VERY poor customer service on the phone by Princess

[ddled]

We are on Princess in June on an Alaska cruise/land package, on Royal. The app would not, for 2 weeks at least, allow me to get my medallion sent to me. Couldn't load it said. Everything else worked. So I called Princess to get it sent before we sail so as to cut some of the embarkation time. Got some rep, and if that is indicative of their customer service, shame on them. I had to literally yell at him to stop his sale pitch to me-excursions, dinners, premium package, wifi, special occasions, and on and on. We are Platinum on Princess, and any moron can see what there is to buy on the website. The call took 40 minutes! I asked for a supervisor and he refused to connect me. We have cruised 32 times, and I have never had this kind of treatment. All I wanted was for them to send me the 2 medallions so I could have them before we sailed. When he finally got it done the delivery date is 6 weeks! He told me there must be something wrong with my phone.  He said their computers were running bad. Said they were having problems with the app. I don't have any cruises booked with Princess right now-I may not do them again. Have liked their product,  but when I spend thousands of dollars with them I expect a rep on the phone to do what I ask for.I realize that he probably gets a cut for any thing he sells, and their ships are full and they can do anything they want to do to us, but it does not mean I have to like it!!!

[ddled]

And if it sounds like I am irritated, I am.

[PaperGrandma]

We are also having the same issue with the app.  When we go to order the medallions it says “unable to load”. There are six of us going and all with different phones.  The problem is not our phones.  When we called Princess we were told we had to use the app to order the  medallions and to give it a couple of days.  That was 2 weeks ago.  Called again and were told exactly the same, use app and wait a few days!

 

We have been on the phone 4 times, 3 different people and none of us have had any success in getting dining arranged.  Not inclined to book with them again.  

 

If anyone has any suggestions please inform!

[Arizona Wildcat]

22 minutes ago, ddled said:

And if it sounds like I am irritated, I am.

Couple of thoughts.

 

Customer service in general is somewhere between poor and terrible.  No excuses for Princess, but wondering why you would bother dealing with Princess on the phone as there are lots of great TAs out there that will handle the garbage for you.  One web site with help you by having TAs Compete for your Cruise business. 

The other is if you get an agent that clearly needs training . . Three steps. #1 Say thank you, goodbye #2 Hang up #3 Call and get another agent.

As for medallions - why are you wasting time trying to order?  Faster topick up at the port.  For 3 cruises total added time under 5 minutes.  Bet you wasted more time trying to order

As for dining - if you cruise us after September 14th you need to wait till June 17th.  Again, unless you need to eat at 6pm, go directly on boarding and organize.  Lots easier than needing to link your reservations.   A group is almost impossible on the app.  Maybe worse on the phone.  Easy on board.

Edited April 25 by Arizona Wildcat

[Teechur]

No one is likely to disagree with you here.

I called and got a rep. in the Philippines and after about 5 minutes of him asking me questions, instead of the other way around, it seemed like he was creating a biography of me. He went over my entire itinerary, my various shore excursions, past cruises, and more. When he started to go over my future bookings I told him to stop.

I only wanted the phone number for EZ Air. He wanted to sell me stuff.

 

[Princess Chatterer]

Just ask the Philippine Princess call center answer person  who can barely speak English that you must speak with someone who speaks American English and is actually located in the United States.  The call answer person will then put you on hold.  Then after a wait, the call will be taken by a person who speaks fair American English who is located, get this, in the Philippines.

[MTNest93]

28 minutes ago, PaperGrandma said:

We are also having the same issue with the app.  When we go to order the medallions it says “unable to load”. There are six of us going and all with different phones.  The problem is not our phones.  When we called Princess we were told we had to use the app to order the  medallions and to give it a couple of days.  That was 2 weeks ago.  Called again and were told exactly the same, use app and wait a few days!

 

We have been on the phone 4 times, 3 different people and none of us have had any success in getting dining arranged.  Not inclined to book with them again.  

 

If anyone has any suggestions please inform!

Try the web version 

[Kay S]

Yep. 

