Are the app developers working for the competition?????

[hawk/hornfan]

On 9/13/2023 at 6:22 AM, SCX22 said:

 

It took you hours to book 2 excursions?  That's not a website problem. 

 

 

If you were on the website, what does that have to do with the app?

1) Actually we booked 3 excursions on 2 different charges. We are thorough on booking, we see what they offer, read reviews, look at other what websites offer. I should not have resign in every 10-15 minutes while actively using the website. 

2)  It was my general of frustrations with PCL. My 8 y/o cell is also not PCL app friendly. 

[Tedferg]

11 hours ago, antsp said:

My point was, IT workers don't like Apple

IMHO Apple makes great products but do obsolete older hardware quickly by incompatible OS releases.

[rich_cathybrock]

This thread is the most fun since the smoking stuff got pinned to the top, and I agree completely with the OP and my fellow techies for the sage advice!

1 - IT people prefer Samsung - it is easier to root a Samsung than it is to Jailbreak an iPhone. 😁

 

2 - They had requirements, they just ignored some of them and built others poorly:

• All consumer functionality available on their legacy website (reservations, tours, buy OBC, prepay gratuities, upload docs and get your boarding cards, etc.)
• Everything else they shoehorned in to create the Medallion App. Anyone watch Pentagon Wars clips on youtube?  It's the best scope creep comedy and is based on a government project run off the rails by conflicting product Sponsors over more than 30 years that led to a multimillion-dollar unusable piece of military equipment!  The Medallion app may be running a close second if something doesn't change and quick.

 

3 - They need two sets of devs to handle each of the iOS and Android App builds (different skill sets) and a solution architect responsible for oversight, integration with the web portal,  They need a first line of techs to provide ongoing support for the apps and their web services and they ought to implement an online support request form and build in some SLAs to ensure all requests are remediated within a reasonable timeframe.

 

4- They need to leverage polls on the princess site to capture user feedback so they can prioritize on remediation and new needs, and work towards continuous process improvement to transform the app from an obstacle to a facilitator of the cruise experience.

 

5 - They also need a dedicated support line and an ITIL V5 incident management system (effectively a separate tracking tool from their cruise booking systems) so they can assess and manage what is broken in totality rather than their current approach of adding these issues to a cruise tracking db where this info never makes its way back to the developers. They also need to stop using passing what are effectively technical support calls to PVCs, which is not only ineffective for getting resolutions, but unnecessarily increases hold times for those trying to book a new cruse.  I would love know what their ACD's abandon rate is - I estimate it is over 40% during peak call times, Every one of those hangups is a lost opportunity.

 

4- They seem to invest more in the iPhone app than the Samsung app, which appears to be less stable and fails more often from what I can gather.  Maybe it's just us geeks who see this as a challenge and try harder when most others just give up.

 

5 - Their devs are noobs who don't appear to follow change management best practices.  When they make changes, locally stored data needs to be refreshed as part of the update to avoid the ubiquitous "clear cache and cookies", all of which can be done by the App's update routine if it is actually built and tested properly.  I get visions of a room full of 19 year olds drinking Mountain Dew, eating Kit Kats and playing foosball with the occasional odd nap between development cycles and a max productivity of 3.5 hrs/week.

 

5 - There is little to no integration between the two apps and their back-end, If there was, reservations wouldn't disappear because they would reload via push whenever the app was opened.

 

6 - There is no integration between their app and the consumer web site, which was a breeze to use in its day, but which now requires a degree in aeronautics to navigate.  Most users, myself included, can NOT access our cruises when logged in unless we specifically select the option to manage another booking and reenter credentials used to log in in the first place.  The link to do this is buried in content on a page when it belongs on the top shelf navigation.  This basic pre-cruise functionality  should be integrated with the rest of the UI so it is transparent and seamless for customers,  If they aren't going to change it, the link should be renamed  "click this because our mobile app doesn't work right, so maybe try this in your copious spare time since we are sure you will get it right---eventually---.so we don't have to".

