Has Customer Service hit rock bottom?

[fruitmachine]

Six weeks ago, after failing to get them to fix the problem on the phone, I sent an email to UK Customer Service to try and get a missing booked cruise added to my account.  At the same time, I raised the issue of missing loyalty points.  

Three weeks ago, they sent an email saying it had been passed to their Loyalty Department "for assistance".

 

Today I chased Customer Service, asking when this would be resolved.

 

This is the reply I got:

 

Good day xxx,

 

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot speak for another department on their turnaround time. I do know they have recently undergone a change in system and program. I assume this is the reason for the delay. I do not have any additional information as to when they may reply to your inquiry.

 

Sincerely,

 

Lisa

 

Am I expecting too much for them to own the problem, and either get it resolved or give me a timescale for resolution?

 

[GoSeeDo2]

We are having an issue getting FCC that were promised after our April 15th cruise failed to go to Israel. It was a major last minute itinerary change (2 days before sailing). I have also contacted customer service, sent them a copy of the letter that everyone received on the sailing regarding the FCC that would be posted to our account no later than 60 days after our sailing....still no credits. 

 

I did receive a note back from Azamara Support saying:  "We apologize for the delay in response and thank you for your patients"

 

Really??!! patients?? Maybe this is part of the problem. 

 

Yes, very frustrating. We enjoy our time the ships, just don't care for the treatment from the company.

[uktog]

Fruit machines response is one that so makes their situation worse. I’m going to borrow it for future training courses. 

[Wacktle]

14 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

Good day xxx,

 

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot speak for another department on their turnaround time. I do know they have recently undergone a change in system and program. I assume this is the reason for the delay. I do not have any additional information as to when they may reply to your inquiry.

 

Sincerely,

 

Lisa

 

Am I expecting too much for them to own the problem, and either get it resolved or give me a timescale for resolution?

 

That is terrible. A multi-national IT company that I worked for stated that the recipient of an enquiry should "own the problem" either by answering it or ensuring that someone else did. 

[ChucktownSteve]

16 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

Six weeks ago, after failing to get them to fix the problem on the phone, I sent an email to UK Customer Service to try and get a missing booked cruise added to my account.  At the same time, I raised the issue of missing loyalty points.  

Three weeks ago, they sent an email saying it had been passed to their Loyalty Department "for assistance".

 

Today I chased Customer Service, asking when this would be resolved.

 

This is the reply I got:

 

Good day xxx,

 

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot speak for another department on their turnaround time. I do know they have recently undergone a change in system and program. I assume this is the reason for the delay. I do not have any additional information as to when they may reply to your inquiry.

 

Sincerely,

 

Lisa

 

Am I expecting too much for them to own the problem, and either get it resolved or give me a timescale for resolution?

 

I kept filling out their form for incorrect loyalty points and kept receiving their canned it's fixed email even though it wasn't after a several week time-frame.  After the fifth submission, they FINALLY corrected it.  Maybe that's why it takes so long to get responses because they can't fix it the first, second, third or fourth time so it eats up their ability to fix other problems?

[BritishLandS]

I am currently trying to get them to honour the t&cs in place when I booked 4 segments of the 2024 World cruise in Feb 22. Apparently my agent is telling me they changed their t & cs in August 22 and I am now bound by them !

 

[Grandma Cruising]

5 minutes ago, BritishLandS said:

I am currently trying to get them to honour the t&cs in place when I booked 4 segments of the 2024 World cruise in Feb 22. Apparently my agent is telling me they changed their t & cs in August 22 and I am now bound by them !

 

I would contact Azamara directly. I would have thought legally they should abide by the t’s & c’s in place when you booked - presumably you have a copy of them?

[laurieb]

what  specifically was changed that you are questioning?

[Cruiser6270]

On 7/17/2023 at 6:24 PM, fruitmachine said:

Six weeks ago, after failing to get them to fix the problem on the phone, I sent an email to UK Customer Service to try and get a missing booked cruise added to my account.  At the same time, I raised the issue of missing loyalty points.  

Three weeks ago, they sent an email saying it had been passed to their Loyalty Department "for assistance".

 

Today I chased Customer Service, asking when this would be resolved.

 

This is the reply I got:

 

Good day xxx,

 

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot speak for another department on their turnaround time. I do know they have recently undergone a change in system and program. I assume this is the reason for the delay. I do not have any additional information as to when they may reply to your inquiry.

 

Sincerely,

 

Lisa

 

Am I expecting too much for them to own the problem, and either get it resolved or give me a timescale for resolution?

 

That's shocking. We've been waiting since end May for a refund on a cruise that was cancelled in April. Payment been showing as pending since then. Promised timescales have come and gone, escalation has done nothing and only today we finally managed to speak to the CS rep who's been dealing with our case. She said that she no longer looks at or responds to emails due to the volume in mailbox !  Been escalated again, but with no timescale for payment. Shambles. 

 

[k0k0]

Simple answer - Yes!

[capsplace]

Similar responses are being received from the Support desk as to the reinstatement of our loyalty points.  Remains unresolved.

[achman228]

Similar canned responses from customer service. We are trying to get the loyalty information corrected before the cruise in Nov.

 

Last year we got the discoverer status from the equivalent celebrity status, but it was changed to preview after Mar. After completing the online form several times, mine was changed to explorer but my partner's is still preview. Now we only get the similar messages asking us to be patient without any solid action / timelines on their side. Any suggestion to get this corrected before Nov?

