Princess Customer Service is Abysmal

[Squire5000]

The subject topic says it all.  From trying to communicate with people you can’t understand or understand you; to people who can’t make a simple reservation, charge your credit card and than cancel the reservation and the charge at the same time; to getting a customer service representative on the phone who has kids screaming in the background and claims she can’t hear you, perhaps because of the kids, and terminates your call, that today is Princess customer service.

 

I fully understand that finding competent help can be difficult to hire these days, especially with whatI imagine are not high paying jobs.  Notwithstanding    those issues, the customer service representative is the face of Princess, one who we turn to to make reservations, solve a problem, etc.  When a company fails, as Princess has, to realize this critical element of how a company is perceived by it’s customers, actual and potential, those people will quickly turn to a competitor.

[memoak]

4 minutes ago, Squire5000 said:

The subject topic says it all.  From trying to communicate with people you can’t understand or understand you; to people who can’t make a simple reservation, charge your credit card and than cancel the reservation and the charge at the same time; to getting a customer service representative on the phone who has kids screaming in the background and claims she can’t hear you, perhaps because of the kids, and terminates your call, that today is Princess customer service.

 

I fully understand that finding competent help can be difficult to hire these days, especially with whatI imagine are not high paying jobs.  Notwithstanding    those issues, the customer service representative is the face of Princess, one who we turn to to make reservations, solve a problem, etc.  When a company fails, as Princess has, to realize this critical element of how a company is perceived by it’s customers, actual and potential, those people will quickly turn to a competitor.

Just one more reason to use a CVP rather than a random person

[thinfool]

Hard as it may be for some to believe, cruise companies actually prefer that you use a TA.  Usually you can mitigate any difficulties that accompany  offshore call centers with someone fairly local.  Even if they are across the country.  Direct booking was instituted as an accomodation, not as a preferred method.

For me, that, coupled with the fact that TA's have access to cruise companies that the average customer lacks, makes a TA an effective choice.

Example: a few years ago Carnival Cruises thought they could go it alone, didn't need to encourage TA bookings.  Short end....bookings fell so drastically that they had to reverse course.  

Princess actually has a spot on their webpage to 'find a travel professional'.

[Lady Arwen]

I can’t even imagine not having my own CVP (aka PVP) to take care of business for me.  This week alone, I’ve changed cabins and refared twice!  I leave a Voicemail message in the early am and she calls back by noon with everything taken care of.  No hold, no wait, no untrained staff to contend with and, most importantly, no stress!  Why do folks try to navigate the system on their own, when it’s so easy to get the experts to do it.  Please, get a Travel Agent or a Princess Cruise Planner on your side.  It makes a huge difference!

[SomewhereGirl]

My CVP sucks.  Doesn't return calls or respond to emails.  I guess he only cared about the booking he got and not the future bookings he won't.

 

If there's anything that can be done by chat, that's my preferred method, but there are limits to what can be done over chat unfortunately.

[Lady Arwen]

6 minutes ago, SomewhereGirl said:

My CVP sucks.  Doesn't return calls or respond to emails.  I guess he only cared about the booking he got and not the future bookings he won't.

 

If there's anything that can be done by chat, that's my preferred method, but there are limits to what can be done over chat unfortunately.

Please call Princess and ask for a new CVP!  You do not have to deal with an incompetent one.  There are many excellent CVPs, who would be happy to take care of you,

[BettyCruiser]

I prefer to use a TA that works for me rather than a CVP or customer service rep that works for Princess.

[Ptroxx]

9 minutes ago, SomewhereGirl said:

My CVP sucks.  Doesn't return calls or respond to emails.  I guess he only cared about the booking he got and not the future bookings he won't.

 

If there's anything that can be done by chat, that's my preferred method, but there are limits to what can be done over chat unfortunately.

I’ve booked all my travel on my own my entire life.  
I prefer to have control of my booking and not have to wait for some other person to do what I can do now.   
Im impatient. And hate having to wait on someone else.   
in most cases I have more experience than some greenhorn agent or rep.  
it’s hard to find good help these days. Lol. 

