Cruising to customer satisfaction

By standardizing how it handles and resolves customer calls and correspondence, Princess Cruise Lines is setting itself up to meet aggressive growth plans.

Princess Cruises' fleet of nine ships carry more than 620,000 passengers annually, to 220 destinations across the globe. The company wanted to more efficiently process of customer calls and correspondence within two key customer service functions: Passenger Relations and Reservation Services. Also, by identifying trends in passenger issues Princess could develop more targeted and timely responses.

To support its CRM initiative, Princess is now using components of Siebel Systems' Customer Service application suite. Keane, Inc. customized and installed the system, which was designed with enough flexibility to expand with the company's aggressive growth plan.

With the new CRM system in place, the Princess' Passenger Relations Department can now process more customer inquiries, and the Reservation Services Call Center can proactively track and follow up on customers' pre-cruise calls and questions, offering better support for both passengers and travel agencies.

"The primary objective of Princess Cruises has always been to provide the highest quality customer service in the cruise industry," said Rick James, Princess' senior VP of customer service and sales. The new CRM system "will continue to make this objective a reality.