Where Do I Complain About the NCL Reservation Rep?

[MississippiMom]

I'm currently getting quotes on Spring Break 2019 cruises.  I have spoken to three different cruise lines.  The first two experiences were fabulous.  My third call was with NCL, who I would prefer to cruise with in March, but . . . DANG!!! . . . the rep that "helped" me was not useful AT ALL.  Not only did he act bothered that I was asking for price quotes, but he didn't ask to look up my past guest number, didn't offer to email me any information, really he didn't do anything that I couldn't find on-line.  I'm considering booking 5 cabins.  I don't think that I'm wasting HIS time.

 

I asked him if there were any past guest discounts during that Spring Break cruise and he sounded so annoyed that I would expect such a thing.  All I know is his first name, but someone at NCL needs to know that this one phone interaction may have tossed me back toward Carnival.  (Similar itineraries.)

[herdingdogmom]

For the first time we use a personal cruise consultant to book and she was really helpful.  Maybe try calling back and ask how to reach your personal cruise consultant - this type of booking would be right up their alley.

[MississippiMom]

2 minutes ago, herdingdogmom said:

For the first time we use a personal cruise consultant to book and she was really helpful.  Maybe try calling back and ask how to reach your personal cruise consultant - this type of booking would be right up their alley.

Thank you for this recommendation.  I did almost tell him to transfer me to someone else.  Guess I should have.

[tallnthensome]

That's a shame that you can't get good service when possibly spending thousands of dollars. Sounds like the rep wasn't happy to be back to work on Monday after Thanksgiving. On another note, why not just try and do various mock bookings on the website and get prices that way? Also a single past cruise on NCL isn't going to get you any discounts and won't on most lines. 

Edited November 26, 2018 by tallnthensome

[Feathercrest]

PUBLICRELATIONS@NCL.COM......include date and time of conversation

[MusterDrill55]

These are miserable minimum wage jobs. 

 

Just call back and get a different rep. Do you really want to possibly get someone fired before the holidays? 

[mjkacmom]

I’ve never heard of any past guest discounts, is that a thing? I do a mock booking online to compare prices, but always call to book (need connecting cabins).

[OCruisers]

Possibly consider having a Travel Agent who specializes in cruising to do it for you.  

[BirdTravels]

32 minutes ago, MississippiMom said:

Thank you for this recommendation.  I did almost tell him to transfer me to someone else.  Guess I should have.

Really doesn't make sense. If you were not getting the response you wanted, hang up. Call again. 

[cathi007]

1 hour ago, MusterDrill55 said:

These are miserable minimum wage jobs. 

 

Just call back and get a different rep. Do you really want to possibly get someone fired before the holidays? 

That is no excuse to be rude or not do your job in a polite manner. I worked customer service jobs for years and I was never rude because I didn't get paid well. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, do your job right or quit, but don't be rude to customers, I'm sure NCL would not be happy

[MusterDrill55]

1 minute ago, cathi007 said:

That is no excuse to be rude or not do your job in a polite manner. I worked customer service jobs for years and I was never rude because I didn't get paid well. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, do your job right or quit, but don't be rude to customers, I'm sure NCL would not be happy

Sure there are excuses. What if his kid is in the hospital, or his house is about to be foreclosed on, or he just found out his wife is cheating on him. We're all fighting our own battles, Cathi. 

 

Ask yourself, will your life be impacted in any way by taking the time and effort to possibly get someone fired? Your past work history aside, imagine the stress and trauma that losing your job can cause. Do you want to be the one who inflicts that on someone? I'm sorry this person thought they dealt with a rude rep, but they weren't harmed in any way. He didn't screw them out of a booking or lie to them or cause them to spend more money or something. 

 

Karma is real, and so is compassion. Unless someone's conduct is really egregious, going out of your way to make sure someone else has a harder time keeping a roof over there head isn't right. This person should just hang up the phone, call back, and deal with a different rep, and use the energy he/she would otherwise expend trying to cause harm to this poor minimum wage call center employee on improving their own lives or the lives of those around them. 

[cathi007]

2 minutes ago, MusterDrill55 said:

Sure there are excuses. What if his kid is in the hospital, or his house is about to be foreclosed on, or he just found out his wife is cheating on him. We're all fighting our own battles, Cathi. 

 

Ask yourself, will your life be impacted in any way by taking the time and effort to possibly get someone fired? Your past work history aside, imagine the stress and trauma that losing your job can cause. Do you want to be the one who inflicts that on someone? I'm sorry this person thought they dealt with a rude rep, but they weren't harmed in any way. He didn't screw them out of a booking or lie to them or cause them to spend more money or something. 

 

Karma is real, and so is compassion. Unless someone's conduct is really egregious, going out of your way to make sure someone else has a harder time keeping a roof over there head isn't right. This person should just hang up the phone, call back, and deal with a different rep, and use the energy he/she would otherwise expend trying to cause harm to this poor minimum wage call center employee on improving their own lives or the lives of those around them. 

