Customer Relations Hours

[Needing Assistance]

Hello,

It's my understanding that the 'customer relations' department is different than the 'customer service' department. I have an issue with upcoming travel that may require the help of customer relations, but won't know until this weekend. Does anyone know whether the customer relations department keeps different hours than customer service?

Thanks!

 

[TinCan782]

I guess you go ahead and call over the weekend and see what happens. OR, call today (Friday) and ask what their hours are.

And yes, they are two different departments.

 

[Needing Assistance]

I guess you go ahead and call over the weekend and see what happens. OR, call today (Friday) and ask what their hours are.

And yes, they are two different departments.

True, I could. But if members on this forum know, even better.

 

[TinCan782]

I guess you go ahead and call over the weekend and see what happens. OR, call today (Friday) and ask what their hours are.

And yes, they are two different departments.

True, I could. But if members on this forum know, even better.

7AM-10PM Eastern Monday through Friday (so said the agent on the phone!)

 

[lstone19]

Based on my experience at an airline, Customer Relations organizations in the travel industry only deal with post-travel issues. The organizations to deal with pre-travel issues are Reservations (by phone) and Customer Service (face-to-face at a station). Reservations is the best place for dealing with non-current day pre-travel issues.

Customer Relations, because it deals with post-travel only and therefore not time critical matters, is, at my carrier, not a 24/7 department. I would expect the same at Amtrak.

 

[user 1215]

Most of your assumptions are correct, however, I would say that Customer Relations are the folks to deal with pre-travel issues that reservations isn't able (or willing) to fix. At Amtrak this is often deals with rate changes, route changes, pre-travel cancellation refunds, etc.

When I worked at Disney in their hotel reservations department, I was in Guest RELATIONS and trust me, we dealt with a LOT of pre-travel issues, ie: date and rate occupancy and other changes. You are right, though - for the most part, all these SHOULD be able to be handled by the front line reservations agent. But if at first you don't succeed, call, call again.

 

[amamba]

Yes customer relations is closed over the weekend. And it can require a long wait time to get to customer relations, which I am going to assume is even later now with the tragedy of this week.

 

[Needing Assistance]

Thanks for everyone's response. I was able to connect with Customer Relations and they were a great deal of help in assisting with a pre-travel issue.