Royal Caribbean International is to send seven of its UK support team to its new call centre in Guatemala as it admitted the centre wasn’t “working quite as it should do yet”.
The line outsourced its support centre to Guatemala last year, prompting fears among agents that service levels could be hit.
Speaking at an event in Dublin for the Irish travel trade, UK and Ireland managing director Stuart Leven said the centre had been performing well until its “umbilical cord” with Royal Caribbean’s support team in Weybridge, Surrey, was cut in April.
Leven said three of the seven staff being sent to Guatemala would be based there permanently.
“Over the last six months, we have gradually moved calls from London over to Guatemala and it isn’t working quite as it should do yet, if we are honest,” he said.
“We got it to a reasonable shape until the end of April, when we pulled our team and cut the umbilical cord to see if these guys could stand on their own two feet.”
He said the Guatemalan centre’s service levels were good, basic queries weren’t an issue and call-handling times were almost on par with the former UK call centre.
But he admitted requests for administrative changes and for bookings other than basic cruises had caused problems. The seven supervisors will train the call centre staff on back-office administration.
Leven added: “It’s going to get better and we are committed to it – we are throwing a lot of additional expense and money at it. We still believe we have the right service partner. I appreciate it causes some hassle [for agents].”
Chas Simmons, director of CruiseXperts, said: “The staff at the call centre are very polite but not too accurate. They seem OK with things that are scripted but outside of that it is a real struggle.
“It’s a bit like they have been thrown in at the deep end.”