Contacting P&O

[Bill Y]

1 hour ago, Eglesbrech said:

Sorry I don’t have 2 hours of my time to waste and I find that a totally unacceptable time to wait. I can’t even get in the queue anyway even if I was prepared to wait, it just cuts me off.

 

They have had 18 months to get this sorted out. Covid is no longer an acceptable excuse for poor service.

I tend to agree,

 

I can understand the initial problems, but after 18 months the directors on any company have had more than enough time to implement their risk assessment contingency and disaster recovery plans. I even if the directors were inept enough not to have any (most companies have had and been updating such plans for more than twenty years) there has been time to make and implement such plans.

 

It makes me feel how important it still is that ships captains and deck officers have to be qualified to international standards and the Captain by maritime regulations is always ultimately in charge and has the final say. As ships are now often refereed to as resorts with all their revenue streams then the Purser,s sorry Hotel General Managers must feel that they are running the show and the Captain is merely their chauffeur. So if regulations are relaxed due to big multinational pressure expect changes and with money men making calculated risk operational decisions loss of life, sorry collateral damage.

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Bill Y

[Bazrat]

39 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

To each their own. You clearly don’t mind being treated in what I would consider to be a shabby manner and that’s fine if you are happy with that.

 

I just don’t intend to be a doormat waiting for 2 hours for someone to answer a call and will simply move my business to a line that provides some sort of customer service. Reading the general consensus on social media I suspect I won’t be alone if this situation re contact continues. 
 

So whilst you have been stamping your feet we sorted our problems out, if you believe we was being treated like doormats luckily for us we don’t suffer from self importance but each there own

[wowzz]

27 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

So whilst you have been stamping your feet we sorted our problems out, if you believe we was being treated like doormats luckily for us we don’t suffer from self importance but each there own

I thought I was the undiplomatic one on this forum!

The point is that just about everyone here feels that waiting 2 hours for P&O to answer the phone is unacceptable.  You obviously feel differently. 

Nothing to do with self importance,  just that you obviously have lower expectations than the rest of us.

[Bazrat]

6 minutes ago, wowzz said:

I thought I was the undiplomatic one on this forum!

The point is that just about everyone here feels that waiting 2 hours for P&O to answer the phone is unacceptable.  You obviously feel differently. 

Nothing to do with self importance,  just that you obviously have lower expectations than the rest of us.

Doormat was mentioned in my view that’s undiplomatic but any wait is never good, but I am not going down the route just to criticise one company because I don’t happen to like them

[kalos]

Chill out getting snotty with each other will not help each other just because P&O

are not answering the phone as normal .May I suggest the paranormal maybe they

can help .....

                                you never know ! 

[Ardennais]

The situation is totally unacceptable. And as I’ve said before, not everyone is retired/working from home/within signal to wait 2 hrs. 

[Eglesbrech]

35 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Doormat was mentioned in my view that’s undiplomatic but any wait is never good, but I am not going down the route just to criticise one company because I don’t happen to like them

“Just to criticise” them, not at all. I need to talk to them to sort something out and I simply can’t get through to them. I don’t think that’s unfair criticism, it is simply an accurate statement of the current facts and it’s affecting lots of people - not just me.

 

At least we can agree that any wait is never good. 😀

[Bazrat]

43 minutes ago, Ardennais said:

The situation is totally unacceptable. And as I’ve said before, not everyone is retired/working from home/within signal to wait 2 hrs. 

Actually I work a fair distance from where I live but I managed it

[Bazrat]

I feel  like I’m being tag teamed here but I still feel like nobody as anytime on here apart from posting 

[picsa]

Perhaps part of the issue with the lengthy wait on the calls to speak to P&O is the issue of WHY people are needing to speak to P&O.

 

Are they getting lots of calls from people who either haven't read the emails being sent out, or have read the emails and just want some 'hand-holding'? 

 

But even if they are, P&O are the masters of their own misfortune for some of the call queue problems.

 

Why on earth does P&O offer people the opportunity to phone them to pay for their cruise! Do it online or go to a travel agent.

 

For my upcoming cruise I have had to speak to P&O four times - once to provide details of a dietary requirement - why on earth can this information not be provided by email or web form, and three times to chase up why they had not applied the Carnival Shareholders onboard credit that I had emailed the cruise details and shareholding certificate - if that team, which is only contactable by email, had pulled their finger out and done the work promptly as they have done previously that would have been three calls saved. 

 

 

[Eglesbrech]

58 minutes ago, picsa said:

Perhaps part of the issue with the lengthy wait on the calls to speak to P&O is the issue of WHY people are needing to speak to P&O.

 

Are they getting lots of calls from people who either haven't read the emails being sent out, or have read the emails and just want some 'hand-holding'? 

 

But even if they are, P&O are the masters of their own misfortune for some of the call queue problems.

 

Why on earth does P&O offer people the opportunity to phone them to pay for their cruise! Do it online or go to a travel agent.

 

For my upcoming cruise I have had to speak to P&O four times - once to provide details of a dietary requirement - why on earth can this information not be provided by email or web form, and three times to chase up why they had not applied the Carnival Shareholders onboard credit that I had emailed the cruise details and shareholding certificate - if that team, which is only contactable by email, had pulled their finger out and done the work promptly as they have done previously that would have been three calls saved. 

 

 

Spot on. They are wasting time servicing failure demand from frustrated customers and don’t have enough channels for self service by customers who are happy to use it.

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, picsa said:

once to provide details of a dietary requirement -

Interesting to note that with Princess you can input this information into their app, with no need to contact anyone. Hopefully in due course P&O will update their technology similarly.

