FDR-wait times at call center is unacceptable

[rhoffert]

For the past two days, I have tried to reach a cruise specialists at the call center. Each of my attempts resulted in a 45 minute wait which I eventually decided to abandoned the call. On my final attempt, I waited 28 minutes until I was able to speak to someone. This needs to be fixed. As a former call center manager, the fastest way to end a relationship with a customer is to keep the customer on hold for an excessive amount of time. They will most likely abandon their call and there is a strong likelihood that they will also abandon their relationship with the company.

 

In my opinion, this needs to be corrected. I know that if I had allowed calls not to be handled in a timely manner, I would have lost my job.

 

I am rating the service provided as unacceptable!

[michigandollie]

I had similar experience with Oceania wait times were very long, so I emailed my cruise specialist and never got a reply to the email I sent. I eventually got through and was able to get my questions answered but I agree it was annoying.

[orchestrapal]

I agree the wait time is totally unacceptable, however, when you have a great TA you never have to call any cruise line yourself.

[RJB]

For the past two days, I have tried to reach a cruise specialists at the call center. Each of my attempts resulted in a 45 minute wait which I eventually decided to abandoned the call. On my final attempt, I waited 28 minutes until I was able to speak to someone. This needs to be fixed. As a former call center manager, the fastest way to end a relationship with a customer is to keep the customer on hold for an excessive amount of time. They will most likely abandon their call and there is a strong likelihood that they will also abandon their relationship with the company.

 

In my opinion, this needs to be corrected. I know that if I had allowed calls not to be handled in a timely manner, I would have lost my job.

 

I am rating the service provided as unacceptable!

I do not understand this post. I called the 800 number for the call center about 11 AM today and was talking to a live persor within 3 or 4 minutes. This is the second time in the last few weeks I had a question and I got thru very quickly. The last time was about 6 or 7 minutes. These times may have ever been faster but I am not sure. I rate this as very good service. :):)

[rhoffert]

Read the comments. You are definitely a minority. The specialists that I spoke to agreed with me that the wait times are excessive and this is a very busy time of year for them. Ok...then staff up.....and treat a customer as the valuable asset that they are.

Edited December 6, 2013 by rhoffert

[RJB]

I agree the wait time is totally unacceptable, however, when you have a great TA you never have to call any cruise line yourself.

I do have a great TA but a few weeks ago I had a question about my dining reservations and did not need to bother her. Today had another question and as I said before got thru right away. Could be just lucky but have no complaints.

[Travelcat2]

This sounds normal to me:confused: If I call an airline, my computer service people, our cell phone provider..... most places in the U.S., the waiting time is 5 minutes up to 90 minutes (or more). Suggest not calling Monday mornings. Maybe people can post the times when they found the wait a bit shorter. On the other hand, if they do that, it will get busy at that time. Don't think there is a solution.

[ronrick1943]

When your spending this kind of money "O" needs to answer the phone within the first few rings. And when "O" spends money on advertising, once you make somebody wait and they don't book-that's "O" dollars down the drain.

If your going to spend money on advertising, you better back it up at the call center.

Rick

[vaitape]

Waiting 90 minutes or more? No way would we hold for 90 minutes......NEVER! Totally unacceptable. Heaps of people want jobs.........hire them and solve the problem.

[no fuss travel]

At least you did not get cut off:eek: After waiting for too long, all of a sudden there was a click and I was cut off. I also find difficulties with their web site as well when using Manage Your Cruise. More often than not it takes 6 different tries to make dinner reservations. That site keeps kicking me out. Frustrating.:(

[suec12]

obviously they are too busy producing and mailing their lovely brochures to take time out to answer the phone.

[rallydave]

obviously they are too busy producing and mailing their lovely brochures to take time out to answer the phone.

 

Don't forget, it takes lots of time away from answering the phone to consistently change who gets what mailing and e-mail so that some of the best promotions only get to the people with no interest while the people who would be interested get nothing.

[potterhill]

We used to get brochures only occasionally, while friends who had only done one cruise (with us) got several weekly and sometimes more than one a day. Then we slowly got ramped up. I got them. He got them. Then we started getting mr& mrs. Now suddenly it seems that we get only one addressed to both of us. So apparently someone is working on the mailing list. Good news.

 

Mo

 

 

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[Travelcat2]

While "wait times" on the telephone are horrendous, if I have the time I simply put the phone on speaker, put it down and either read or do things on the computer while I'm waiting. When we call the airlines, I can fix lunch, have a short nap and still be waiting (okay -- just kidding). The main thing is not to get stressed out about a situation that is out of our control. I am thankful that Oceania does not send their call center to another country. Calls may be answered more quickly overseas but I personally like people in the U.S. having the jobs. JMO.

