Guest satisfaction is our top priority. At AIDA, we do our utmost every day to ensure that our guests feel that they are well-looked after by our professional employees, both on board and ashore. Our central customer management team “Customer Relations” is responsible for all dialog with our guests before and after their vacation. It is an important tool for us as it allows us to act on our guests’ suggestions in the optimal way and it covers three areas: Customer Dialogue & Loyalty, Customer Intelligence and Complaints management. We are in dialog with our guests with regard to travel information, direct marketing and our AIDA Club loyalty program. Furthermore, all information on quality assurance is compiled by customer management. The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) team and the market research team are also involved in this. Furthermore, customer management also acts as a “lobby” for our guests in the company, actively bringing their input and suggestions to bear on the development of new products.
We also assess guest satisfaction by means of detailed guest questionnaires. These provide us with valuable tips on how we could make further improvements. We always welcome guest inquiries and suggestions, but we also value criticism from our guests. In 2012, our guest satisfaction rate was at 94%.
If a guest nonetheless has grounds for complaint, a direct contact will be available both on board and ashore, and will be happy to deal with the issue. Getting in touch ashore is possible through all channels of communication. Complaints are dealt with in less than five working days, depending on the means of communication used. In 2012, the average complaint rate for the overall voyage was 2.39% – well below our target rate of 2.50%.
We don’t stop at ensuring that each and every guest receives top service at all times: we always like to open ourselves up to outside scrutiny. Experts from the hotel and food services industry come on board our ships incognito as ordinary guests, and are therefore able to experience an authentic day at sea with AIDA. The examiners evaluate all parts of the voyage based on clearly defined quality and service standards and provide us with valuable feedback to further improve our guests’ satisfaction.
As well as the numerous instances of positive feedback which we received from our guests in 2012 at AIDA Cruises, we were also delighted to win two awards for our service quality. In a pan-European survey by magazine “Reader’s Digest”, we received the accolade of “Most Trusted Brand” in the “Cruise” category for what was the second time in Germany and the first time in Austria. We received the renowned Pegasus award for this.
In Germany’s largest rankings table for services, we saw off competition from 13 other cruise operators to be awarded the Golden Seal for the best service quality experienced in the industry.
We’re delighted with this award – but we’re not planning to rest on our laurels. Instead, we see these awards as an incentive to further improve the quality of our service.
