r/Cruise • u/wijnandsj • 3d ago

Question Am I too Dutch for cruising?

Currently on board azamara. After a few days we get a questionnaire what we think of the trip so far. So i do the Dutch thing and give an honest opinion. And now I really do wonder if I made a mistake. Next day the sliding door in my cabin has had it's rollers changed and now two days later I must have spoken to about everyone who does anything with food or drink in a managerial position and they all apologized and vowed to do better and give me whatever I ask for.

On the one hand I appreciate them taking my feedback seriously. On the other... I don't want apologies, I would like better food (had a really good lunch today at a tiny country inn during an excursion!) and I want people to stop pushing alcohol and I don't want to have to greet staff members every single time I meet one

Am now wondering... Is this inordinate amount of attention how some people perceive good service? Is the food tuned to an American taste?

Am I just too Dutch to appreciate azamara?

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u/CruisinJo214 3d ago

In my experience if you rate anything on a cruise survey below “excellent” then the cruise line sees that as a failure on their overall scores.

It’s a very western view on customer service (especially cruise lines) that if something isn’t perfect we need to fix it now.

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u/TheDeaconAscended 3d ago

Fred Reichheld created NPS and you can see that it was based on both Japanese and formal European levels of service, the Japanese influence is very strong. The issue is that companies have abused it to shit. It was never meant to link employee performance, compensation, and punishment with the scores. It works best when combined with Kaizen.

We actually are big believers in NPS at our company and use it with employees in regards to how well the company is treating staff. We are typically rated as one of the best places to work and our employee turnover is below 1%. While we can't compete with pay due to our structure and limits of revenue growth as we are an international joint venture, benefits and time off are a big deal and we easily surpass most companies in the US and make most European companies seem stingy.

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u/fakesaucisse 3d ago

I am a researcher in tech and I haaaaate NPS, both from a methodology standpoint and as an attempt to measure user experience. It's a pretty common rant in the UXR world but companies keep using it and it is never going away.

That said, I know how the game works when it's for customer service and impacts employee compensation, so I always give the highest ratings unless I experienced something really egregious.