No sorry I disagree. I have compassion trust me and I am not saying the guy should be fired. I am saying no ,atter what he is going through he should treat his potential customers with respect. I never said she should get him fired, but you said because it's a minimum wage job he has an excuse to treat customers that way and I totally disagree. We all have bad days, we all have personal problems, but if we work in the service industry we still have to put on a smile and serve the customer. Like I said I worked in the service industry for years and I always had to treat my customers with kindness and respect, even when they didn't treat me the same. If someone is having a bad day then call in sick, but there is never an excuse to treat someone the way he treated her. Again, I didn't say he should be fired, but if he's losing customers for the cruise line, he needs to be spoken to

[dubroben22]

I know my cruise consultant is always very pleasant , doesn't matter how many questions or quotes I ask him. I mostly do it over e-mail

[www3traveler]

Remember that when you call the toll free number, you could be talking to a call center anywhere.  That person may not be completely trained especially for Norwegian and may only know what their computer screens tell them.

 

There is call center 12 miles from my home in Northeastern Oregon that has a contract with Norwegian.  We are 300 plus miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.  I would guess that a good percent of the people employed by the call center have never seen a cruise ship in person or have ever been one.

[zqvol]

4 hours ago, MississippiMom said:

I'm currently getting quotes on Spring Break 2019 cruises.  I have spoken to three different cruise lines.  The first two experiences were fabulous.  My third call was with NCL, who I would prefer to cruise with in March, but . . . DANG!!! . . . the rep that "helped" me was not useful AT ALL.  Not only did he act bothered that I was asking for price quotes, but he didn't ask to look up my past guest number, didn't offer to email me any information, really he didn't do anything that I couldn't find on-line.  I'm considering booking 5 cabins.  I don't think that I'm wasting HIS time.

 

I asked him if there were any past guest discounts during that Spring Break cruise and he sounded so annoyed that I would expect such a thing.  All I know is his first name, but someone at NCL needs to know that this one phone interaction may have tossed me back toward Carnival.  (Similar itineraries.)

 

He gets nothing more for booking 5 cabins than he does for booking one.

 

Did you ask him to look up your past guest number? Did you tell him you had one? What information did you want e-mailed ? I can find everything that is needed  for a booking on line.

 

It seems the bottom line is that you didn't like the way he sounded on the phone, that is certainly not complaint worthy.

[david_sobe]

This is unfortunate.  I have booked cruises online, cold calling but now use my NCL PCC.  And guess how I found my NCL PCC?  It was a cold call to NCL.  I got really lucky.  She has worked directly with NCL for 15 years.  Now I only book with her.  If she does not answer the phone, I email her and she responds back.

I too had a miserable experience with a cold call to NCL. Once you find a good one who makes it their career, hold on to them.

[newmexicoNita]

12 hours ago, MississippiMom said:

I'm currently getting quotes on Spring Break 2019 cruises.  I have spoken to three different cruise lines.  The first two experiences were fabulous.  My third call was with NCL, who I would prefer to cruise with in March, but . . . DANG!!! . . . the rep that "helped" me was not useful AT ALL.  Not only did he act bothered that I was asking for price quotes, but he didn't ask to look up my past guest number, didn't offer to email me any information, really he didn't do anything that I couldn't find on-line.  I'm considering booking 5 cabins.  I don't think that I'm wasting HIS time.

 

I asked him if there were any past guest discounts during that Spring Break cruise and he sounded so annoyed that I would expect such a thing.  All I know is his first name, but someone at NCL needs to know that this one phone interaction may have tossed me back toward Carnival.  (Similar itineraries.)

As a retired manager of a very large reservations service I can assure you, this isn't an unusual situation. Our company was higher trained before an agent went our on the floor, the company was thought to be one of the best and the pay was far above min and yet, about 1/2 of the agents didn't want to work. It was a shame. Many of them are very young, some their first real job, and many have never traveled, seen a ship in this case and are just waiting until they can find a better job. The good ones move up quickly. 

[beerman2]

10 hours ago, cathi007 said:

No sorry I disagree. I have compassion trust me and I am not saying the guy should be fired. I am saying no ,atter what he is going through he should treat his potential customers with respect. I never said she should get him fired, but you said because it's a minimum wage job he has an excuse to treat customers that way and I totally disagree. We all have bad days, we all have personal problems, but if we work in the service industry we still have to put on a smile and serve the customer. Like I said I worked in the service industry for years and I always had to treat my customers with kindness and respect, even when they didn't treat me the same. If someone is having a bad day then call in sick, but there is never an excuse to treat someone the way he treated her. Again, I didn't say he should be fired, but if he's losing customers for the cruise line, he needs to be spoken to

Never had a "bad" day in your life?

Do you know for a fact the OP wasn't disrespectful themselves, for all we know is the OP's side. There are 2 sides to every story.

I'm guessing the "truth" is somewhere in between and probably not as bad as stated.

 

There is a thread going on Florida Departure boards about an incident with a hotel. The OP said the desk clerk was disrespectful. They got bumped from hotel because of overbooking. ( Booked through a 3rd party)  They weren't happy about it so their "tone" of voice more than likely was very nice either.