[Ptroxx]

6 minutes ago, BettyCruiser said:

I prefer to use a TA that works for me rather than a CVP or customer service rep that works for Princess.

Yeah but they(your TA) are working for 100’s of other people too.  
you need something now and they are dealing with their other travelers. And they eventually get to you.  Could be valuable time wasted.   
just my .02.  

[BettyCruiser]

2 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

Yeah but they(your TA) are working for 100’s of other people too.  
you need something now and they are dealing with their other travelers. And they eventually get to you.  Could be valuable time wasted.   
just my .02.  

 

I never expect immediate attention and my current TA has always exceeded my expectations. Some TAs are better than others, I used about a dozen different TAs before I found my current TA that I have used now for a decade. 

[Mary loves to travel]

9 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

I’ve booked all my travel on my own my entire life.  
I prefer to have control of my booking and not have to wait for some other person to do what I can do now.   
Im impatient. And hate having to wait on someone else.   
in most cases I have more experience than some greenhorn agent or rep.  
it’s hard to find good help these days. Lol. 

 

6 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

Yeah but they(your TA) are working for 100’s of other people too.  
you need something now and they are dealing with their other travelers. And they eventually get to you.  Could be valuable time wasted.   
just my .02.  

I hear you!

For me, a CVP/PVP is a very happy medium.   I do have a great one!   I find a cruise I like, put it on Hold, then shoot the email to her for the booking (unless they do the booking, they don't get credit, so I'm careful to use "hold" and transfer to her, rather than book it myself, then transfer).

 

If I see a price drop, or a better cabin, I send off a quick email and within at most a few hours, it's all taken care of.   No time spent on hold, or talking to someone at a call center.

 

My PVP really proved invaluable during the past 2 years, when cruises were shut down, transferred, etc.    Neither I nor a TA sat on hold for hours.... again the quick email & all was handled; the Princess Vacation Planners have access that even the best TAs can't seem to get.

 

Best,

Mary

[Lady Arwen]

8 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

I’ve booked all my travel on my own my entire life.  
I prefer to have control of my booking and not have to wait for some other person to do what I can do now.   
Im impatient. And hate having to wait on someone else.   
in most cases I have more experience than some greenhorn agent or rep.  
it’s hard to find good help these days. Lol. 

Doing it yourself is impossible for most things.  You can’t cancel, change cabins, refare, add travel mates or numerous other functions.  You need to contact Princess or your travel agent.  In my case,  my CVP does the legwork for me and I relax.  You either wait on the phone for ages to talk to someone or you have someone else do it for you.  Not a difficult choice.

[Sea Hag]

9 minutes ago, Mary loves to travel said:

 

I hear you!

For me, a CVP/PVP is a very happy medium.   I do have a great one!   I find a cruise I like, put it on Hold, then shoot the email to her for the booking (unless they do the booking, they don't get credit, so I'm careful to use "hold" and transfer to her, rather than book it myself, then transfer).

 

If I see a price drop, or a better cabin, I send off a quick email and within at most a few hours, it's all taken care of.   No time spent on hold, or talking to someone at a call center.

 

My PVP really proved invaluable during the past 2 years, when cruises were shut down, transferred, etc.    Neither I nor a TA sat on hold for hours.... again the quick email & all was handled; the Princess Vacation Planners have access that even the best TAs can't seem to get.

 

Best,

Mary

Exactly! It's the best of both worlds. I have a great PVP that I make sure to have finalize the booking, and she's wonderful for doing the things I can't do for myself.

[Lady Arwen]

1 minute ago, Sea Hag said:

Exactly! It's the best of both worlds. I have a great PVP that I make sure to have finalize the booking, and she's wonderful for doing the things I can't do for myself.

Yes!

[Ptroxx]

11 minutes ago, Mary loves to travel said:

 

I hear you!

