just got fobbed off,didnt know what we were talking about etc.they would not put in writing our complaint to take to miami or tell us what the awful smell was.The Aqua spa was cold and dirty and its my favourite place on all the other celeb ships and on the 14 nights only used it once!!!!!! again was told the temp was 30 C no way it was harbour water!!!!!We were treat by the admin/officers like school children not famously.The rest of the staff on the ship were excellent and food itinary etc good.One day at p Uranas the tender officers had every waiting in line for 3 hours in cold windy weather for tenders even though there were heated sheds nearby we took shelter in a local gift shop.The officers and admin staff on this cruise had not got it together at all and it spoiled the efforts of the rest of the ship.Not a moaner but come on celeb lets get that customer service back again or Iam not coming back????????????even though iam Elite C Club.

[ocngypz]

All coupons are subject to review. 99% of the time clients present them at time of deposit.. not at final payment time. I just input the code into Cruising Power.. and about two weeks later I have a new invoice reflecting the adjustment in price to the booking.

 

Coupons reduce the amount of the final payment. They do not reduce the amount of the deposit.

 

I would recommend that if anyone is booking directly with the cruiseline.. any cruiseline, as soon as you receive any coupons, get them applied right away. Do NOT wait until final payment time. Acceptance is capacity controlled.

 

Agents deal with people such as you encountered on a daily basis. We keep a mental list among ourselves in the office of people we do not want to talk to at the various cruiselines.. as well as folks we like to talk to. Often times we call, don't like who we get on the phone and hang up. Fortunately, with Celebrity we are STAR Desk participants so we get to deal with the cream of the crop.. and what a difference. Last week I called one cruiseline and hung up 6 times before I got someone with half a brain.

 

Welcome to my work-a-day world!

[JWJs]

Danny Ocean ~ you were too kind...the CS rep you dealt with was not a gentleman. He was either stressed out from his job of dealing with people or he's that way all the time and that's his nature. That guy's personnel file needs to be udated to reflect how he deals with customers. You had every right to write that letter and Celebrity owes you a reponse of some kind! I think Celebrity should pay particular attention to:

Further, he belittled and bullied me by stating that all my files at Celebrity are now updated to state that I have exhausted any special treatment and accommodation that might be afforded me in the future.

 

What's your file documentation going to read? Customer called and asked for a straight answer…he wasn’t happy when two of us couldn’t give him a straight answer so after belittling and bullying him we gave him what he asked for and because we did this he will never get what he asks for again.

DANG!!! What kind of customer service is that?????

Perception is most often reality. Celebrity should investigate an employ representative who has evidently belittled and bullied a customer.

[bill turcotte]

Celebrity has really gone down hill . If nothing else they could of giving you 150 ship broad credit which cost them almost nothing . They are not longer an upscale cruise line in my book . They seem just not to care

[chessbriar]

“CELEBRITY CRUISES WILL DEDUCT THE APPLICABLE OFFER VALUE FROM FINAL PAYMENT UPON REVIEW”

This statement says it all. After they review the coupon, they will make the deduction. You have to give the coupon to a X rep, whether it's their customer service department or a Travel Agent. Once one of them have the coupon in hand, they can arrange to have the money refunded. Had you provided the coupon to them with sufficent time before payment date, they could have removed from your final payment. Since you waited to submit it, you must wait for the deduction.

 

The X reps tried to tell you a number of times, yet you insisted they do something that was not policy. You wonder why they were short with you, you asked from something that was not permitted and said so on the coupon.

 

"UPON REVIEW"

 

You wonder why you didn't hear back, when there reps repeatedly do the right thing by X's policy. Why should they be reprimanded? Why should they have one of their employees call back and get yelled at again because someone followed policy.

 

This goes back to my old recommendation, use a TA and let them handle these issues. I had the same issue which you speak and my TA handled everything to my satisfaction.