[Stexs]

A little more than a month ago, I had the same error trying to order our medallions for our June 1 Alaska cruise but was able to call customer service and get them ordered.  Later, I read here that someone did find a solution to the problem. 

 

Log onto your Cruise Personalizer at:  https://book.princess.com/cruisepersonalizer/index.page  and log in using your first & last name, birth date and cruise booking number.  One the top of the first page, click on the Check In tab.  When the next page comes up you will see two small black boxes that say App Store and Google Play.  Right below them is the line that says "Don't have a compatible device? Try our web version".  Click on Try our web version.  When the next page comes up, click on "Choose your medallion wearable" and you should be good to order!

[Kat915]

1 hour ago, ddled said:

We are on Princess in June on an Alaska cruise/land package, on Royal. The app would not, for 2 weeks at least, allow me to get my medallion sent to me. Couldn't load it said. Everything else worked. So I called Princess to get it sent before we sail so as to cut some of the embarkation time. Got some rep, and if that is indicative of their customer service, shame on them. I had to literally yell at him to stop his sale pitch to me-excursions, dinners, premium package, wifi, special occasions, and on and on. We are Platinum on Princess, and any moron can see what there is to buy on the website. The call took 40 minutes! I asked for a supervisor and he refused to connect me. We have cruised 32 times, and I have never had this kind of treatment. All I wanted was for them to send me the 2 medallions so I could have them before we sailed. When he finally got it done the delivery date is 6 weeks! He told me there must be something wrong with my phone.  He said their computers were running bad. Said they were having problems with the app. I don't have any cruises booked with Princess right now-I may not do them again. Have liked their product,  but when I spend thousands of dollars with them I expect a rep on the phone to do what I ask for.I realize that he probably gets a cut for any thing he sells, and their ships are full and they can do anything they want to do to us, but it does not mean I have to like it!!!

Just curious.  Doesn't Princess have a different customer service phone number for higher loyalty groups?

[suekel]

26 minutes ago, Kat915 said:

Just curious.  Doesn't Princess have a different customer service phone number for higher loyalty groups?

no

[Eric from San Diego]

Don't know if this helps, but when ever I book any travel, whether it be cruise, airline or hotel, I always use my desktop PC or laptop.   This gives me the added advantage that I can print stuff out on paper which has saved me a couple of times.   Phones are great but adapting reservation software to use on a phone is expensive and difficult vs using the same software on a PC/laptop browser.  

[ShipWalker]

1 hour ago, ddled said:

…So I called Princess to get it sent before we sail so as to cut some of the embarkation time….

We’ve picked up our medallions at the dock on embarkation the last two trips.
 

Took all of an extra 30 seconds each time.

[mevs904]

Since we sometimes travel before embarking on a cruise we always pick up our medallions at the port and have never experienced any delays.  We also use a TA who provides excellent service and so have never had to deal with Princess reps on the phone.  It sounds very frustrating.

[Sprocket]

Use the web version if you are having issues with the app.  We have 4 cruises between June and December and ordered all ours that way.  The app shows we are Green Lane for all.

 

Medallions are NOT shipped until about 2 weeks before your cruise and they will send you an email when they do with a tracking number.  Canadians cannot track them but I usually receive mine within 4-6 days of receiving the email.  The batteries don't have a long shelf life and they will need to be replaced if sent too soon.  And trust me that creates its own issues.

[leck57]

I've had the same problems dealing with untrained useless staff in the Philippines Call Centre. This arrangement is doing untold harm to the Princess brand and all we can do to hopefully improve things is either vote with our feet or contact this bloke. I have. By all means have a hissy fit on here but I think it's also important to follow it up. 

 

 Collin Steinke
Director, Customer Relations
24305 Town Center Drive
Santa Clarita, CA 91355
csteinke@princesscruises.com

[Esprit]

Here in the UK we have no choice but to collect the medallions at embarkation. The time taken is no different from when we all had to collect our cruse cards, so I just don't understand why so many people get needlessly stressed about having them posted out prior to the cruise.

 

Sorry if I sound unsympathetic, but the time you spent on the phone was just pointless.