For me, a CVP/PVP is a very happy medium.   I do have a great one!   I find a cruise I like, put it on Hold, then shoot the email to her for the booking (unless they do the booking, they don't get credit, so I'm careful to use "hold" and transfer to her, rather than book it myself, then transfer).

 

If I see a price drop, or a better cabin, I send off a quick email and within at most a few hours, it's all taken care of.   No time spent on hold, or talking to someone at a call center.

 

My PVP really proved invaluable during the past 2 years, when cruises were shut down, transferred, etc.    Neither I nor a TA sat on hold for hours.... again the quick email & all was handled; the Princess Vacation Planners have access that even the best TAs can't seem to get.

 

Best,

Mary

That’s all great if you only cruise on princess.    
I travel on multiple cruise lines through the year.  Fly on different airlines. 
So having control is my best option.  
 

[JerrySueW]

Have to agree that customer service is really lacking these days. My TA called Princess 4 different times last week and couldn't get anyone who knew how to apply gift cards as payment! You would think that accepting payment would be the first thing they were trained to do. I doubt very much that any commission my TA earns from Princess would make up for the time spent on hold and then the fruitless conversations. Very frustrating since I could apply the gift cards directly if I had booked on my own. 

[Hlitner]

I have no clue what "having control" means these days :).  But we have always had control by carefully choosing high volume reputable cruise agencies that give us terrific service (without having to sit on hold) and save us a lot of money (7-10% and more on Princess).  

 

We do not have customer service issues because most the time I simply send an e-mail to my cruise agent who takes care of whatever question or issue needs handling.  Since we sometimes cruise over 100 days a year and use many different cruise lines we have no time to deal with each cruise line, spend half our day on hold, talk to idiots, etc.

 

My only thought about those who like to deal direct with cruise lines is that they must have no interest in saving money.  As a stockholder we do appreciate these folks :).

 

Hank

[Ptroxx]

3 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

I have no clue what "having control" means these days :).  But we have always had control by carefully choosing high volume reputable cruise agencies that give us terrific service (without having to sit on hold) and save us a lot of money (7-10% and more on Princess).  

 

We do not have customer service issues because most the time I simply send an e-mail to my cruise agent who takes care of whatever question or issue needs handling.  Since we sometimes cruise over 100 days a year and use many different cruise lines we have no time to deal with each cruise line, spend half our day on hold, talk to idiots, etc.

 

My only thought about those who like to deal direct with cruise lines is that they must have no interest in saving money.  As a stockholder we do appreciate these folks :).

 

Hank

As a stock holder I prefer to book my own.  
And I find just as good a deal as any travel agent.    
1500.00 all in 7day solo round trip balcony. That even princess couldn’t find.   Booked last week. Leave in 7 days.  And already got my 100 OBC from my stocks 
7 day solo balcony Caribbean 1200.00. All in   100.00 upgrade to mini suite 

4 day balcony Mexico balcony 300 all in.  
all in the last 6 months.  
working on Norway now and Spain.  
no emails. No waiting.  Knowing the right time to call is key. 

 

i might not cruise 100 days a year. But I’m working on it.   Just retired.  
 

G. 

 

 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, Ptroxx said:

Yeah but they(your TA) are working for 100’s of other people too.  
you need something now and they are dealing with their other travelers. And they eventually get to you.  Could be valuable time wasted.   
just my .02.  

This is true and my TA has been very busy over the past 12 months or so and has to wait on hold (sometimes multiple phones on hold with multiple lines).  Yes, he has other clients that need servicing as well.  When I email him about something, I do let him know if there is an urgency or deadline to grab a fare drop deal for example.  He has not failed to accomplish something in due course or in time.  Sometimes he has surprised me with a speedy job done considering how busy they are fielding calls and issues. 

 

It is also true that Princess CVP's have scores of clients who may be contacting them.  One advantage is they focus on Princess exclusively and the good ones should be experts at everything.  The downside is if you are someone who sails with other lines, you either need a TA for them or deal with someone different internally.