[jaxon41]

Chessbriar,

I have to agree with you but I don't think is excuses bad behavior. Obviously, the OP didn't get an explanation of "on review." Certainly, one would have to have the certificate in hand, faxed or mailed, to verify its validity before making an adjustment, unless there is some code to identify that it applies to said crusie and said person.

 

Often, I find that those in charge of explaining something aren't very good at it. If it isn't understood the first time, then a calm explanation said in a bit different way is called for -- and then again, until things are understood. Many times the "why" of something will help to make it clear.

 

I had a ta, who I won't use again, be a snip to me regarding my upcoming cruise. I mentioned that I was entitled to an upgrade, but had forgotten about that when I booked, however, I was satisfied with my choice, and would stay with it. Instead of replying that I really wasn't entitled to an upgrade because they were only allowed on insides, and outsides, not balconies, which I hadn't known, she proceeded to send me an email saying she could "upgrade" me to a cabin three decks down and not a balcony. Only when I replied that there must be a misunderstanding, as that wouldn't be an upgrade, did she come back with the fact that having booked a balcony, I wasn't entitled to an upgrade. Some people are just jerks. She got a 10 cabin booking from me, but she won't be getting another. Prices actually dropped on 2 of the cabins I was paying for by a small amount, and even though I pointed it out, I haven't gotten a credit. Rather than deal with this woman, I'll just vote with my feet.

[rjg41]

Unfortunately you seemed to have missed a key part of the quote on the certificate, unless I missed something.

 

“CELEBRITY CRUISES WILL DEDUCT THE APPLICABLE OFFER VALUE FROM FINAL PAYMENT UPON REVIEW” (color added)

 

The "upon review" is what takes some time and you apparently tried to submit the certificates too close to final payment to allow the review before your final was due. You were expecting something that is not the process. Now the reps. should have explained that to you if they did not. If they did explain that you should have accepted that.

 

Now, you could have sped up the process a little through a travel agent. Travel agents have an on line electronic direct entry process for submitting certificates for their clients but the process still takes about a week for "review" before final payment is credited with the value.

 

For all others reading this post, if you have certificates submit them well before final is due to allow for the review process and your balance for final payment will be reduced before it is due. If you submit them close to or at final expect to have to pay the full amount and get a rebate.

[cechase]

The only time that we were lucky enough to have a certificate for each of us was for our Sept. Alaska Infinity cruise. We called Captain Club and since we do not have a fax, we mailed our certificates for $75.00 each - for our Royal Suite booking well before our final payment.

 

When it came time to make our final payment, the $150.00 was deducted. Big deal! Even if it had not been credited, it was a minuscule part of our fare. Come on people, you are going to let this destroy your entire cruise?

 

Again, we notice that very new arrivals at cruise critic with very few posts are hammering Celebrity again. We can not understand that with 6 cruises on Celebrity in the past three years, that we have not experienced any of these complaints. Perhaps we are very lucky, but with our rather wide sample of Celebrity, how is it possible that were missed all of these events and complaints.

[excitedofharpenden]

Just a couple of observations for which I'll probably get flamed for, but no matter. As I was reading your post there were a couple of things troubling me. At the start you say that it has been three weeks since your letter was received and that this delay has made you "go public". Three weeks doesn't sound like an awfully long time to me in the scheme of things. You then say that "Mike" said "all my files at Celebrity are now updated to state that I have exhausted any special treatment and accommodation that might be afforded me in the future". This sort of response makes me wonder what you said to him to provoke such a remark. If your attitude matched what you said in the last paragraph of your reply to chessbriar, then it doesn't really surprise me that you got short shift.

 

There's two sides to everything and none of us were privy to the conversation you had with Celebrity, but I think your letter and subsequent postings here show more rant than anything else.

 

Phil

[chessbriar]

Phil,

 

That's the same feeling I got from his letter and reply.

 

I've been in customer service lines and have watched how poorly customers treat the service personel. CS is explaining things clearly from what I hear, but the customer just doesn't want to hear it. And keeps insisting and getting more coarse in the conversation.

