Another cut back! Personal Cruise consultants have been removed from the call centre

P&O have decided to do away with Personal Cruise Consultants effective from the 5th June. If like me you have a specific contact in the call centre who guides you through the process of buying your next cruise, makes sure you get the cabin of choice when the new brochure is on sale and so on, you can forget it from now on. P&O or shall we say Carnival have decided to do away with this role as from last Monday and, from now on you will only be able to book a cruise by speaking to whoever is available in the call centre. All Personal Cruise Consultants have been merged into the contact centre and are no longer able to ‘look after you’. Clearly the new call centre managers have decided that Personal Cruise Consultants take too much time with calls from ‘regulars cruisers’ and by merging them into the call centre the transactions will be swifter as there is no personal interaction. Clearly this is another ‘cut back’ to reduce the number of tele sales folk that they employ.

For some folk it won’t mean a lot, but if you are a regular P&O cruiser who has a specific contact who understands your requirements, books your chosen cabin/suite at 8.00 am on first day of brochure launch, then forget it.

Seems to me that to get that personal service now we will need to book via a Travel Agent. Maybe this is not going to be such a bad idea as Travel Agents will give you up to 5% additional discount on your cruise booking, dependant on the spend and frequency you use them.

Interestingly it is not so many years ago that P&O tried to block Travel Agents by reducing their commissions in an attempt to woo passengers to call to the contact centre direct.

Left out

If they feel the need to cut services to save money, this seems like a sensible option. I always book direct with P&O by calling the call centre. Always get good service, even if I have never spoken to the agent before. If I need to communicate about an existing booking, or them with me, I know that all I need to do is pick up the phone and speak to them directly rather than having to go through a middle man (travel agent).

Oh no!! I am devastated if this is true.... :(

Have used PCC's a few times over the years and, frankly, they were hopeless.

Never got back to us quickly and didn't sort anything out.

We've always had a much better service dealing with the main line people. They're always extremely helpful and sort out problems quickly.

We recently had a problem with a booking which was sorted out within seconds by a main line person when the PCC hadn't been able to and had, in fact, upset us.

However, I'm sure there are many people that will miss them.

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Clearly a very good reason for using a good 'cruise travel agent'.

Having done nearly 30 cruises with P&O since 2000 have never spoken or known that I have a Personal Cruise Consultant. Would never book direct with P&O purely because I think you get the personal touch from a TA and also because they are nearly always cheaper than booking direct.

Very similar to Celebrity UK actions a few years ago. We met one of their agents at a cruise show, and she really looked after us booking direct, even getting us a free overnight cruise on Equinox when she called in Southampton.

When they outsourced most of the call centre work in the UK, she started up as an agent for an UK online agent, and we still use her, as she can now offer us cruises with other lines, and all other types of holidays.

We would definitely miss ours as we have always had ' the personal touch ' and fantastic service from ours and from his predecessor.

The counter argument would be that any member of the call centre should be able to deal with the call just as well as the Consultant.

PR fluff out of the way.. there is the downside that - as others have said - there will be the distinct lack of a personal touch and its likely that it will just become a bog-standard call centre.

It's a shame that they have chosen to cut such a service. I hope that these staff are still employed and not been laid off.

As a matter of interest was that a part of a loyalty benefit?

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Never used one, won't be missed. As Dai says a good travel agent is all you need.

Really sorry to hear this, we have had an excellent Personal cruise specialist, been very happy to book our cruises directly with her. Had mixed experience through the call centre. Not all are as good as others.

That's a shame. I shall miss speaking to mine. She was always very helpful, and she had a lovely voice as well.

I've had 2 Personal cruise specialists. The first one was the best but the second one nevertheless got me exactly what I wanted and it was nice to speak to someone who knew me and my cruising history. I'm very sorry to hear this and will have to think how I book in future.:(

CCFC - I agree that you cannot miss what you never had - but as we have had it, we will sorely miss it. I am hoping that this is just a rumour. Florry - I can't quite remember how I got mine a few years ago, but I think I had phoned P&O with questions prior to making a booking and a PCS phoned me back - and that was it.

Always had excellent service from the Call Centre, it will be business as usual for us. Only problem I have ever had was when dealing with the Flight Department (!!) and also from Christopher Edgington's office. Have tried a couple of travel agents but they were pretty clueless and offered no incentive to book with them.

I have always preferred booking direct. I do not like booking through travel agents and like NauticalMiss, I have never been impressed by any TA nor been offered any incentive to make me change my mind. My Personal Cruise Specialist is a great compromise as we book direct and have the personal touch.

We prefer to use a cruise specialist TA and have a dedicated contact that we always use who gives us excellent service plus extra discounts, and with the added benefit that she can book other cruise lines for us as well, which means we only need one contact for all our cruise holiday, of course if you only cruise P&O this will not matter.

Sorry to come across a bit 'thick' but what are they and what do they do?

Is it a loyalty perk?

We either use our Travel Agent (to get any discounts) or book direct, as we tend to do our homework ourselves anyway.

Sorry to come across a bit 'thick' but what are they and what do they do?

Is it a loyalty perk?

We either use our Travel Agent (to get any discounts) or book direct, as we tend to do our homework ourselves anyway.

A PCS is (or was?) an allocated/named employee at P&O who books/advises on your P&O Cruises and looks after your booking. I like having a named person to contact who knows me and my cruising history and preferences to make my bookings and my choices and to ask questions of and discuss things with and to contact if any problems or issues. I don't think it is a loyalty perk as such as I am not in a high loyalty tier. I have done a lot of P&O cruises, but I haven't done lots of long ones, so I don't have the requisite points for the higher tiers of the Peninsular Club. I have always booked direct though - right from a ship's visit several years ago - and as I said in an earlier post, a few cruises in ( booked direct) I had phoned with a few questions about something and got a call back from one - and it went from there. I guess they are a kind of P&O TA really with whom you can build up a relationship. You don't get discounts from them though...

Although we have one, who made a big point of calling to introduce herself and sending us her business card, she has never, ever been there to speak to when we've called. We've always ended up dealing with whoever happened to answer the phone. Our PCC always follows up this call, usually to ask why we haven't booked or to try to sell us another cruise. We'd only been back from our 2015 Christmas Caribbean cruise one day when she was on the phone asking when we wanted to book again! She's never seemed to be particularly helpful, or knowledgeable.

And yes, Port Out, it is only about 3-4 years since P&O tried to cut out a lot of travel agents, including the one we had used. They appear to have relented in the last 12 months, as our old TA started advertising P&O Cruises again, so we have booked for this year through the TA. Our PCC phoned up to ask why we had not gone direct to her, and I replied - honestly - that the TA was also quoting us for cruises with other lines. That brought the call to a quick end.

My TA is so fantastic, I wouldn't dream of booking with P&O direct. I get extra discount, personal service, and everything we want.

Seems we used to have one and they were very good but hardly ever used them to actually book, preferring to use a very good TA.

Assuming that the PCC's are just being absorbed into the call centre staff it seems silly that they could not continue to operate much as before.

When we ring our TA we are answered by the first available agent, if we want to speak to our regular contact we request to be transferred or called back if they are busy, if we need an urgent answer we can ask the agent who picked up our call.

I doubt that this causes our TA much concern or inconvenience, otherwise they would not propose this option, so why can't P&O do the same, it does seem that they are constantly trying to irritate customers rather than try to provide top quality customer service.

I have spoken with my PCS and although there are indeed changes in his role he advised that he will still be our PCS - so I am very happy.