 

 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, Ptroxx said:

Lol.  I can cancel, change blah blah blah anything on a trip I’ve booked.   your TA has to sit on hold just like any other person.  
I have time to sit.  I make my own changes right away don’t have to wait for a TA to get back to me.  
not a difficult choice.  
You do you. I’ll do me.  

Unless you have access like an agent to POLAR, you cannot change or cancel your bookings.  There is no customer-facing online ability to do those things.  Nor to change a cabin assignment as another example.  In terms of a Princess CVP, they have access to the booking system and can do their own work to serve a client.  TA's also have access to POLAR, but some prefer to call in to Princess and have a PCL employee make the changes, bookings and cancels.  At least some of that group like to do it that way so that if something goes wrong it is on Princess and not them (if they had self-served).  Princess encourages agent self-service and has done training and made changes to provide more things in simper ways for agents.  Thing is, the typical independent agent deals with a variety of cruise lines and other tour providers and may not be totally comfortable with some of the more intricate or less used processes in the Princess system.

 

[Lady Arwen]

5 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Unless you have access like an agent to POLAR, you cannot change or cancel your bookings.  There is no customer-facing online ability to do those things.  Nor to change a cabin assignment as another example.  In terms of a Princess CVP, they have access to the booking system and can do their own work to serve a client.  TA's also have access to POLAR, but some prefer to call in to Princess and have a PCL employee make the changes, bookings and cancels.  At least some of that group like to do it that way so that if something goes wrong it is on Princess and not them (if they had self-served).  Princess encourages agent self-service and has done training and made changes to provide more things in simper ways for agents.  Thing is, the typical independent agent deals with a variety of cruise lines and other tour providers and may not be totally comfortable with some of the more intricate or less used processes in the Princess system.

 

Spot on

[Hlitner]

21 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

As a stock holder I prefer to book my own.  
And I find just as good a deal as any travel agent.    
1500.00 all in 7day solo round trip balcony. That even princess couldn’t find.   Booked last week. Leave in 7 days.  And already got my 100 OBC from my stocks 
7 day solo balcony Caribbean 1200.00. All in   100.00 upgrade to mini suite 

4 day balcony Mexico balcony 300 all in.  
all in the last 6 months.  
working on Norway now and Spain.  
no emails. No waiting.  Knowing the right time to call is key. 

 

i might not cruise 100 days a year. But I’m working on it.   Just retired.  
 

G. 

 

 

I think you mis understand.  We do our own bookings (online) as all of our favored cruise agencies have decent booking engines (directly tied to most cruise lines).  And with Princess (one of many lines we cruise) we always get our shareholder credit (just a quick e-mail to Princess) and veteran's credit.  But we also are able to snag lots of other OBCs, sometimes pre-paid grats, etc.  Our last Princess cruise was a 20 day voyage on the Enchanted Princess (Dec),  About 3 weeks after we returned home we got an $870 check from Princess refunding our unused OBC (we had about $2000 to use).  

 

When booking any cruise, we do a quick comparison between several of our favorite agencies (generally done online) and then compare it to booking directly with Princess.  In our more than 30 Princess cruises we have never found Princess to come even close to what we can get through our favored agencies.    For decades we have simply suggested that folks should shop around among reputable high volume cruise agencies and then do their own comparison.  

 

There is also a big difference between booking a basic 7 day Caribbean cruise vs a 40 day exotic itinerary cruise.  Saving 7-10% on a short cruise is not a lot of money.  But on longer cruises the savings can run into thousands of dollars!  Multiply that by several long cruises a year and we are soon talking real money.

 

As Steelers says (above) there are also some major advantages to using cruise agencies when dealing with multiple cruise lines.   For example, if we want to find a 3 week cruise between Thanksgiving and Christmas I can use a single cruise agency data base to pull up all the cruises (on every cruise line) that fits the criteria.  At a glance I can see itineraries, basic pricing, etc.  We might start off thinking we will book a 3 week Princess cruise and see a better fit with a Celebrity cruise, Seabourn, MSC, Oceania, etc.   And the industry is always changing as is the variety.  So, for example, next year we will see a new luxury line (Explora Journeys) come into being with some interesting itineraries. Lines, other than Princess, also have some interesting "ship within a ship" options (this does not really exist on Princess).   There is always exciting things happening in the cruise industry but dealing with a single cruise line limits one's options to a single cruise line.

