On board questionnaires

Just returned from Ventura Sunday. About 3 days before the end of the cruise, the cabin stewards were knocking on the doors and giving the questionnaires out. We were just leaving the cabin when we got ours with a remark saying she hoped she had been excellent (this was the only reference to her mark). I noticed that the cs further down the ship and the one on the other side of the stairs was also knocking on doors. On returning the cs gave someone else theirs in the hand, so they didn't leave them if you weren't in.

Every other piece of paper work including the account was left in the holder outside of the room. So is this P&O's way to get you to tip them.

If you don't mark them excellent they don't get their bonus funded by the service charge.

It makes the whole questionnaire pointless.

Just returned from Ventura Sunday. About 3 days before the end of the cruise, the cabin stewards were knocking on the doors and giving the questionnaires out. We were just leaving the cabin when we got ours with a remark saying she hoped she had been excellent (this was the only reference to her mark). I noticed that the cs further down the ship and the one on the other side of the stairs was also knocking on doors. On returning the cs gave someone else theirs in the hand, so they didn't leave them if you weren't in.

Every other piece of paper work including the account was left in the holder outside of the room. So is this P&O's way to get you to tip them.

No its the staffs way of making sure you know the importance to them of the ratings you give on the form. Poor ratings mean trouble for the staff. The problem is that this type of form is not accurate. Staff need everything to be marked excellent therefore P&O really learn nothing. If customers were able to be honest and put in where they feel things could be better then there may be learning involved. However because people like to be nice they tend to only put the positives.

I find it very difficult to believe that every passenger marks excellent, which logically would indicate that very few stewards will get this bonus.

No its the staffs way of making sure you know the importance to them of the ratings you give on the form. Poor ratings mean trouble for the staff. The problem is that this type of form is not accurate. Staff need everything to be marked excellent therefore P&O really learn nothing. If customers were able to be honest and put in where they feel things could be better then there may be learning involved. However because people like to be nice they tend to only put the positives.

Agreed. The cruise is ending, passengers are mellow - unless there have been severe problems (in which case people should have sought resolution through Hotel Services) why take action which might hit the steward in the pocket?

Simply demonstrates what a useless system it is

Sorry about the size of the text for my post above. I wrote it on my Kindle and it looked fine on there. Hopefully this won't be as big.

PLEASE don't turn this into another tipping thread.

This cruise for the first time I did not fill in the on board questionnaire nor do I intend completing the on line one, for the simple reason that I could never give excellent unless there was nothing the cs could have improved on, which I have never experienced yet. But neither do I want to be influential in setting their grading for the service reward bonus, especially as I will no longer be contributing to this.

This cruise for the first time I did not fill in the on board questionnaire nor do I intend completing the on line one, for the simple reason that I could never give excellent unless there was nothing the cs could have improved on, which I have never experienced yet. But neither do I want to be influential in setting their grading for the service reward bonus, especially as I will no longer be contributing to this.

I am concerned about this. I would rather not fill in these forms. I am in holiday. Often I feel pressure (not so bad on P&O) to give excellent which annoys me. Also P and O are not really interested in my opinion (otherwise they would be keeping Oriana).

I am concerned that if I do not fill in my form it will be scored low rather than not present. My steward will not have got an excellent from me. I would not want my reluctance to fill in the form to be held against my steward.

Does anybody know if this is the case?

Best wishes, Stephen.

PS. I let my partner fill in our form. When she ask what to put I grumpily say Excellent for everything.

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This cruise for the first time I did not fill in the on board questionnaire nor do I intend completing the on line one, for the simple reason that I could never give excellent unless there was nothing the cs could have improved on, which I have never experienced yet. But neither do I want to be influential in setting their grading for the service reward bonus, especially as I will no longer be contributing to this.

Did they knock on your door and hand it to you. Just wondering if they all did so, or just our floor.

Also stupid they only give one form per cabin.

Questionnaires should be to find out what was great and what could be improved. If that is not their purpose then they are frankly a pointless waste of time from a customers perspective.