[DOJO466]

While "wait times" on the telephone are horrendous, if I have the time I simply put the phone on speaker, put it down and either read or do things on the computer while I'm waiting. When we call the airlines, I can fix lunch, have a short nap and still be waiting (okay -- just kidding). The main thing is not to get stressed out about a situation that is out of our control. I am thankful that Oceania does not send their call center to another country. Calls may be answered more quickly overseas but I personally like people in the U.S. having the jobs. JMO.

And being able to understand them.

[rallydave]

While the vast majority of people and those posting on this thread are supportive of the absolute need for Oceania to improve the home office customer non-service, there are a few cheerleaders who seem to support PCH consisting of Oceania and Regent no matter how horrendous the non-service is.

 

Can't be sure but, more than llikely they have special privileges that most customers do not enjoy such that no horrendous incidents can be PCH's fault and no improvements are needed.

 

Well, they need to take a look at the following thread from yesterday http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1953462 where the OP's flight was cancelled and while the T's and C's are clear that even thought Oceania booked the flights, the OP was responsible for getting to the embarkation and Oceania was not responsible for taking care of delays like this although in the past, Oceania did step in and do what they could to help the OP.

 

In the case of yesterday, the OP did contact Oceania although with the usual long wait to talk to a human and Oceania did promise to try and help and promised a phone call back to the OP within an hour and a half or so.

 

When no phone call had been received for several hours, the OP tried the airline but, was left on hold and calls to the Oceania non-customer service were met with long wait times and no response, the OP posted on CC their travails and several of us provided advice to talk to the airline as that was the right approach and wait as long as necessary on the phone or go to the airport as the airline would find them a flight. The airline did promise to phone back and did changing the flights to today which luckily the ship was in port overnight and the OP would only miss the first night in port in Rio and hopefully will get there tomorrow morning in time before the ship leaves tomorrow afternoon.

 

While per the T's and C's, Oceania is not responsible, it was an awful experience for the OP who still has not heard back from Oceania, it simply proves that the PCH home office experience is awful no matter what the cheerleaders say and if the PCH top brass actually do read CC, why do they respond to simple problems such as a person who had nothing to do after debarkation before their flight and the COB personally picked them up at the port and took them on a tour and then to the airport while he and others are completely silent about these abhorrent issues of way too long waits for customer non-service and even after the OP was promised that Oceania would work on a solution, they were NEVER phoned back and left to fend for themselves.

 

This is completely unacceptable and no apology can solve this issue. The only solution is a complete revamping of customer non-service with the customer and not the bottom line at the forefront or the cheerleaders and others need to find a different cruise line and let PCH flounder while having a great on board experience with a completely unacceptable home office.

[Noxequifans]

I always find it interesting to read posters opinions and post some myself. I am aware that people that have strong opinions (negative and positive) are the ones most likely to post. In some cases they have "an axe to grind" or are overly positive.

 

Getting back to the subject, it seems that some have experienced an overloaded O call center in these busy days ... the current offer expires at the end of the month. I am sure that supervision is aware of this as they review these boards. My business experience is that customers will tolerate some waiting as long as they can reach a representative who can handle their issue. Excessive waits need addressing by management.

 

As to the airline cancellation issue, it was a real anomaly as there were over 1000 flights impacted due to weather. Doesn't form a basis IMHO to rate O air department.

[rallydave]

I always find it interesting to read posters opinions and post some myself. I am aware that people that have strong opinions (negative and positive) are the ones most likely to post. In some cases they have "an axe to grind" or are overly positive.

 

Getting back to the subject, it seems that some have experienced an overloaded O call center in these busy days ... the current offer expires at the end of the month. I am sure that supervision is aware of this as they review these boards. My business experience is that customers will tolerate some waiting as long as they can reach a representative who can handle their issue. Excessive waits need addressing by management.

 

As to the airline cancellation issue, it was a real anomaly as there were over 1000 flights impacted due to weather. Doesn't form a basis IMHO to rate O air department.

 

Think your cmment regarding the overloaded call center based on an offer expiring at the end of the month is a huge red herring. The expiring offers are an ongoing marketing ploy that usually don't expire and are carried on as long as O chooses so these offers do not create any overload.