Edited April 25 by Esprit

[Eno]

Just returned from my first Princess cruise and in my survey (not that it will do any good) stated that I will be booking the next cruise on celebrity due to the Princess call center.  When I needed to call I was given wrong information 3 times and had to hang up and call again.  I feel sorry for anyone who would have thought that the wrong information was correct.  Not only is it a pain to have to keep calling, it can be dangerous.  My cruise was almost cancelled as the rep put in the wrong amount for a package upgrade and resulted in my cruise not being fully paid prior to the final payment date.  I caught it but if wouldn't have been constantly checking could have resulted in my cruise being cancelled. They said it was a special, celebrity must have caught it and corrected the price to a higher amount (without notifying me) resulting in the cruise not being paid in full.

[Fortunate 2 travel]

Unfortunately the chat option is just as bad. After a very long chat with someone who did not understand what I was asking regarding a missing refund I was finally connected to a supervisor.  This was after 5 requests to the chat agent.  The supervisor was able to handle my issue in just a few minutes.  The nice thing with the chat feature is that you can have the full chat emailed to you. The supervisor apologized for all the misinformation I had been given.

[Steelers36]

Reading this and other threads in the past many months, it seems the overseas call center is even worse than when it began.  I wonder if the deterioration is tied to them being given more things to handle, coupled with language barriers and inexperience?

 

It seems only expert guests who know the rules, ins and outs, exactly what they want, etc, can have reasonable success with call center.

[Kellyann]

My upcoming cruise is close to my 20th but my second on Princess and my last.  My 1st Princess cruise was almost 20 years ago when you could talk with a person who was probably an American speaking English, someone who knew what they were doing and truly cared about customer service. Not only is Princess the worst to deal with on the phone, but their ap is horrible.  And you're in for a real treat if you attempt to use Princess EZ Air. Someone suggested that Princess is losing business due to their horrible customer service and they have lost me for sure. Right now on their web site it won't accept my airline reservation for my transport from port to airport, they cancelled my dinner reservations that I made shortly after booking so to get the time I wanted.  I hung up on EZAir before I booked a flight with them because I could see how they could mess that up.  There is nothing Princess could do that would make me book another cruise with them.  Princess should ask themselves if the cost savings using offshore "help" is worth the potential business they are losing.

 

[Sea Hag]

12 hours ago, Stexs said:

A little more than a month ago, I had the same error trying to order our medallions for our June 1 Alaska cruise but was able to call customer service and get them ordered.  Later, I read here that someone did find a solution to the problem. 

 

Log onto your Cruise Personalizer at:  https://book.princess.com/cruisepersonalizer/index.page  and log in using your first & last name, birth date and cruise booking number.  One the top of the first page, click on the Check In tab.  When the next page comes up you will see two small black boxes that say App Store and Google Play.  Right below them is the line that says "Don't have a compatible device? Try our web version".  Click on Try our web version.  When the next page comes up, click on "Choose your medallion wearable" and you should be good to order!

Most of the time when I go that route, I get an error message that says, "This booking has already been claimed." 

 

I don't always get that, just most of the time. I would imagine that's because I've accessed the booking through the app (got nothing else to imagine), but in that case then why don't I always get that error message? If anybody has an alternate explanation for this, I'd surely love to see it.

[WisCruiser2]

Apparently, the higher-ups at Princess don't realize that THEIR poor choices regarding Customer Service (or Customer No-service!) are costing them new cruisers. I agree with the post above re contacting the head of Customer Service -- maybe if they get enough complaints...?

[PMGS247]

I don't disagree with any of the ranting/raving in this thread, I don't have anything to add in that regard, but just to chime in on the one element that I don't think anyone's addressed: The delivery date of 6 weeks actually probably does make sense.  They tend to ship all medallions for the same sailing at basically the same time, typically arriving ~10 days before the cruise, give or take.  Doesn't matter if you ordered 15 months in advance or 4 weeks before the cruise.

[voljeep]

as long as P continues record bookings ... will just have to deal with it.

 

breathe in

breathe out

 

or move on ...

 

having options is a beautiful thing