[blag]

30 minutes ago, achman228 said:

Similar canned responses from customer service. We are trying to get the loyalty information corrected before the cruise in Nov.

 

Last year we got the discoverer status from the equivalent celebrity status, but it was changed to preview after Mar. After completing the online form several times, mine was changed to explorer but my partner's is still preview. Now we only get the similar messages asking us to be patient without any solid action / timelines on their side. Any suggestion to get this corrected before Nov?

Fill in the form and wait. Repeat as necessary, or at will. 

Somehow, with only two forms submitted, I was astonished to find that my info is now correct.

[Grandma Cruising]

1 hour ago, achman228 said:

Similar canned responses from customer service. We are trying to get the loyalty information corrected before the cruise in Nov.

 

Last year we got the discoverer status from the equivalent celebrity status, but it was changed to preview after Mar. After completing the online form several times, mine was changed to explorer but my partner's is still preview. Now we only get the similar messages asking us to be patient without any solid action / timelines on their side. Any suggestion to get this corrected before Nov?

Others have said that once onboard they talked to Guest Relations who sorted it for them. Mine is correct as Discoverer, but my husband (who has been on exactly the same cruises as me) is preview. He has filled the form in three times, but if not sorted before November, we’ll sort it once aboard.

[shank63]

Sadly, I have seen no improvement since the new IT system was installed months ago.  This may be a warning that the owners or Azamara, Sycamore Partners have no intention of correcting these problems.  Travel insurance by a third party is strongly advised.

[blag]

7 minutes ago, shank63 said:

Sadly, I have seen no improvement since the new IT system was installed months ago.  This may be a warning that the owners or Azamara, Sycamore Partners have no intention of correcting these problems.  Travel insurance by a third party is strongly advised.

Have you submitted the online form?

Although I believe that patience is a virtue, it is often true that the squeaking wheel gets the most oil! 

[achman228]

3 hours ago, blag said:

Have you submitted the online form?

Although I believe that patience is a virtue, it is often true that the squeaking wheel gets the most oil! 

I have submitted the online forms multiple times in the past two months. The first response was like "it's passed to the loyalty dept as they can't solve it", and after that the response is pretty much the same around the theme "be patient". 

 

As grandma suggested, we will have to deal with it onboard if not resolved prior. This is very disappointing how Azamara handles the IT upgrade failure. The more repeated requests sent, the longer the backlog. Vicious circle....

 

Thank you all for sharing the ideas and experience 😄.

[donaldsc]

I have done several Azamara cruises before they the new owners came on board and we liked them very much.  It now seems as if the new back office is incapable or running the cruise line.  My question to those who have sailed on Azamara recently is how is the cruising experience once you get on board.

 

DON

[maggie777]

19 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

I have done several Azamara cruises before they the new owners came on board and we liked them very much.  It now seems as if the new back office is incapable or running the cruise line.  My question to those who have sailed on Azamara recently is how is the cruising experience once you get on board.

 

DON

We had a very enjoyable 16 day cruise on Onward from Lima to Miami Feb 2023.

[sczcardfan]

1 hour ago, donaldsc said:

I have done several Azamara cruises before they the new owners came on board and we liked them very much.  It now seems as if the new back office is incapable or running the cruise line.  My question to those who have sailed on Azamara recently is how is the cruising experience once you get on board.

 

DON

While things at headquarters seem to have managed to have gotten even worse than the old days, for as long as I have sailed on Azamara (and followed this board on Cruise Critic) the refrain has always been to try and ignore the difficulties presented by headquarters and enjoy the experience onboard.

So until I have a negative experience onboard personally, my own hope & expectation is that I will continue to enjoy the actual product and continue to wonder how they are unable to reflect that quality with the shoreside staff.

[ECCruise]

After wrestling with things on the website, like everyone, since the transition, I have had 4 interactions with CS in the last 3 weeks. 

 

Total time invested was less than 30 minutes total via phone and email.

 

Got multiple Circle accounts sorted out.  Loyalty level and points corrected via email.

Added 4 shore excursions on 2 different sailings, charged to OBC.

 

All interactions were polite and effectual, both on phone and email replies.

 

At least for us, and in a totally anecdotal take, it is getting much better. 

 

 

 

[hamrag]

6 hours ago, donaldsc said:

I have done several Azamara cruises before they the new owners came on board and we liked them very much.  It now seems as if the new back office is incapable or running the cruise line.  My question to those who have sailed on Azamara recently is how is the cruising experience once you get on board.

 

DON

It's very good on the whole! Important note....I am NOT an Az cheerleader, but simply write my experiences as honestly as I can.

[GUSGB]

I checked my account today and my Azamara Circle level has now been corrected and my points are correct. I checked my correspondence with Azamara, it has taken 2 1/2 months from initial complaint. This will give other customers who are concerned an idea of timescale. We sail in mid November and it was always stated that accounts would be rectified in  sailing date order. Looking forward to a relaxed cruise.

[fruitmachine]

5 hours ago, GUSGB said:

I checked my account today and my Azamara Circle level has now been corrected and my points are correct. I checked my correspondence with Azamara, it has taken 2 1/2 months from initial complaint. This will give other customers who are concerned an idea of timescale. We sail in mid November and it was always stated that accounts would be rectified in  sailing date order. Looking forward to a relaxed cruise.

Not for me!

Raised the issue three months ago (5 June) with UK customer service team, sailing mid-October.  Perhaps I'll log another issue!