Any One In Favor of Having Seattle Issue Its Own Company Satisfaction Survey

[Sea King]

ask any crew person the impact an on-board survey can have and you'll undoubtedly get an answer somewhere along the line "it can make or break an entire cruise; Seattle reads each comment and if we don't achieve a certain level, they want to know why"

 

but what about "Seattle" themselves

 

when you can call to book a cruise, reserve a table, make a reservation for Pinnacle, ask a question about flights, try to reserve a particular dining time or table or voice a complaint, did you ever get a survey asking you the name of the person you spoke to, how your request was handled, whether you were satisfied or how the service could have been improved

 

if on-board surveys are that critical, why doesn't Seattle mail (or email) questionnaires to those who have dealt directly with "headquarters"?

 

if it's good for the goose, then why not for the gander

 

what do you think?

[Krazy Kruizers]

I like your idea. All too often we all have read here about problems some people have had with Seattle. But to whom would we send that survey to? Do you think the "heads" would take time to read them?

 

Many times I have doubted that they read all those surveys that we turn in at the end of a cruise. That is a huge number to read.

[grannynurse]

The only problems we have encountered on Hal have to do with the communication between Seattle and the ship. It almost seems like there is a communication break down. I'm really in favor of your proposal.

GN

[jhannah]

That sounds good to me. I think they might be a little disappointed to learn the perception of their home office customer service.

[CDRMark]

If they care about the performance of the customer service phone reps (a-ha! different topic), it is easy enough for them to track ("This call may be monitored for quality control"). In any organization that deals with customers this is the easier part of the equation than the "field" contact with customers which is difficult to supervise. No feedback necessary on fone reps; direct knowledge is available.

We kiddingly talk about the need to hire one person per employee in a customer service company, to stand behind the customer contact employee with a pad, pen, and stick. :)

Cheers

Mark

[Tricia724]

My former employer (utility) did just that on several occasions.....took a telephone survey of customers' satisfaction. They hired an outside firm to call back customers who had previously called the company for any number of reasons, such as to set up an account, report service problems, make complaints, address billing concerns, etc. With computers, caller ID, and phone records, it's easy to keep track of who's calling you.

 

Through a random selection process, customers were asked to participate in a follow-up to their initial contact, and if willing, would be asked questions regarding how quickly their calls were taken, whether they were treated politely, whether they received a satisfactory answer/solution to their inquiry/problem, and their general impressions.....followed by an opportunity to make any comments they chose about their experience.

 

In the end all of the employees received a copy of the summary, and the surprise was that for the most part, we received good marks. Of course, every customer wasn't happy with us, and some had good reason not to be. But it was easy to see which employees in which department were being good representatives for the company and which ones were falling down on the job. Some of our employees were then slated for additional training.....or as we called it "charm school."

 

This is an expensive undertaking, however, and probably works better on a smaller or regional company, but even a company the size of HAL could do random samplings periodically to give them some input to their customer satisfaction or lack thereof. The bottom line is that it only works if the Company really wants to know.

[gizmo]

The only problems we have encountered on Hal have to do with the communication between Seattle and the ship. It almost seems like there is a communication break down. I'm really in favor of your proposal.

GN

 

I agree. Most problems I have had were between Seattle and the ship.

 

I have only encountered one rude and nasty person and that was on a ship. It was handled on the comment card.

[bepsf]

I love your idea - and it's not that difficult to implement - there are short surveys that can be answered via touchtone, or via even e-mail (Zoomerang is a very common online survey machine)

[jhannah]

The only problem with "this call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes" is the MAY. Your interaction may or may not ever be heard by a supervisor. I think the polling of callers is a good idea.