Call Center Experience - lying in call notes the norm

[Pizzasteve]

I wanted to share a recent experience, my first, with Silversea’s Guatemala based contracted call center (confirmed location with a supervisor).

 

This will be our first Silversea cruise, booked through a travel agent.  After booking we learned a bit about restaurants and reservations required by reading online and noted that the jazz club Silver Note seemed already ‘unavailable.’  The web site was not easy to use so we called the call center to see if we could get help booking on any dates we could.  After a lengthy process we were assured we had booked two dates and times over our 13 day cruise.

 

A few weeks later we didn’t see the bookings on our calendar and called in to ask why and were assured that the this new rep would follow up and get back to us.  We never got the follow-up so we called again.  This was repeated a few times.  I’ve now given up, because each call confirmed that the prior phone representative said one thing and then typed something completely different in the call notes.  For example, we were told a reservation was booked, the call notes said ‘we were advised no bookings were available.’
 

Having managed large call centers, I carefully asked during each call what the rep was doing and going to do and what was in the notes from the prior calls and interacted with the person on the phone to have them read back what they put in the call notes.  In every instance we were lied to, gaslight tactics of being told follow-up would happen, etc and in every case they did nothing and wrote in the call notes that we were advised something they never said. So either they were lying about what was in the notes or the prior person lied about what they were recording in them.  

 

Each of these calls were lengthy and detailed, including dates and times or actions they were going to perform to confirm our reservations and the call notes later something completely different.

 

Anyway, just sharing this to share to trust nothing they promise and verify immediately any actions they perform.  They also messed up basic names and other information when our travel agent worked with them as well.

 

What shocked us what how they just lied about our simple, frankly unimportant, reservation request and in the call notes on every interaction and that a ‘supervisor’ seemed ok with it and had no interest in any follow-up or correcting the prior wrong or unkept promises. I’ve obviously given up on trying to book anything.  

 

Thanks for your attention.

Edited July 16 by Pizzasteve

[highplanesdrifters]

We all feel your pain.

[MBP&O2/O]

The impression I get, from reading this forum, is that RC / SS are outsourcing their call centres to places where operational costs are minimal. I believe that Australia is now dealt with by a call centre in the Philippines and that the service is so bad even travels agents are giving up.

[Observer]

It is my understanding that the outsourcing of call centers relates primarily (if not exclusively) to centers dealing with travel agents.  I am in fact, somewhat surprised that the OP was able to engage these centers though s/he says the booking was made by a TA.  I have had consistently positive experiences over many, many years with Silversea personal cruise consultants.  They may not give some perks available through Tasks, but they know the product and they can answer questions and resolve issues swiftly and authoritatively. 

[labrasett]

I dont understand this at all.   Individuals who book directly with SSC still have access to an SSC agent in their home country (or at least they do in US and UK and I believe through London for much of Europe).  The outsourced call centres are for contacts from independent TAs.   I also dont understand why the OP had such difficulty with the online system MySilversea through which the booking process is very easy although reservations may have all been taken at the time of trying to make a booking.

 

[QueSeraSera]

On 7/17/2024 at 3:21 PM, Observer said:

I have had consistently positive experiences over many, many years with Silversea personal cruise consultants.  They may not give some perks

same here @Observer - one of our original guides into Silversea and this forum, glad you're still around

 

9 hours ago, labrasett said:

I dont understand this at all.

 Me neither.  Always seeking clarity we have to hold on.

The song Silent Lucidity comes to mind if any remember it.

 

[sea bright]

See post # 16 on the Status Match Thread. It reports that (in the UK and Europe at least) Silversea PCC are now only for new bookings. All else goes through the call center.

[Mayflower1]

Thank you sea bright for bringing my Post elsewhere to the attention of this Topic. Yes I am told by my TA  that The London Office now only deals with New Bookings and any query/request thereafter must be dealt with by the Philippine Call Centre, which apparently is a great challenge ??

I have to admit that the Shoreside Experience with Silversea has always been its weakest link , but  this I fear will only make things worse.

[Host Jazzbeau]

So Silversea understands that the Philippine Call Centre isn’t good enough to handle the really important things (taking bookings = revenue) but once they have your money, poor service is good enough for you. 

[DavyWavey70]

26 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

So Silversea understands that the Philippine Call Centre isn’t good enough to handle the really important things (taking bookings = revenue) but once they have your money, poor service is good enough for you. 

