Celebrity Cruise Agents not answering their phones

[Whinenowine]

On 7/18/2022 at 4:13 PM, Host Anne said:

 

The problem is that customer service isn't better anywhere else.  Try flying or doing business with hotels. If poor customer service was costing companies business these days, many of them would be out of business.  Unfortunately, it's not.  I've often said if we want something to change, stop spending money on it.  We don't seem to be able to do that.

 

Good customer service is a victim of the pandemic and rising labor costs. While experiences will vary, I think we can mostly agree that across the board customer service really fell off a cliff in the last couple of years, understandably so.  My biggest fear is that it will stay that way for a long period of time because right now companies can get away with it.  All of us consumers continue to consume their products despite this drop off in service (hotels, airlines, cars, cruises, cable tv, telecom, retail, etc), and as long as that consumption continues, companies will continue to under-fund their customer service areas--simple because they can.  

 

At some point some upscale company will change course to make great customer service a competitive advantage once again and the pendulum will swing back towards good service....but when will that be?  A year? 3 years? Longer?

[LGW59]

2 hours ago, Whinenowine said:

 

Good customer service is a victim of the pandemic and rising labor costs. While experiences will vary, I think we can mostly agree that across the board customer service really fell off a cliff in the last couple of years, understandably so.  My biggest fear is that it will stay that way for a long period of time because right now companies can get away with it.  All of us consumers continue to consume their products despite this drop off in service (hotels, airlines, cars, cruises, cable tv, telecom, retail, etc), and as long as that consumption continues, companies will continue to under-fund their customer service areas--simple because they can.  

 

At some point some upscale company will change course to make great customer service a competitive advantage once again and the pendulum will swing back towards good service....but when will that be?  A year? 3 years? Longer?

Good customer service is a victim of the pandemic and rising labor costs.  Come on, people have been talking/complaining about customer service (or the perceived lack of) for years and years, well before the pandemic.  How many times have we all heard the "I called CSR and they were in X country and I could barely understand them" yada yada, this is absolutely NOT new or pandemic specific.  It is a low paying and thankless job much of the time, these folks, no matter where they are in any country, just want to do their job, have a happy customer when possible (many customers make it almost not possible) especially if they can't resolve the reason for calling to the utmost perfection.  Sometimes folks equate "bad" service as they could not get what they wanted so it is someone else fault.  Yes, today especially service is slower but it is not because people don't want to do their jobs, the volume of calls from we sitting in our homes calling for often times frivolous stuff, the list goes on and on.  My personal experience has almost always been positive, I think we all just need to be a bit more patient and understanding, our first world problems will be and mostly are addressed.  

[jelayne]

I just called the Enhancements number at 2:30pm today.  Hold time was 11 minutes.  I upgraded our beverage packages and 1 of the internet package.  The man answering was very professional put me on hold so he could work on my request, did the beverage package and then returned to advise the amount and then back on hold  while he worked up the wi-fi.  Came back with cost of wi-fi and the total for both wi-fi and beverage package.  Sent the confirmation and waited until I received the confirmation to make sure it was correct.  Total time 24 minutes.  I was very pleased.

[thomasrpokorny]

On 7/22/2022 at 1:14 PM, jelayne said:

I just called the Enhancements number at 2:30pm today.  Hold time was 11 minutes.  I upgraded our beverage packages and 1 of the internet package.  The man answering was very professional put me on hold so he could work on my request, did the beverage package and then returned to advise the amount and then back on hold  while he worked up the wi-fi.  Came back with cost of wi-fi and the total for both wi-fi and beverage package.  Sent the confirmation and waited until I received the confirmation to make sure it was correct.  Total time 24 minutes.  I was very pleased.

What is the "enhancements" number @jelayne?  I've tried the Blue Chip Club number and have generally had 2+ hour wait times.