 

7 - 40 years in IT and still going strong!  I have been trying to make these recommendations for the past 2 years, and am staggered that nobody in Princess gets just how bad this is, or they would fix it already!  Every error is lost revenue opportunity for them - no wonder they keep fiddling with drink packages and paid Alfredo's meals - something has to subsidize this madness. If business can file corporate taxes online, why can't this just be fixed, or scrubbed and replaced with a fully integrated modern solution. 

 

8 - I agree the devs may be people turned down for jobs elsewhere, but the real problem lies with their leadership team - their CTO should be put on notice, and their Board needs to wake up and commit to funding a project to correct or replace this disaster before it sinks them and us! 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by rich_cathybrock

[Steelers36]

46 minutes ago, rich_cathybrock said:

This thread is the most fun since the smoking stuff got pinned to the top, and I agree completely with the OP and my fellow techies for the sage advice!

We are aligned a lot in thoughts and experience with this App since June 2021.

 

#2.  I do not think they actually leveraged business SMEs when documenting App requirements.  IDK who was standing in for the guest perspective.  I doubt they spent any quality time engaging with a couple of Maitre D's at the time (now DROs).  They should have formed a business user committee and had them engaged throughout the design and testing phases.  They should have had people close to the guest experience.  I think they really missed on the initial requirements.  Also, the solution design was lacking in a guest focus or understanding what the cruise experience is.  They did have some good high-level concepts like identifying the guest wherever they are, being able to bring items to the guest, guest recognition, touchless service,  Ocean Now ordering, DMW, but they missed the mark on meeting what guests really need or how to make it simpler. 

 

#4.  (First one as you had a numbering issue above).  Princess is never going to have a public forum for reporting website and App bugs and issues.  I could see them using a limited polling for new feature options.  

 

#5.  (First one as you had a numbering issue above).  How do you know they are not using an internal issue tracking log or software application to track and manage bug fixes?

 

#5.  (Last one) & #6.  They appear to have a 1-way integration (from POLAR to Medallion App).  This has been fraught with data conversion issues (data corruption) from the launch.  It is difficult to pin these down as an external observer, but observed happenings indicate this has been a chronic problem.  Certainly not best practices here. 

 

#8.  I used to think of John Padgett as the CTO.  Perhaps he was not and someone else was/is.  He was certainly the lead for the Medallion project, but I think his initial focus was on the technical outfitting of the ships to support the Medallion connectivity and function, plus the Medallion design itself and IDK how much he was engaged in the initial App software because he knew nothing about cruising when he joined Carnival/Princess.  Now he is President of PCL and there should be a CTO (perhaps that is a Carnival Corp position - I have no idea).  As to the aspect of Medallion working for Princess in terms of the ship infrastructure, it has to be termed a general success.  But the OCEAN App software has been something else.

 

[SCX22]

1 hour ago, rich_cathybrock said:

2 - They had requirements, they just ignored some of them and built others poorly:

• All consumer functionality available on their legacy website (reservations, tours, buy OBC, prepay gratuities, upload docs and get your boarding cards, etc.)
• Everything else they shoehorned in to create the Medallion App. Anyone watch Pentagon Wars clips on youtube?  It's the best scope creep comedy and is based on a government project run off the rails by conflicting product Sponsors over more than 30 years that led to a multimillion-dollar unusable piece of military equipment!  The Medallion app may be running a close second if something doesn't change and quick.

 

Your points are valid, but your suggestions cost money, and it's money that Princess doesn't have right now.  Princess started the Medallion functionality on the Regal and Royal Princess pre-pandemic.  It was a period where it was only supposed to the test the waters.  The pandemic came along and because their fleet was sitting idle, someone at Princess thought that it would be a good idea to install the technology fleetwide. The restart came around and the technology was activated fleetwide and the problems hit the fan.  The problems were being remedied piecemeal and there was a domino effect in where fixing one problem caused (is still causing) other problems.

 

It's for this reason I'm for Princess ditching the technologies that come with the Medallion and going back to the cruise card and focusing on a Princess Cruises App like the other cruise lines.  A simple App where you can make dining/excursion reservations, look at the day's events/your folio, and check-in for your cruise.  Princess doesn't have the money to invest in building the sophistication they want and the seamlessness that passengers with the Medallion or the Medallion App at this moment.  They can try this again when they have the money to pour into it.