I Think that sums it up quite well HJB. What they haven't taken into account is that inconveniencing TA's with what is appearing to be an ineffective and incompetent level of service will only lose them a multitude of bookings. I Know its early days but the new call centres seem to have been dropped in at the deep end with almost no knowledge of the product or brand. 

[MsCrystalina]

Sorry for this awful offshore call center decision. I am sick and tired of attempting to communicate with reps with poor command of the English language. And God help you if you ask a question that is not on their templates.  I used to work with a well-known health insurance plan that used 

workers in the Philippine's to format initial patient clinical cases in the system which were incomplete and of no help.    Sorry I am not politically correct, but it was hell!!     Anything for the bottom line.   I really feel sympathy for the TA's having to deal with this and it is sure to  backfire on those running SS now..    

Edited July 20 by MsCrystalina
word added

[expeditionexpert]

Hello my dear guests, friends

 

As a veteran SS cruise consultant, affected by this, I made the hard decision to take my knowledge to a competitor. RCL is a big believer in outsourcing and so were newly installed sales executives at SS. The sales floor was notified of outsourcing in January 2024 to Manilla beginning with the inbound lines. This news was a huge shock to us at SS, many of us immediately began to pre pare for the worse. Soon the lay off's and colleagues quitting and moving to competitors began. We moved to competitors in this segment of cruising who still believe in domestically knowledgeable cruise consultants to stay in house, luxury of planning this type of vacation which starts with your first contact experience.

 

It took years to build that sales department with hard to find cruise consultants that dedicated themselves to learn such a complex product, just to save a buck. TA heavily depends on internal knowledgeable cruise consultants and so do direct guests who ultimately had the luxury of having a consultant with heavy product knowledge in their back pocket in a corporate office. 

 

Calling direct customers or TA will be directed to an outsourced call center in Guatemala, Mexico, and manilla (main center). And online information requests on the website of any sort would be contacted by a limited domestic outbound sales department which remains in limited numbers (Miami,London, Sydney) and is partially manilla as they build that team and will soon replace the remaining domestic direct cruise consultants. 

 

With the ousting of Massimo, which is one of the ones responsible for this phase at SS, they may be reversing course, but maybe too little too late with depleted talent. Who knows.

 

I truly miss assisting my guests at SS. 

 

Best wishes to everyone. 

 

 

 

 

[Port Power]

17 minutes ago, expeditionexpert said:

Hello my dear guests, friends

 

As a veteran SS cruise consultant, affected by this, I made the hard decision to take my knowledge to a competitor. RCL is a big believer in outsourcing and so were newly installed sales executives at SS. The sales floor was notified of outsourcing in January 2024 to Manilla beginning with the inbound lines. This news was a huge shock to us at SS, many of us immediately began to pre pare for the worse. Soon the lay off's and colleagues quitting and moving to competitors began. We moved to competitors in this segment of cruising who still believe in domestically knowledgeable cruise consultants to stay in house, luxury of planning this type of vacation which starts with your first contact experience.

 

It took years to build that sales department with hard to find cruise consultants that dedicated themselves to learn such a complex product, just to save a buck. TA heavily depends on internal knowledgeable cruise consultants and so do direct guests who ultimately had the luxury of having a consultant with heavy product knowledge in their back pocket in a corporate office. 

 

Calling direct customers or TA will be directed to an outsourced call center in Guatemala, Mexico, and manilla (main center). And online information requests on the website of any sort would be contacted by a limited domestic outbound sales department which remains in limited numbers (Miami,London, Sydney) and is partially manilla as they build that team and will soon replace the remaining domestic direct cruise consultants. 

 

With the ousting of Massimo, which is one of the ones responsible for this phase at SS, they may be reversing course, but maybe too little too late with depleted talent. Who knows.

 

I truly miss assisting my guests at SS. 

 

Best wishes to everyone. 

 

 

 

 

Thank you very much for posting your first hand knowledge.  And welcome to Cruise Critic.  Please stay as a contributor and enjoy the conversations. They’re not all bad!  Mostly we enjoy our cruises, but perhaps this isn’t told often enough.  Thank you for working hard for your guests.  Hopefully you will confuse to do so with your new company.