 

And, even with the many cancelled flights why hasn't O as yet responded after they promised to???? There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for O not following up. Realize the OP should have called the airline first and worked with them as he finally did and got his flights however, the total lack of caring or response by O as well as the lack of any response on this board by people who supposedly read these boards and respond if necessary.

 

This flight issue was one that O could have earned a lot of brownie points yet O seems to think having the COB waste his time with picking up a single passenger and taking him to the airport is more important than training and staffing the customer non-service people in the home office.

 

Sincerely hope this debacle results in more people leaving O than the private trip to the airport results in new bookings.

 

As one poster posted that this lack of customer is the new norm and nothing we can do about it so keep paying the higher and higher prices and live with the lack of communications; that poster is absolutely incorrect and there are other forms of vacations that have excellent customer service and where our money should be going.

[Travelcat2]

As to the airline cancellation issue, it was a real anomaly as there were over 1000 flights impacted due to weather. Doesn't form a basis IMHO to rate O air department.

 

You bring up an excellent point. I wonder if any company's air department could handle the thousands of people affected by the flight delays/cancellations. It would be interesting to know if this issue was brought up on other Cruise Critic boards since it no doubt affected passengers on other cruise lines.

 

In terms of those posters who believe that PCH/Oceania/Regent has poor customer service and it affects them, I agree that they should consider putting their vacation dollars elsewhere. IMO, it is a good idea to have this thread and to voice opinions on call center wait times but if someone is just negative on everything "PCH", why continue to sail on their ships?

 

We rarely have to contact the call center directly as our TA answers questions for us. If they do not know the answer, they get the answer from their representative at PCH/Oceania/Regent. This saves a lot of hassle for us and doesn't burden the call center unnecessarily. I do not think that the call center customer is excellent nor do I feel it is poor when compared to the "norm". I'm trying to think of a call center where I have not occasionally lost a connection -- had a long wait time or could not understand the person on the telephone.

 

At some point perhaps PCH will consider upgrading their system to allow for callers to input their telephone number for call-back if the wait is longer than 10 minutes. When we call our internet/phone/television service provider (one of the largest in the country - Comcast), the system is able to tell us approximately how long it will be until we are called back (usually 45 minutes or more). The important thing is that we are actually called back.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Travelcat2

[rallydave]

You bring up an excellent point. I wonder if any company's air department could handle the thousands of people affected by the flight delays/cancellations. It would be interesting to know if this issue was brought up on other Cruise Critic boards since it no doubt affected passengers on other cruise lines.

 

 

Your comment is completely opposite how you describe other issues such as the volcano ash from several years ago when the comment was all hands on deck and everyone in the office working flight issues and now you wonder if any companies air department could handle the thousands (really doubt O had to solve thousands or even hundreds of issues the last few days) of people affected.

 

At least you acknowledged that the lack of a call back when promised was unacceptable. By the way, still no response from O on any of the boards regarding the unacceptable lack of the promised phone call.

[Travelcat2]

Your comment is completely opposite how you describe other issues such as the volcano ash from several years ago when the comment was all hands on deck and everyone in the office working flight issues and now you wonder if any companies air department could handle the thousands (really doubt O had to solve thousands or even hundreds of issues the last few days) of people affected.

 

At least you acknowledged that the lack of a call back when promised was unacceptable. By the way, still no response from O on any of the boards regarding the unacceptable lack of the promised phone call.

 

I am not going to argue with you. If you want to feel like you are right - fine! I do wonder if you have ever been on Oceania. For the record, Oceania's air department is not the same as Regent's.

 

P.S. What happened with the volcanic ash is not at all similar to this situation. Temporary weather delays and/or cancellations happen every day. If you do not recall the enormity of the situation in 2010, let me refresh your memory. http://www.paylessbg.com/en/articles/Affected-Countries-by-the-volcano-ash/130/index.html

[orchestrapal]

I am not going to argue with you. If you want to feel like you are right - fine! I do wonder if you have ever been on Oceania. For the record, Oceania's air department is not the same as Regent's.

130/index.html[/url]

 

Interesting, I was wondering the same thing..has rallydave EVER been on O.

Inquiring minds want to know.

[JimandStan]

Interesting, I was wondering the same thing..has rallydave EVER been on O.

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

I don't believe that he ever has ever sailed with Oceania, although you must admit that the amount of man hours that he has put into examining their affairs is truly staggering.

[CanadaTraveller]

I don't believe that he ever has ever sailed with Oceania, although you must admit that the amount of man hours that he has put into examining their affairs is truly staggering.

 

LOL

 

 

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