 

Treat someone with respect and you get treated the same, become agitated with someone , they will more than likely do the same.

 

[newmexicoNita]

11 hours ago, MusterDrill55 said:

These are miserable minimum wage jobs. 

 

Just call back and get a different rep. Do you really want to possibly get someone fired before the holidays? 

they are not miserable jobs and not always min wage. For some they are yucky jobs, for others they are good jobs, and sometimes with very good benefits. I can also add, with knowledge no one is going to get fired based on one complaint cause he wasn't pleasant If he has had other complaints, so be it. Now, I would say, I don't think I would report someone just because they were rude on the phone. For those of us who do a lot of business via the phone, we would be reporting a person a day I am sure. He didn't make any gross error and there are lots of ways to book a reservation so just let it go.  

[newmexicoNita]

19 minutes ago, beerman2 said:

Never had a "bad" day in your life?

Do you know for a fact the OP wasn't disrespectful themselves, for all we know is the OP's side. There are 2 sides to every story.

I'm guessing the "truth" is somewhere in between and probably not as bad as stated.

 

There is a thread going on Florida Departure boards about an incident with a hotel. The OP said the desk clerk was disrespectful. They got bumped from hotel because of overbooking. ( Booked through a 3rd party)  They weren't happy about it so their "tone" of voice more than likely was very nice either.

 

Treat someone with respect and you get treated the same, become agitated with someone , they will more than likely do the same.

 

It sounds like you didn't read my second posting on the subject. of course there are 2 sides to every story and believe me most customer service managers know this. When to speak to an employee is based on a lot of things. When to report someone is also based on a lot of things. If someone does complain, like the OP wants to do and the agent does not have a bad reputation already the chances are the complaint will stop with he supervisor who may not even bother with addressing it or do it in a way that no one is insulted 

[beerman2]

27 minutes ago, newmexicoNita said:

It sounds like you didn't read my second posting on the subject. of course there are 2 sides to every story and believe me most customer service managers know this. When to speak to an employee is based on a lot of things. When to report someone is also based on a lot of things. If someone does complain, like the OP wants to do and the agent does not have a bad reputation already the chances are the complaint will stop with he supervisor who may not even bother with addressing it or do it in a way that no one is insulted 

Not sure why you referenced me, my comments were to another poster ( Cathi007). However you are right and that was what I was saying to her.

[boatseller]

What information can you get by calling that isn't available at NCL.com?

 

 

[tallnthensome]

22 minutes ago, boatseller said:

What information can you get by calling that isn't available at NCL.com?

 

 

None, they could have done mock bookings on their own and received the answers or prices  they were seeking without getting another person involved. You enter your past guest or latitudes number and fill in the rest. 

[fshagan]

3 hours ago, newmexicoNita said:

they are not miserable jobs and not always min wage. For some they are yucky jobs, for others they are good jobs, and sometimes with very good benefits. I can also add, with knowledge no one is going to get fired based on one complaint cause he wasn't pleasant If he has had other complaints, so be it. Now, I would say, I don't think I would report someone just because they were rude on the phone. For those of us who do a lot of business via the phone, we would be reporting a person a day I am sure. He didn't make any gross error and there are lots of ways to book a reservation so just let it go.  

 

The PCCs in Florida earn about $10.46 an hour, about $2 above Florida minimum wage of $8.25:

 

[MississippiMom]

My goodness!  I didn't mean to stir up so much controversy.  I wasn't trying to get anyone fired. I just thought they needed more training.

 

I made three calls in a row - Carnival, RCCL, and Norwegian.  The two first experiences were great.  I was specifically needing two connecting cabins, plus three additional cabins nearby.  Both the Carnival rep and the Royal Caribbean rep looked over their inventory on the cruises I selected - 3 with CCL and 2 with RCCL - and gave me the deck and cabin numbers available to accommodate our multi-generational family.  Both reps asked me if anyone had sailed with them before, asked about any possible military guests, inquired about our residency (states), and asked if there were any seniors.  The CCL and RCCL reps provided me with the required deposit amounts, and gave me the final payment dates.  The RCCL rep even talked to me about one of our selected cruises, and recommended that I investigate it further, because he had some concern that it might not be the best for our younger family members, and didn't want us disappointed.  Both CCL and RCCL followed up with emails to thank me for my inquiries, and to give me the price quotes in writing.  (I did not ask for this, it was just automatic.)

 

The NCL rep did NONE of the above, and I was only inquiring about 1 sailing.  He provided me with general prices for interior and oceanview cabins, and told me that he couldn't give me decks or cabin numbers.  When I asked about the final payment date, if we were to proceed, I was informed that the full payment would be due at booking, because we were within the 120 day window.  For me, that was the most frustrating part of the conversation.  It was already within final payment time, but the NCL rep wasn't going to give me cabin numbers and wasn't even going to tell me that full payment would be required.  That's just all kinds of WRONG.

 

In case you are curious, I did NOT complain directly to Norwegian Cruise Line.  After the turn of this thread, I thought I should leave the poor guy alone.

Edited November 27, 2018 by MississippiMom