Totally unimpressed with MSC non-cruise customer service

[erdoran]

I filled out their web form a week ago for status match.  It wasn't clear whether or not the form submitted properly, so I followed up with an email.  Zero response.  Today I emailed a followup.  Nothing.  The auto-reply gave a phone number to call , so I called it.  After multiple prompts to get to "further info about Voyagers Club" and 10 or so mins waiting on hold, I got a live person.  I explained why I was calling and she asked me for my BOOKING NUMBER!  I explained again and said I wasn't booking until I had my status match, so I could get my discount, and she told me how they were only open during the week - OK, so then why put me through all the prompts, why not just say so?

 

So then I asked to be transferred to the YC line because I had some questions and of course she offered to answer them. "Do you have any Greek Islands cruises with YC availability?"  "What ship and sailing date?"   Um....I had just finished explaining how hard their website is to search, and asked HER to help me find something.  Strike 2.  So after I explained once again what I wanted, gave date etc I got put BACK on hold for 10 more mins, after which she told me there are no YC ships doing Greek islands.  

 

Yeah, I know wasting 20 mins on something that an agent who wasn't totally clueless could have taken care of in 30 seconds is minor in the scheme of things, but this is NOT a good start to switching to MSC.  Between my status match request being ignored, this clueless rep and the clueless rep I got a couple of weeks ago when I called with some YC question (I forget what it was now) I'm totally unimpressed.  One bad rep - ok.  Two bad reps - is this a pattern?

[cruisingberger]

You are right. MSC has a really bad customer service department. I wish they would take notice and figure out how to fix this issue. On our recent Armonia cruise the captain talked about how MSC is bringing more ships to the US and they plan to offer a huge product here in the future. I wish them luck. If they don't manage to get this under control I can't imagine customers will put up with this long term.  

[erdoran]

Yeah, the website is so tedious and time-consuming to search I've given up trying to search it.  What YC prices I saw were OK I guess, but the deluxe YC suite seems smaller than NCL PH Haven suite.  IF I could find a Royal Suite with hot tub I would be excited to consider booking it, but unless I go into every single sailing of every single itinerary I may be interested in I'm not going to even be able to find a price, and hey, I do NOT have that kind of time, and it's a bit unreasonable for me to email a TA and say "send me a list of every MSC sailing over the next 2 years for any of the following itineraries that has hot tub Royal Suite availability, and the price for each" if I have no idea if I would book it - I kinda need a price range first.

 

 

[CarolR]

Don't give up on the status match.  We booked a European cruise with MSC on the US site and it took about 10 emails and a few phonecalls before we got confirmation that we had the status match.  The people on the phone were nice enough but their website is an unmitigated disaster.  If they want to make inroads in North America then they need to overhaul their website so it works.  We have to keep resetting the password to sign in and then it does not work . We are trying to prepay the WIFI and when you click on that tab all you get is info on the spa services.   If it wasn't for the amazing itinerary, I would have canceled and rebooked with someone else and lost my deposit.  Thats how frustrated we have been with their ridiculous website.

 

[scpirate]

I had no problem when I called them last month.maybe I should have bought a lottery ticket that day.

[Epos Man]

it does seem as though the US website is the one with all the problems the UK one has its issues but noyhing compared to the problems i hear about the US one

[TomC21]

I had a similar problem a few months ago when I submitted for the status match on their website. I submitted copies of my wife’s and my diamond status on Royal Caribbean. My wife received an email about a week later confirming her black status and was given a identification number. I gave it another week before I called about my status match. They had no record of my submission and was told to resubmit. I did this again and waited another week. After not hearing, I called again and was put on hold for about 10 minutes while it was being researched. The service agent said she saw it in the computer, but didn’t know why I hadn’t received notification. She ended up giving me my identification number over the phone. I promptly entered the identification number it into my MSC account and it showed up. They obviously have kinks in the system. So I would keep calling and maybe ask for a supervisor if problems keep happening.