Horrendous Customer Service

[chickie_mite]

I didn't read the entire thread but I did see that the OP booked on another cruiseline. Glad they made some other arrangements and hope they have a fabulous cruise. (no sarcasm)

 

Now, having worked in the service industry I can assure you that if you are nice to those on the other end of the phone, they will most likely do their best to get you what you ask. If you are rude, yelling and/or demanding they will do little to nothing to help you. It's just that simple.

 

^^ This.

 

I suspect this is why Guest Relations hung up on him/her in the first place.

[dprg644]

To the O.P.

I do feel your pain on having your cruise cancelled. And I can relate to it being hard to get the same time off for you and whomever you are traveling with. But to expect the cruise line to buy your airfare and hotel cost is just delusional. Perhaps the phone rep "accidentally" hung up when she felt badgered into a corner and did not know what to say.

I always try to remember that phone reps, food servers, bank tellers, etc. are human beings and not machines. No she should not have hung up but perhaps you can remember a time at your work when you had a human moment.

How much customer service do you realistically expect when you are cruising for $ 55.00 per person per day.

 

 

Tom in Long Beach

 

I agree with most of your post but this last line floors me. So if I get a more expensive cabin I should get better customer service:eek::confused::eek: Customer service is customer service good or bad and should not depend on which catorgory of cabin you book.

[salty dingo]

I think the OP is either a prankster, or just has no business sense whatsoever.

 

They booked a bargain-basement fare and they want to transfer it to another ship in another market, PLUS they want Carnival to help with airfare and hotel?

 

Did they not, for a minute, consider getting all their money back and calling it even. There are an infinite amount of other things to do on the vacation if they cannot reschedule it.

 

Seems to me the OP was hoping that the disappointment of a cancelled cruise would result in them going on another cruise for no extra cost. Sorry, things just don't work that way.

 

It's not bad customer service... it's bad customer!

[Sdallnct]

A shame for everyone who will miss out on their trips.

 

As for the OP, we all know there are people who are good at their job and people who are not. Even companies with a reputation for outstanding customer service (think maybe Apple, GE, etc) will have some individuals who screw up or have themselves a bad day. Doesn't it make it right and not making excuses. But also doesn't represent the entire company.

[astros77]

(That is a crock of you know what as they monitor and tape all calls for quality and safety reasons.)

 

Safety reasons?

[dan40]

We received an e-mail today from Carnival informing us that our November 7th Pride cruise out of Baltimore has been cancelled!!!!! In and of itself, that was a real bummer, but what happened when we called Carnival was horrendous and has put us off from cruising with Carnival in the future.

 

We booked this cruise several months ago to take advantage of the super saver fare offering and also to fit with our very tough to schedule vacation time. We watched the price drop from $469 pp down to a low of $389 pp (lower deck inside cabin, but we don't need a balcony every trip). All was well until the e-mail from Carnival arrive today.

 

We called Carnival to find out why the cruise was cancelled and to see what other arrangements we could make and what Carnival was going to do in the way of making good on this rotten situation. At first the representative who answered was polite and commiserated with us but when we started to inquire as to what other cruises were available and what Carnival would do to honor the fact we booked early to allow us to get such a low fare, the representative gave us all kinds of options from other ports requiring airline and hotel costs. When we inquired if Carnival was going to pick up these costs the representative started to laugh. When asked fro her name, she hung up.

 

An immediate follow up call to a supervisor was courteous, yet she stated that there was no way to trace our previous call as the representative did not properly 'code' the call. (That is a crock of you know what as they monitor and tape all calls for quality and safety reasons.) To make a long story short, we are getting a refund, never booking again on Carnival, and writing a letter to the president of Carnival ex pressing our displeasure with the cancellation but more importantly the horrendous service we received.

 

 

I believe the disclaimer says, "Your call MAY be monitored or,,,,,,,,,"

 

And we can only guess how many thousands of calls they received about this in addition to their normal thousands of calls.

[The4Cruisers]

Where I work, calls to the Cust Service and the other customer facing departments are recorded as well. However, there is a criteria of information needed to pull up the recording of a specific call upon request. To call right back and demand a supervisor pull one of X number of calls is not an instantaneous task.

 

But of course, I forgot, this is Carnival he's calling, so they must be wrong. That's the way it is with some folks. :eek:

[ryoku]

I believe the disclaimer says, "Your call MAY be monitored or,,,,,,,,,"

 

And we can only guess how many thousands of calls they received about this in addition to their normal thousands of calls.

 

Exactly, I don't know how Carnival does it but it would be nearly impossible for my company to find your call unless they knew who you spoke to. Calls are monitored but they can't possibly listen to every single call especially when something like this happens. I personally wouldn't let 1 bad rep ruin my rep for a company. Call back, ask for a super, explain what happened so they know your upset, listen to the apology, then move on with getting your situation fixed. Harping on something is not going to solve anything.