From P&O perspective they can use them for a variety of reasons.

- As a carrot / stick for staff.

- As a marketing tool eg 99% of customers on P&O mark excellent for everything.

- As an excuse to say “our customers have said they want” and we all know they use this one as and when it suits them

Personally I am at the point of just not wasting my time filling it in.

We had a survey half way through the cruise, the questionnaire a couple of day before the end and then, because we had removed tips, we got a letter and another form to ask why we had removed them. We threw that one in the bin. While I am on holiday, I don't want to spend my time doing paperwork. Really annoys me.

I never give 'excellent' or 10/10 unless it's merited and it's seldom that that's the case. I'll be honest on the form or not bother. On our cruise in June (on Oriana) we just binned it. If I thought it was a useful exercise rather than a blunt instrument to beat the staff with I might take it more seriously.

Just returned from Ventura Sunday. About 3 days before the end of the cruise, the cabin stewards were knocking on the doors and giving the questionnaires out. We were just leaving the cabin when we got ours with a remark saying she hoped she had been excellent (this was the only reference to her mark). I noticed that the cs further down the ship and the one on the other side of the stairs was also knocking on doors. On returning the cs gave someone else theirs in the hand, so they didn't leave them if you weren't in.

Every other piece of paper work including the account was left in the holder outside of the room. So is this P&O's way to get you to tip them.

They have been doing this for several years, since the new service reward scheme came in.

Be aware, that despite what you may read on other threads, the stewards will not have their pay docked unless they get a certain percentage of excellent marks. The stewards may word their request to give this impression. In fact it is a BONUS which will be paid if that certain percentage of excellent marks is reached.

I’ve had the steward do this on every cruise since 2015. I’ve always put excellent for the steward but I don’t put ‘excellent ‘ for everything on there.

My friend said there should have been a ‘very good’ option between the ‘good’ and ‘excellent ‘!

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Also stupid they only give one form per cabin.

I went on my most recent cruise with a friend and we did the survey together. However, as she was the lead booker she got the big questionnaire after we got home. I was a bit miffed about this as I would have liked to fill one of those out. For example, she’s not bothered about sport but I was very disappointed Sky sports news no longer on cabin TVs but, of course, she didn’t mention it! (I would have put it on while she was in shower!!)

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These questionnaires used to be accompanied by instructions on how complete them and the wording went something like this "If we are getting it right most of the time tick excellent" , which used to annoyed me intensely. To get an excellent score from me you have to exceed my expectations. Also there is very little room on these questionnaires to give any meaningful feed back. If I am scoring low I like to explain my reasons.

These questionnaires used to be accompanied by instructions on how complete them and the wording went something like this "If we are getting it right most of the time tick excellent" , which used to annoyed me intensely. To get an excellent score from me you have to exceed my expectations. Also there is very little room on these questionnaires to give any meaningful feed back. If I am scoring low I like to explain my reasons.

Yes, that always annoyed me. I think they need to have got it right all of the time to be ‘excellent’. If they only got it right most of the time, that isn’t even ‘good’!

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Yes, that always annoyed me. I think they need to have got it right all of the time to be ‘excellent’. If they only got it right most of the time, that isn’t even ‘good’!

 

 

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For me getting it right all the time is what I would expect and would rate satisfactory, exceeding this some of the time would be good but to get excellent the cs would need to be far more pro-active than any I have ever encountered.

For me getting it right all the time is what I would expect and would rate satisfactory, exceeding this some of the time would be good but to get excellent the cs would need to be far more pro-active than any I have ever encountered.

Yes, you are right.

We came back on Sunday and we were asked if we were happy with everything, with regards to our steward, yes we were - best Steward yet in 15 cruises [emoji4]. We were honest with both the questionnaires, happy with everything except the overall entertainment. Not trying to open up tipping thread, and am not going into detail on what we did, but having reduced our automatic gratuities rather than removing them we seem to have avoided the letter.

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