[Pinballs83]

They money is spent already. No way are they going back to cruise cards without rfid location. 

 

Yes, the app can be frustrating, but it's been fine on the ship. I like princess's medallion technology. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Pinballs83

[SCX22]

18 minutes ago, Pinballs83 said:

They money is spent already. No way are they going back to cruise cards without rfid location. 

 

 

Never too late to admit defeat.  Even Disney, Padgett's former employer, kind of gave up with the Disney Magic Band.  It's no where near as prominent as it was before.

 

Instead of pouring money into the Medallion technology, which isn't necessary as proven by every other cruise line, maybe Princess can make Alfredo's free and unlimited for everyone again.

Edited September 15, 2023 by SCX22

[rich_cathybrock]

7 hours ago, SCX22 said:

 

Your points are valid, but your suggestions cost money, and it's money that Princess doesn't have right now.  Princess started the Medallion functionality on the Regal and Royal Princess pre-pandemic.  It was a period where it was only supposed to the test the waters.  The pandemic came along and because their fleet was sitting idle, someone at Princess thought that it would be a good idea to install the technology fleetwide. The restart came around and the technology was activated fleetwide and the problems hit the fan.  The problems were being remedied piecemeal and there was a domino effect in where fixing one problem caused (is still causing) other problems.

 

It's for this reason I'm for Princess ditching the technologies that come with the Medallion and going back to the cruise card and focusing on a Princess Cruises App like the other cruise lines.  A simple App where you can make dining/excursion reservations, look at the day's events/your folio, and check-in for your cruise.  Princess doesn't have the money to invest in building the sophistication they want and the seamlessness that passengers with the Medallion or the Medallion App at this moment.  They can try this again when they have the money to pour into it.

And there you have it!  The ubiquitous decision to scrub something expensive when it fails.  It takes guts - most C-level will never admit to their mistakes.  Point is, they never had a plan to actually build and support this - they are a leisure company, not a technical services organization, and this was never thought through, pandemic aside.  If they do nothing, they will continue to bleed money and lose clients, a poor long-term proposition as eventually they will spend 1000 times more than this costs, so no decision at all IMPO.  Royal made a similar albeit far less reaching error with their Quantum class ships a few years back - the idea was brilliant - restaurant style dining to replace main dining with a "simple" app to reserve the various venues.  The food variety was brilliant, the implementation abysmal, and they and the Anthem now have a series of disparate "themed" main dining restaurants with varying decor from casual to luxurious where we can now eat.  Again, nobody thought through the support model and costs associated with implementing a technical solution within a leisure product.  A shame -  I love both ships but the dining is just darned weird now!
 

[SargassoPirate]

Just because you posses the technology to do something doesn't mean you should.  I agree that the medallion is handy to unlock the cabin door, but they can keep the rest of it.  I don't have time to waste to try to make a wonky app work when I can show up at the pier and be able to board the old school way.

 

If Amazon rolled out an app that worked like the Medallion app, Jeff Bezos would be back to selling books out of his garage.

 

[CrazyLlama]

I think people are confusing the medallion and the app and associating them both together when they are two seperate entities. 

 

I am I agreement that the app is badly designed and even worse, disastrously implemented. It does work better on board but really should be rewritten. I would be ashamed and deservably sacked if I produced a product of this quality. 

 

The medallion itself is a great device, does not need the app to operate and is far superior than a simple key card. Just think about the information it provides Princess and if the location information provided to them is used right, can provide amazing statistical information about popularity of events and people flow throughout the ship. That information alone is worth more than the cost of implementing it fleet wide. This should help in designing future ships as well as aiding decisions on changes what locations onboard should be kept or possibly removed. I am amazed that all other lines have not yet gone to use similar location tracking system, it's only a matter of time. 

