A decision to increase the amount of front-line call centre work for P&O Cruises processed offshore has resulted in 38 local staff being made redundant. Carnival Australia has reduced its head count at its North Sydney office following an operational review, with Stellar, a Philippines-based organisation to take over a...
A decision to increase the
amount of front-line call centre
work for P&O Cruises processed
offshore has resulted in 38 local
staff being made redundant.
Carnival Australia has reduced its head
count at its North Sydney office following an
operational review, with Stellar, a Philippines-based
organisation to take over a larger slice of
P&O Cruises’ reservations duties.
The Stellar group provides contact centre
services in multiple regions across the world,
as well as social media & back office processes.
“Following an extensive review of P&O
Cruises’ contact centre operations, the
decision has been made to extend the existing
agreement with Stellar to take on additional
call capacity for P&O Cruises, P&O Cruises
World Cruising and Cunard,” a Carnival
spokesman told Cruise Weekly this morning.
Stellar already handles around half of P&O
Cruises’ call volumes, with the company saying
that 38 locally based roles will be “affected by
the change”.
Both part-time and full-time positions will
be affected, with the changes to be fully
implemented from Sep this year.
An additional 22 positions comprising the
company’s Customer Relations, Customer Care,
Groups and Polar Support team members are
not affected and will remain in Sydney.
Call centre operations for Carnival Australia’s
other brands represented locally, including
Princess Cruises, Holland America Line and
Seabourn are also not affected in any way,
Carnival Australia said.
Carnival added the expanded delegation to
Stellar will allow P&O Cruises to leverage the
company’s global capabilities in both Sydney
and Manila to deliver improved efficiency &
customer performance and new technologies.
“The extension of Stellar’s responsibilities
will also allow P&O Cruises to access a range
of new options such as extending contact
centre operating hours and introducing new
technologies like web-chat,” Carnival said.
P&O Cruises said it had already shared the
news with a number of travel agents, but will
deliver more information to the trade closer
to the time, stating that its immediate human
resources focus was on “working through the
changes with the team members affected by
the new arrangements.
