First time on a Cruise - have lots of questions

On Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:00:01 -0600, Rosalie B. wrote:

Ari wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 22:46:19 -0500, Dillon Pyron wrote:

[Default] Thus spake Ohioguy :

I forgot to mention, you can get air from the cruise line. I'm not sure
if they have prices online but you can ask your travel agent to quote

That's another thing I wanted to ask - I've never used a travel
agent. Normally I've just taken a train, bus or car to wherever I was
going, then camped, stayed in a hotel, or something along those lines.

I always thought that the travel agents simply made money by adding
on a couple of hundred dollars to the cheapest thing out there, and
folks figured it was ok because of the convenience of them doing most
all the work of getting scheduling and everything to work out. You're
saying it is not like that?

If so, I might have to check out a local travel agency before buying
the tickets myself.

I think /every/ agent here has pretty much the same view. I want to
find you the vacation (cruise in this case) that most satisfies your
needs and wants (two different things) at the best price.

Not a chance since many of the big ticket TAgencies push their TAs to
deliver the best commissioned deals.

But we aren't talking about big ticket agencies. We are talking about
real travel agents

You posted "every agent".
--
Ari's Fun Times!
http://tr.im/hrFG
Motto: Run, rabbit, Run!

peter wrote:

On 6/13/10 12:00 AM, in article ,
"Rosalie B." wrote:

And when I said they didn't care - I meant the phone person in Omaha
or Seattle or Miami who works for the cruise line. The people who
answer the phones don't really care whether you are satisfied or not.

Oh really? You think only waiters and cabin stewards are concerned about how
their services are evaluated in the CS questionnaire and "the people who
answer the phones" don't care, even though passengers can rate them as well?
Which cruise line (other than NCL) that you called gave you that impression?

HAL

When they made a mistake in an on-board booking (giving the wrong
agency that I had not used for several years the booking), it took me
three tries to get them to correct THEIR mistake. One lady just hung
up on me. I have tried for several years to get them to correct a
mistake in my name caused by the fact that I did two cruises before I
was married. Also they insist on sending stuff to my grandchild at my
address even though she is under age and doesn't live with me but with
her parents several states away.

I call and most of the time the person on the phone is very nice, but
they don't fix the problem, or they tell me to do things that I am
unwilling to do just to fix THEIR mistake. I was not using that
agency any more because of bad service. I certainly was not going to
call them and as them to transfer a booking that they should not have
had in the first place.

Also sometimes, they just don't have the information.

On 6/13/2010 8:46 AM, Rosalie B. wrote:

I call and most of the time the person on the phone is very nice, but
they don't fix the problem, or they tell me to do things that I am
unwilling to do just to fix THEIR mistake. I was not using that
agency any more because of bad service. I certainly was not going to
call them and as them to transfer a booking that they should not have
had in the first place.

Also sometimes, they just don't have the information.


Call center jobs at all the cruise lines are entry level positions and
the turn-over rate is astronomical. Add to that the fact that in some
of the call centers are in places like Kansas and Colorado and the
people working there may have never actually been on a cruise.

Training consists of learning how to use the reservation system, some
rudimentary product knowledge and lots of classes on making a sale
(outlining benefits, overcoming objections, closing).

If you call to ask a question, they have a search feature... they type
in some keywords and hopefully a script comes up that will answer your
question.

In addition, the people are graded on how many sales they make. Since
they are paid a base salary plus commission, calls that do not involve
selling anything are not welcome... and they will do whatever they can
to get you off the phone so they can talk to someone who might be buying
something.

But the biggest lack of knowledge is that they know absolutely nothing
about the competition. If you call XXX Cruise Line, they are going to
tell you that their cruises are EXACTLY what you need..... when in fact,
you would be happier on YYY cruise line... or maybe instead of a cruise,
you should take a bus trip to the Ozarks.


--

George Leppla

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