[rich_cathybrock]

@CrazyLlamayou are correct about the medallions.  No confusion there.  I get that people think this is a huge privacy concern, but if anyone has a smartphone, they are already digitally tracked within 1.3 meters even when the phone is off whether they realize this or not.  In addition to aiding with statistical info and people flow, the medallion also has safety features that can be used in emergencies and help identify who is onboard (and not) and is the polar opposite technically from the app for which I too would have been sacked!  I believe a few other lines are looking at similar RFID technology - you'd think they would pool resources like they did when responding to the Covid event to develop a standard app platform for "shipboard life" that could be leveraged by all of them, rather than a piecemeal approach that, rather than giving anyone an edge is about to break them all, right?

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, rich_cathybrock said:

@CrazyLlamayou are correct about the medallions.  No confusion there.  I get that people think this is a huge privacy concern, but if anyone has a smartphone, they are already digitally tracked within 1.3 meters even when the phone is off whether they realize this or not.  In addition to aiding with statistical info and people flow, the medallion also has safety features that can be used in emergencies and help identify who is onboard (and not) and is the polar opposite technically from the app for which I too would have been sacked!  I believe a few other lines are looking at similar RFID technology - you'd think they would pool resources like they did when responding to the Covid event to develop a standard app platform for "shipboard life" that could be leveraged by all of them, rather than a piecemeal approach that, rather than giving anyone an edge is about to break them all, right?

Princess was the guinea pig trial for Medallion Class concept.  I believe the idea was to migrate it across other CCL brands.  The head of HAL is probably saying NOT US!

[dockman]

On 8/30/2023 at 5:51 PM, TopofWorld said:

A quick update. Deleted the app and reinstalled it, rebooted the phone (Samsung S23 Ultra), cleared the app cache, cleared the app data, and the app still refuses to get Dining Reservations working. Next step is to go back to uni, learn programming and app hacking and code/work around the problem 😀😀😀. Just kidding, I will probably try to recharge the old phone I had and see if the app works there - just to satisfy my curiosity as to where the problem lies.

Happy cruising ev1

 

Did you wear blues shoes with an orange bow tie and recite mary had a little lamb while crossing the toes on your left foot facing east?  

[TopofWorld]

 

1 hour ago, dockman said:

 

Did you wear blues shoes with an orange bow tie and recite mary had a little lamb while crossing the toes on your left foot facing east?  

Funny. Made me smile. Thank you. But I got to give it to Princess. Keeps us busy with our cruises long before the sailing date. In a normal world, we would select dining, excursions etc and them wait until we sail. With Princess the adventure starts long before that.

[ontheweb]

7 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Princess was the guinea pig trial for Medallion Class concept.  I believe the idea was to migrate it across other CCL brands.  The head of HAL is probably saying NOT US!

Not only HAL, but all other cruise lines owned by the Carnival Corporation!

[rich_cathybrock]

On 9/15/2023 at 1:07 AM, Steelers36 said:

We are aligned a lot in thoughts and experience with this App since June 2021.

 

#2.  I do not think they actually leveraged business SMEs when documenting App requirements.  IDK who was standing in for the guest perspective.  I doubt they spent any quality time engaging with a couple of Maitre D's at the time (now DROs).  They should have formed a business user committee and had them engaged throughout the design and testing phases.  They should have had people close to the guest experience.  I think they really missed on the initial requirements.  Also, the solution design was lacking in a guest focus or understanding what the cruise experience is.  They did have some good high-level concepts like identifying the guest wherever they are, being able to bring items to the guest, guest recognition, touchless service,  Ocean Now ordering, DMW, but they missed the mark on meeting what guests really need or how to make it simpler. 

 

#4.  (First one as you had a numbering issue above).  Princess is never going to have a public forum for reporting website and App bugs and issues.  I could see them using a limited polling for new feature options.  

 

#5.  (First one as you had a numbering issue above).  How do you know they are not using an internal issue tracking log or software application to track and manage bug fixes?

 

#5.  (Last one) & #6.  They appear to have a 1-way integration (from POLAR to Medallion App).  This has been fraught with data conversion issues (data corruption) from the launch.  It is difficult to pin these down as an external observer, but observed happenings indicate this has been a chronic problem.  Certainly not best practices here. 