[davecttr]

My experience today

 

Got an email, again!, asking me to kindly pay the outstanding balance for my November Ventura cruise that was due in mid August. After many attempts to contact P&O back then I gave up and sure enough the day after the final payment date the cruise disappeared from my cruise personaliser. I got a later email in early September and thought 'P&O have issues' I knew I would lose the £85 deposit.

 

Back to this afternoon. I tried the freephone number and after a couple of selections I was put on hold with a delay of up to 30 minutes. OK, put the phone on speaker and then went online and arranged and paid for my Iona January cruise insurance. After exactly 30 minutes a pleasant young lady answered and it was soon all sorted and I got the cancellation invoice via email a few minutes later - sorted 🙂

 

I have to pay the Iona balance next month, maybe the auto payment system is fixed, otherwise I will be dialing 0800 again.

 

moan, why do i have to keep hitting the shift key to type i, surely I is always caps ?

 

edit - doh! predictive text sort of solves it, I think, I I imagine I imagine 

Edited September 20, 2021 by davecttr

[Ardennais]

1 hour ago, Bazrat said:

Actually I work a fair distance from where I live but I managed it

Well done! But you couldn’t if you were teaching, nursing, roofing, milking, train track repairing - just a few jobs that individuals in my family do! 

[terrierjohn]

3 hours ago, Bazrat said:

Doormat was mentioned in my view that’s undiplomatic but any wait is never good, but I am not going down the route just to criticise one company because I don’t happen to like them

I like P&O, otherwise I would not cruise with them, but they have quite a few failings, and I will continue to criticise them when any failing is being discussed. I would also guess that many on here have similar views, but we refuse to be blinkered P&O cheerleaders.

[wowzz]

1 minute ago, terrierjohn said:

I like P&O, otherwise I would not cruise with them, but they have quite a few failings, and I will continue to criticise them when any failing is being discussed. I would also guess that many on here have similar views, but we refuse to be blinkered P&O cheerleaders.

That would be my stance as well.  I don't see the point of trying to defend the indefensible.

[picsa]

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

Back to this afternoon. I tried the freephone number and after a couple of selections I was put on hold with a delay of up to 30 minutes. OK, put the phone on speaker and then went online and arranged and paid for my Iona January cruise insurance. After exactly 30 minutes a pleasant young lady answered and it was soon all sorted and I got the cancellation invoice via email a few minutes later - sorted 🙂

 

Did you need to speak to them to make this payment or could you have done it online?

[Pippa04]

Another way of looking at it is that we should be complaining.  No-one seems to have any problems once they get through to call handlers - in fact, most are very complimentary.  Bearing in mind there were large numbers of redundancies made and those who kept their jobs accepted reduced pay for quite a while it wouldn't surprise me if those still working would be grateful for more co-workers and our complaints would be a start in letting the powers that be know that they need to start hiring again.

[Bazrat]

2 hours ago, Ardennais said:

Well done! But you couldn’t if you were teaching, nursing, roofing, milking, train track repairing - just a few jobs that individuals in my family do! 

Actually you could just arrange your day 

[davecttr]

36 minutes ago, picsa said:

 

Did you need to speak to them to make this payment or could you have done it online?

I did not phone them to make a payment but to stop them sending me requests to pay the balance on a cruise I considered I had cancelled over a month ago.

[Bazrat]

2 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

I like P&O, otherwise I would not cruise with them, but they have quite a few failings, and I will continue to criticise them when any failing is being discussed. I would also guess that many on here have similar views, but we refuse to be blinkered P&O cheerleaders.

Cheerleader I have no loyalty to any cruise company but I know this site with certain members love to criticise P&O whilst still using them, from the lowering standards to the clown incident which never occurred to no cheese wheels, the list is endless but very few compliments when they get something right, god help any new cruisers who join this site

[Eglesbrech]

25 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

but very few compliments when they get something right

I think most P&O regulars are positive and very complimentary about the level of service they receive once onboard. Shore side, perhaps less so.

 

The standards have gone down from years ago but then so have the prices. Again most folks recognise and acknowledge this fact.

 

This is cruise “critic” so there will always be positive and negatives. We all have different experiences, personal circumstances to deal with and levels of tolerance for certain issues. Consequently we all reflect different views which is what makes this site interesting.

[Ardennais]

50 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Actually you could just arrange your day.

 

Ok,  just tell the pupils that you won’t be teaching lessons 2, 3 and possibly 4 because ‘Sir has to phone P&O to arrange his cruise’. Yeah right. 

[Ardennais]

54 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Actually you could just arrange your day 

I’ve just stopped laughing, but seriously, why should you even HAVE to arrange your day around phoning?! 

[Rebjon]

5 hours ago, picsa said:

Perhaps part of the issue with the lengthy wait on the calls to speak to P&O is the issue of WHY people are needing to speak to P&O.

 

Are they getting lots of calls from people who either haven't read the emails being sent out, or have read the emails and just want some 'hand-holding'? 

 

But even if they are, P&O are the masters of their own misfortune for some of the call queue problems.

 

Why on earth does P&O offer people the opportunity to phone them to pay for their cruise! Do it online or go to a travel agent.

 

For my upcoming cruise I have had to speak to P&O four times - once to provide details of a dietary requirement - why on earth can this information not be provided by email or web form, and three times to chase up why they had not applied the Carnival Shareholders onboard credit that I had emailed the cruise details and shareholding certificate - if that team, which is only contactable by email, had pulled their finger out and done the work promptly as they have done previously that would have been three calls saved. 

 

 

picsa, did you get your shareholders credit? We applied for ours a week ago for our November cruise and wonder how long we should wait before getting worried. Anyone else - have you had problems with this?

I totally agree that P&O customer service is appalling at the moment. They are taking their customers for fools. Is the pandemic going to be used as an excuse forever?