On this Customer Street blog a few weeks ago I wrote about my dealings with both my Travel Agent and Cruise Line on the run up to a much awaited holiday. Well now I am back i felt it was worth while to follow up on that blog and set the record straight.
Being the Accountability Manager here at Customer Street I get to see as part of my job the things that go wrong with our service. Over the last couple of years we have worked tirelessly to try to get these reduced to a trickle and I can say it has worked. At present, even after my weeks sojourn, I find only one outstanding job in my list and that is there because I am awaiting a response from the customer.
I am pleased to say that my problems before we set sail were sorted and the whole experience has not put me off from sailing with them again. From start to finish the organisation of the transfers to and from the ship, embarkation process, the staff, the ship and everything NCL touched was faultless.
The crew went out of their way to always acknowledge you, and when you needed to discuss anything they listened to what you said and always made sure that they confirmed what had just been agreed. Everywhere you looked there were people hoovering, polishing, tidying and checking every aspect of the ship and its service.
I was even surprised by the number of times the Captain and the senior members of the crew were around to say hello or stop and talk if you wanted to. Attention to detail is everything on a NCL cruise and I cannot praise them enough.
Having said that it doesn’t not matter how good you are there will always be those who are ready to be critical. I have seen that recently NCL have now settled an equal opportunities case brought by 7 crew members, a story which has gone right round the world thanks to news feeds. They have also had far more damaging publicity from the fact that last week a passenger fell from one of the balconies on a ship sailing off the American Coast.
The first stories that surfaced were that how could a passenger fall off the ship, implications that the cruise line were at fault etc. Then it was the turn of the partner of the woman who fell to come under the spotlight, then the FBI were reviewing the security footage which shows the accident actually happen. The fact that the footage is available is great news for the cruise line and the partner I would have thought.
Perhaps for the partner, but not for NCL. One article was questioning why did the ship have cameras which could possibly capture the incident. They were questioning whether the cameras could see onto the balcony and it almost made out that they thought that they were trying to spy on the guests. Then there was talk about NCL saying they have camera in strategic locations in all public areas but not in the staterooms. Again this is a very positive comment but the context it comes across in makes it sound all very Big Brother.
This goes to show that even something very innocent and undeniably tragic can be subtly conveyed in a way which cast s doubt where there should be none. I thought that the cameras on ship, which were not particularly hidden, made me feel very safe and as I had nothing to hide I did not feel their presence was a particular problem.
Being part of an organisation which has had its fair share of criticism leveled at it, and much of it unfounded, I can only advocate that none of us should be tempted to read more into things than we need to.
Tags: Accountability Department, Big Brother, Cruise ships, Customer Street, CustomerStreet, NCL, reputation, UFindUs