Edited August 4 by Port Power

[dawntrdr]

7 hours ago, expeditionexpert said:

will soon replace the remaining domestic direct cruise consultants. 

Does this mean that the Miami cruise consultant I have worked with for many years will be let go?

[Lois R]

1 hour ago, dawntrdr said:

Does this mean that the Miami cruise consultant I have worked with for many years will be let go?

Hi Dawn, good question for sure........if that happens to my person? I am gone too. 

[expeditionexpert]

6 hours ago, dawntrdr said:

Does this mean that the Miami cruise consultant I have worked with for many years will be let go?

about 60% of the Miami consultants are gone. Because I've grown many years with these consultants, many who remain are already looking or have their exit plan ready. some are riding the wave until they are ousted. Companies like NCL (Regent), Viking, Crystal etc are pro domestic sales consultants and continue to grow the departments domestically. 

[expeditionexpert]

https://www.jobstreet.com.ph/job/77743185

[dawntrdr]

Two things missing from that job listing:  learn about the product and provide value to the customer.

[Observer]

2 hours ago, dawntrdr said:

Two things missing from that job listing:  learn about the product and provide value to the customer.

 

I might add another missing item: linguistic proficiency. 

[drron29]

6 hours ago, expeditionexpert said:

https://www.jobstreet.com.ph/job/77743185

Just Wow. more about meeting sales targets than customer satisfaction.

[Port Power]

1 hour ago, drron29 said:

Just Wow. more about meeting sales targets than customer satisfaction.

Notice the instruction to “upsell”.  Possibly this has always been the case, but it seems more a RCI instruction.  
 

As all staff are new employees and never in the cruise business, how can they immediately and effectively advise the customer of cruises that meet their needs?  Previously there would have been a mix of old and new employees, so assistance and advice available.  I wonder if these new recruits will ever get to @expeditionexpert’s standard?  Probably not under RCI conditions.

[Bobreg]

Note that there is no mention of salary.

When my wife was a teenager, she worked selling home demonstration of vacuum cleaner. She was paid on the basis of booking a home demonstration and also if the representative would sell a product.  In order to convince the customer to accept the demo, she had a sheet of the product characteristics and quality over competition.  In order to make money, she had to be creative 😔 in the way she would present the features.
They fired her after 3 weeks without any sale and no pay because she couldn't lie to the customer.

Whish the staff in Manilla will assist without bending the truth just to make money or exaggerate the features just to make a sale.

Food for thought.

 

[drron29]

5 hours ago, Bobreg said:

Note that there is no mention of salary.

When my wife was a teenager, she worked selling home demonstration of vacuum cleaner. She was paid on the basis of booking a home demonstration and also if the representative would sell a product.  In order to convince the customer to accept the demo, she had a sheet of the product characteristics and quality over competition.  In order to make money, she had to be creative 😔 in the way she would present the features.
They fired her after 3 weeks without any sale and no pay because she couldn't lie to the customer.

Whish the staff in Manilla will assist without bending the truth just to make money or exaggerate the features just to make a sale.

Food for thought.

 

The thing that really makes me want to end my relationship with Silversea is that no where in that job description is any mention of training by Silversea.

I am sure I have posted about my best experience with a call centre. It was for American Airlines and it was in Manila. I still remember the agent’s name- Crystal. She was on her first day in the job. However she had obviously had training by AA and she was eager to learn. I was initially thought that this would be a disaster as it was a complicated award problem when Malev stopped flying. She knew somethings I didn’t such as using KLM in an emergency. I also taught her all I knew about frequent flying.

 

I had a great result though she had to have it reviewed by a Supervisor in the US. A little later the supervisor rang me as she was surprised at the outcome and thought I must have been responsible but I gave credit to Crystal with just a little help from me.  
 

So American companies can have good Manila call centres if they want to. Obviously RCCL doesn’t want that.

[labrasett]

16 hours ago, dawntrdr said:

Two things missing from that job listing:  learn about the product and provide value to the customer.

Third thing missing    Ability to thoroughly understand and speak English language clearly and accurately and further European languages would be advantageous

[tfred]

None of this is any different from a phone support sales position for just about any type of company.

 

That said, SSea support will be just someone reading off a screen with no actual knowledge or nuances of product offerings. I don't think that any of the agents will have been on a cruise. The pax may have more knowledge than the phone agent. For this kind of money, I would expect top notch customer service