Royal Caribbean's post-cruise surveys are an important way to evaluate what's working well, but one question is confusing a lot of passengers.
After every cruise, Royal Caribbean sends guests an email survey as a way to get feedback on every aspect of the cruise.
There's an opportunity to rate the service, food, efficiencies, and every venue onboard.
One question in particular seems to trip up a lot of passengers because of how it's written, and that leaves a question as to how they should answer it.
"Am I supposed to answer yes or no?" is what a Facebook user wrote recently in regard to this survey question:
"Were you asked by any crew member(s) to provide positive ratings/reviews on this survey?"
If you answered yes to the question, then the survey goes on to ask which crew member asked you to provide the positive ratings.
"I’m not sure if yes is a positive for the staff because that’s what they’re supposed to do? Or they’re not supposed to?"
The debate relates to what answer Royal Caribbean is looking for, as well as if the crew member gets in trouble for it.
What the question really means
Royal Caribbean relies on NPS or Net Promoter Scores to evaluate how its operations are working.
In short, this is a tool for measuring customer loyalty and predicting business growth.
The way the analysis is done on this type of question is if you answer a 9 or 10 you are a Promoter, 6-8 you are Neutral, 0-5 you are a Detractor.
In 2022, Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley talked about how important NPS scores are to his company, "I think the happy customers is a beautiful thing to have. And I think that formula has never changed. When people really have an amazing time, they go backward and as they tell their friends and families, they want to come back and repeat.
"We've done obviously work on Net Promoter Score and repeat cruises and the correlation is relatively high. There is a relationship between Net Promoter Score and loyalty guest. So it's a winning formula. And I think that's always been one of the great things about cruise is the value proposition connected to satisfaction has always been remarkably high."
Royal Caribbean wants you to be honest and truthful so you can properly determine what's working well or not. But if you're being coached to give positive answers, that skews the data in the wrong way.
The survey question is trying to figure out if crew members are inflating scores by asking guests for positive ratings.
Confusing passengers
Without knowing about NPS scores and how they work, the question is confusing.
In the Facebook post with this question, about half the people commented they answer "yes" while others answered "no".
"I had the same question and was confused by it. I work for a large corporation which relies on customer feedback and I feel like this question is very inappropriate. To your point when we get somebody in trouble for answering yes or no," wrote Tina Basinger.
Allan Bowman posted, "Answer as honestly as you can. If it was a negative thing for a crew member to mention it, then they wouldn't be mentioning it so often!"
Jenny Hinson added, "Answer honestly. If you don’t know then just don’t answer!"
What should you do
In my opinion, the question is aimed at maintaining the integrity of the survey as a whole, so answering truthfully is the proper route.
It's perfectly okay for a crew member to alert you about the survey, and even point out that the survey is quite important.
The issue is if they start to pressure you to answer for a "10" score, either by directly asking for it or inferring if they don't get a perfect score, they'll get in trouble.
So if you're told by a crew member that the survey is important or that you should do it when you get home, I don't believe that constitutes a "yes" to the question.
However, if they ask for perfect scores or guilt you about not giving perfect scores, that's where you'd want to answer "yes".
It gets into a gray area when the crew member dances around it, such as a head waiter that says they strive for 10 out of 10 and asked to immediately let him know if anything didn’t meet that standard so it could be corrected on the spot.
What happens if a crew member doesn't get a perfect score
We don't have insight into how exactly less than perfect scores impact crew members, but some passengers shared what they've heard.
Austin posted on our Royal Caribbean message boards, "One of our former waiters told us if they do not get 10s, they are required to attend more “training” sessions which results in less free/leave time."
"They are also rated against other wait staff. I actually got to see it posted during a galley tour. It can also lead to no promotion or no contract renewal."
Snowchaser wrote, "We were told that the survey scores determine how many tables they will service in the MDR on upcoming cruises. As an assistant waiter, waiter just starting out good survey scores mean your ability to make more money grows with more responsibility."
Bradinmississippi added, "We use a 10-point scale where I work and are required to investigate every score below 10. The employee doesn't technically get in trouble for a low score, but if they fail to follow procedure they are disciplined."
