A customer asks for a holiday quote. The sales agent emails it over, but the customer is at work and only replies in the evening, when the agent has already gone home. The next morning, the agent digs the thread back out, rereads the history and answers.
Multiply that by every enquiry, every follow-up and every guest update, and a large part of the working day goes into managing email.
For Patrick Hill, Head of Paramount Cruises, and his team, this was everyday reality. Quotes were going out quickly, but the back and forth by email stretched every enquiry into days and ate up time the team would rather spend with customers.
Today, Paramount Cruises runs its customer communication via WhatsApp with Superchat. What started as a pilot with a couple of sales agents is now used across the whole business, from the first quote to the welcome-home message after the trip.
The result: the team saves two hours every day, and customers reply 30% faster.
Fast quotes, slow conversations
Before Superchat, email was the main channel between sales agents and customers. The problem was not sending quotes, but everything around them.
Customers read emails at different times of day than the team was working, and every reply added hours of delay. Agents had no way of knowing whether a quote had even been seen, and a lot of time went into searching through long email threads to pick up where a conversation had left off.
Routine messages cost time as well. The operations team often had to write messages for larger groups while guests were already in resort, copy them over and send them by email, with no certainty that anyone would read them.
For Patrick as a manager, keeping track of how the team communicated meant digging through inboxes and listening to phone calls.
The features that changed the day-to-day
From a small pilot to every department
Paramount Cruises introduced Superchat step by step. Two sales agents piloted it first, while the rest of the team continued with email. The team then compared response rates between agents using WhatsApp and those sending emails, and the difference was clear enough to roll it out quickly.
Templates are where the team saves the most time, and they have become Patrick's favourite feature. They accompany guests through every stage of the trip: checking in with their documents, sending tips and information before they visit ports, and welcoming them home afterwards.
A welcome-home message takes about five seconds to send. For larger groups, the operations team prepares messages in advance instead of writing them while guests are already travelling.
In sales, quotes are now shared as web links directly in the WhatsApp chat. The double blue tick tells agents that the customer has viewed the price, and the conversation often continues straight away instead of the next day. The full history sits in one chat, so nobody has to search for old threads.
The internal notes turned out to be just as valuable. When a customer asks what to do in Miami, the agent handling the enquiry doesn't need to have been there. Colleagues see the conversation and add their tips in the notes, which gives every agent the support of the whole team.
More time, faster replies, more bookings
The biggest change is time. Templates and less searching through email threads save two hours across the team every day.
The operations team no longer works on messages while guests are already in resort. Messages are planned, sent on time, and the team can see that they have arrived and been read.
Speed has improved just as much. Customers now reply 30% faster, which helps the team move enquiries forward and resolve questions sooner. Once a conversation gets going, it is far more likely to end in a booking, and Paramount Cruises has seen its conversion improve.
Customer engagement has grown as well. Welcome-home messages sent via WhatsApp get a 25% higher response rate than by email, bringing in more feedback from guests after their trip.
Collaboration and visibility have improved too. Knowledge is shared across the team through the internal notes, which helps with training new agents. As Head of Paramount Cruises, Patrick can now see at a glance whether customers get answers and what kind of messages the team sends. Superchat started in sales and is now used by every department at Paramount Cruises.
Start small and let the results speak
For Paramount Cruises, WhatsApp with Superchat has turned time-consuming email threads into fast conversations. The team saves two hours every day, customers reply 30% faster, and guests engage more with the messages they receive before, during and after their trip.
Patrick's advice to companies still unsure about the switch is simple: start small with a few team members and let the results make the case. He also highlights how easy the platform is to use, whether adding a new user or working together in internal conversations.
For Paramount Cruises, WhatsApp is now part of every stage of the customer journey, and the time saved goes back into looking after customers.