 

With that in mind, I take a post like this and try to picture it from both sides. Knowing customers think they are always right, they tend to be more and more agggresive if they don't get what they want. The fact CS put in his record, he has exhausted his special favors, leads me to believe that was the case.

[hcat]

Coupons and credits are always tricky--different parts of the organization seem to handle different ones as we have found. Some are from marketing etc. Our last one resulted from them cancelling our Zenith trip. In Dec they said we would get $100 off a future cruise & asked it to be aplied to our April trip. It did not get done & two days before final payfor the April trip it was still up in the air...it was to be generated by the "Indcident Dept", whatever that it...finally it got done so we got our $100 credit.

Using credits & coupons takes alot of advance planning, persistent calls & help from the TA--always ask someone to confirm what they have said in an e-mail--that's how we got our last coupon properly applied--it would have been in limbo much longer. No one is rude to us but it is a very frustrating experience with the coupons....& being placed on hold for long silent periods is also frustrating. Should not be this way but once you get the picture it is easier to deal with.

It is a bit better with Royal Carib & we felt like Royalty when we sailed Cunard--they are really great!

[Cachecara]

I shared this thread with my husband who just retired after 36 yrs of being in upper mgmt customer service for a well known service company that prides itself on outstanding customer service.

The OP's letter was sent certified mail and the not only was the OP aware of the date this letter was received, but the recipient(X) is aware the OP has this knowledge!:) Three weeks is way too long a period for lack of response. If you are going to go out on a limb to pride yourself on making your customers feel special, the least you can do is listen to them and respond in a timely fashion and if that person is a loyal customer, the more reason to do so. And this is regardless of the perceived tone of the customer. This is plain goodwill and good sense.

IMO the OP didn't seem to address his needs in any less than a polite fashion, but as none of us were witness to the phone conversation it is difficult to interpret the tones of either parties.

Regardless, customer service personnel are trained to deal with all types of situations and customers, always with the utmost professionalism in mind. In too many cases, this has gone by the wayside in far too many companies.

[bubbie617]

I think this problem never would have occured if the Customer Service people had calmly explained that it WOULD have been deducted from final payment if the coupon had been submitted before final payment was due. Because they can "review" the coupon before applying it, they had the right to expect full payment and issue a credit in a timely manner (one to two weeks).

 

Unfortunately Customer Service people are innundated with complaints. It's the nature of their business. But the CS people are human, and they get to the end of their rope like we all do. Maybe they had a bad day. That doesn't excuse the way they spoke to Danny Ocean.

 

They should have standard answers for questions like these that would have explained their policy much more clearly. Shame on them.

[ricthemic]

Wife and I just got off the Century last Thursday. We are select CC members having sailed Celebrity at least 10 times. The refurbished Century is very impressive. The service from all dining, pool and cabin staff was perfect.

Celebrity guest relations on this cruise and others does, at times, seem to us to be a bit arrogant however I can not think of one time that this behavior deminished our vacation. For instance, Thursday morning we had an early flight out of FLL. last Tuesday morning I went to guest relations showed my CC select card and asked if I indeed was entitled to priority disembarkation.

The girl said yes as I told of my early flight. She said this is the earliest, first off the ship and gave us 7:45 AM beige (#4) luggage tags. I then asked about the earliest transfers to FLL airport without hesitation she said the transfers are $25.00 each and the first one will be leaving at 7:00AM and if I wanted it she would have to change my baggage tags for an earlier disembarkment. I just stood there looking at her with bewilderment. Did not even comment to her... went back to my room and had a good laugh about it with my wife.

As I said this did not diminish our vacation but we do think it is peculiar and could see how some people might get upset

[Susan-M]

Thursday morning we had an early flight out of FLL. last Tuesday morning I went to guest relations showed my CC select card and asked if I indeed was entitled to priority disembarkation.

 

We had the same experience with priority disembarkation at a tender port that we were visiting .... that's when I learned that there is an order to the priority ... those on Celebrity excursions get first priority, those in CC going on their own, come next. Just as you did, we 'took it in stride' :)