Several of my readers commented on an earlier post of 2009 which referred to the service I experienced on a cruise ship from the MSC fleet.

Well things didn’t go smoothly on every occassion. They have a gaping hole in the customer experience when it comes to above all, their Customer Information desk and their UK Customer Service team. My experience of how a very simple policy issue escalated all the way to the Chief Executive of this international multi-billion Euro shipping company would take too long to describe in this email. But a summary of my experience, shared below provides poignant reminders for anyone responsible for company policies.

Poorly conceived policies that impact upon the customer can have both revenue implications as well as word of mouth ones too.

My Gold Card is Meaningless

Having been on several holidays with this cruise brand over as many years my wife and I have been awarded a Gold Card from their Loyalty Programme. This entitles us to certain benefits such as extra discounts, access to certain events, fresh fruit in the cabin twice a week and a complimentary meal for two in one of the ship’s themed restaurants, as well as a free laundry service.

Unbeknown to us we choose to eat in a restaurant which didn’t allow this complimentary meal. When the cost of the meal appeared on our bill things just went from bad to worse. For those of you who want the full story then you can read it here. But the bottom line is that the ship’s Accounts Department refused to allow the free meal as it should have been take in a specific restaurant, on this occasion their Chinese Restaurant. After several conversations and endless frustrations we had to back down resorting to following it up upon our return to the UK.

The policy they refused to back down on ultimately cost the organisation revenue and customer bad feeling too. The cost of the meal charged was only 53 Euros but we could have taken a meal in the ‘appropriate’ restaurant where we would have easily run up a bill of significantly more.So the irony was that the meal we took cost them less than the meal we could have taken and they refused to let the lesser cost be offered. Is that logical? No it was their policy!

Now there’s a principle at stake here so it was the principle I was standing up for. We were after all the customer.

Four Seasons Restaurant - MSC Orchestra

What We Did Next

Given that we couldn’t resolve the issue on-board, there was one way of getting our money back and that was by withholding the discretionary service charge for our week long holiday which amounted to around 70 Euros. This was removed from our bill upon request leaving the company now 17 Euros down.

Also given the bad feelings we had due to this enforced policy concerning the meal we probably refrained from spending extras on various items preferring to keep it for another occasion upon our return home. Yet more lost revenue. So was this policy working for them in the longer run?

Although the ship’s Customer Service Manager on-board met with us he defended his company’s policy and refused to make the necessary changes. He just didn’t see it

from the customer’s perspective. Consequently upon return to the UK we began the process of complaint. First through the travel agent and then finally when they had received no response and were frustrated themselves I began the salvo of letters to the CEO in Naples and within two days I had a call from the MD of the UK arm of the organisation and a sincere apology. What we agreed and what happened next however I’ll save for another day because things just went from bad to worse and make for an interesting read in themselves.

Points For You To Consider

What you should consider from this:

• Are your policies customer focused or revenue focused?
• What’s worth more, keeping the customer in the longer term or sticking to a policy in the shorter term?
• Have you any stupid policies that might be working against you and alienating customers?