 

Hank

P.S.  I noticed that Steelers brought up "POLAR" which is a fantastic online tool for cruise/travel agents.  If only POLAR were available to we mere customers.

 

 

[Steelers36]

16 minutes ago, Ptroxx said:

As a stock holder I prefer to book my own.  
And I find just as good a deal as any travel agent.    
1500.00 all in 7day solo round trip balcony. That even princess couldn’t find.   Booked last week. Leave in 7 days.  And already got my 100 OBC from my stocks 
7 day solo balcony Caribbean 1200.00. All in   100.00 upgrade to mini suite 

4 day balcony Mexico balcony 300 all in.  
all in the last 6 months.  
working on Norway now and Spain.  
no emails. No waiting.  Knowing the right time to call is key. 

 

i might not cruise 100 days a year. But I’m working on it.   Just retired.  
 

G. 

 

 

No issues with anyone who wants to self-book with Princess (I like the extra revenue as well).  I am also one who likes to have control of all of our travel arrangements.  I do not use TA's as a general rule.  One exception is booking Princess cruises because I am willing to give up some of the control in order to get a generous cash discount off the cruise fare.

 

In terms of finding as good a deal on Princess.com as any travel agent, I beg to differ.  First, Princess.com only shows pricing for a single fare code (with Standard, Plus, and Premier options).  As a guest, you may qualify for other promotions as well.  Princess.com should be showing your best pricing option, but I have seen this is not always the case.  The only ways you are going to know about the other options is to ask a Princess agent to look in POLAR and see what else you are eligible for.  Or, have access to a third party booking engine that does provide all possible fare code options.  My TA's website does this, as do some generic booking sites and other agencies.  Not all agencies display the details on fare codes and all of the options.  

 

If you find something better, you need a Princess rep or CVP to book it because there is no way on Princess.com to do so. 

 

Finally, no matter what fare promotion option someone finds with Princess, my TA is going to sell it to me for less, so there is never a situation where Princess is better cost-wise. 

 

[Steelers36]

5 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

When booking any cruise, we do a quick comparison between several of our favorite agencies (generally done online) and then compare it to booking directly with Princess.  In our more than 30 Princess cruises we have never found Princess to come even close to what we can get through our favored agencies.

We have not done 30 Princess cruises as yet, but I am quite confident I will never find a price directly with Princess that compares to agencies like the one I use now.  We have not looked outside Princess to-date, but I see that as something we will do when looking to cruise again.  This fall we are doing a series of Princess trips and looking forward to it, but then taking a step back with FCC's and gift card bonuses, and gift cards themselves exhausted.  

 

With sailing Princess alone, I have not had to shop around since landing on the best discount rates I am aware of.

[Hlitner]

1 minute ago, Steelers36 said:

We have not done 30 Princess cruises as yet, but I am quite confident I will never find a price directly with Princess that compares to agencies like the one I use now.  We have not looked outside Princess to-date, but I see that as something we will do when looking to cruise again.  This fall we are doing a series of Princess trips and looking forward to it, but then taking a step back with FCC's and gift card bonuses, and gift cards themselves exhausted.  

 

With sailing Princess alone, I have not had to shop around since landing on the best discount rates I am aware of.

Time to expand your horizons :).   We have managed to cruise on 16 different lines (had to cancel #17 because of COVID issues) and are now looking to add Explora Journeys to the fold.  After more than 45 years of extensive cruising we are convinced that all the variety in cruise lines and itineraries is what has kept cruising fresh and exciting!   When asked to compare cruise lines or "which line is your favorite" our answer has always been that we have enjoyed each and every cruise whether it was on a budget line or ultra-luxury line.    I will admit that it helps to be retired and have more time for cruising/travel.