 

#8.  I used to think of John Padgett as the CTO.  Perhaps he was not and someone else was/is.  He was certainly the lead for the Medallion project, but I think his initial focus was on the technical outfitting of the ships to support the Medallion connectivity and function, plus the Medallion design itself and IDK how much he was engaged in the initial App software because he knew nothing about cruising when he joined Carnival/Princess.  Now he is President of PCL and there should be a CTO (perhaps that is a Carnival Corp position - I have no idea).  As to the aspect of Medallion working for Princess in terms of the ship infrastructure, it has to be termed a general success.  But the OCEAN App software has been something else.

 

@Steelers36 sorry about the numbering. 

Thank you for the validation!  My bad for trying to pen lessons learned on a CC thread!  I cranked that post out in a fit of pique and really should have hauled it into Word and back for a spell / numbering check. 🙂  The App is a hot mess, and really spoiled what was once a fun part of cruising - the planning!  

 

#2.  Agree few or no SMEs were engaged. Excellent point!  

 

#4.1 Not looking for a public forum, just a meaningful poll on their website to elicit feedback so they can actually start identifying where the pain points are - simple voice of the customer.  

 

#5.1 I called Princess dozens of times for ongoing issues with the App (could access my cruise from the App or the web site for months) while prepping for the Island this October.  The people I spoke with were cruise counselors, not techs.  No one ever said hold on, we are connecting you to the support group.  After the 5th call in as many days, I asked for an incident # and some kind of follow up and was told they "would let the developers know" so that's that.  I can only assume this was logged in my traveler profile (if at all) and therefore lost in the mix.  I finally found the solution by pouring through CC threads.  Who in their right mind would have a web portal that YOU CANNOT BE LOGGED into when accessing your booking?  I thought I must be going nuts.  So stretch assumption - they are not logging these issues in a meaningful way.

 

I cannot imagine how many first time Princess cruisers would have given up after the 3rd call and canceled.  When I say they are bleeding money, it is for this.  All that time they spent on the phone with me, they weren't selling cruises or tours or drink packages.  The cost to support this debacle has to be hundreds of times the cost to fix it because they are losing revenue trying to support the unsupportable.

 

#5.2 and #6. Wholeheartedly agree!

 

#8. Right again on Padget and I am still scratching my head about how this debacle got him promoted.  Maybe that's what we are doing wrong!  Classic Peter Principle, that!

 

 

[Steelers36]

6 minutes ago, rich_cathybrock said:

@Steelers36 sorry about the numbering. 

Thank you for the validation!  My bad for trying to pen lessons learned on a CC thread!  I cranked that post out in a fit of pique and really should have hauled it into Word and back for a spell / numbering check. 🙂  The App is a hot mess, and really spoiled what was once a fun part of cruising - the planning!  

 

#2.  Agree few or no SMEs were engaged. Excellent point!  

 

#4.1 Not looking for a public forum, just a meaningful poll on their website to elicit feedback so they can actually start identifying where the pain points are - simple voice of the customer.  

 

#5.1 I called Princess dozens of times for ongoing issues with the App (could access my cruise from the App or the web site for months) while prepping for the Island this October.  The people I spoke with were cruise counselors, not techs.  No one ever said hold on, we are connecting you to the support group.  After the 5th call in as many days, I asked for an incident # and some kind of follow up and was told they "would let the developers know" so that's that.  I can only assume this was logged in my traveler profile (if at all) and therefore lost in the mix.  I finally found the solution by pouring through CC threads.  Who in their right mind would have a web portal that YOU CANNOT BE LOGGED into when accessing your booking?  I thought I must be going nuts.  So stretch assumption - they are not logging these issues in a meaningful way.

 

I cannot imagine how many first time Princess cruisers would have given up after the 3rd call and canceled.  When I say they are bleeding money, it is for this.  All that time they spent on the phone with me, they weren't selling cruises or tours or drink packages.  The cost to support this debacle has to be hundreds of times the cost to fix it because they are losing revenue trying to support the unsupportable.

 

#5.2 and #6. Wholeheartedly agree!

 

#8. Right again on Padget and I am still scratching my head about how this debacle got him promoted.  Maybe that's what we are doing wrong!  Classic Peter Principle, that!

 

 

And yet the ships are full.