Princess Cruises has revealed that its live web chat function now accounts for 15 per cent of agent enquiries.

This is the highest proportion since its launch in 2016 and in the last 12 months more than 5,000 agent enquiries have been answered online. Princess added that almost 100 per cent were answered within two minutes.

Princess Cruises’ sales director UK & Europe Rachel Poultney (pictured) said the figures were “testament to both agents’ willingness to try it out and our helpful and efficient contact centre”.

She added: “We’re delighted to see so many agents using our web chat. It’s a quick, hassle-free way to get immediate support.

“We’ve recently launched our travel agent promise, which helps reinforce our commitment to the trade, and a key part of this is ‘being easy to deal with’. Our web chat is the perfect example of Princess being on hand to help support agents wherever they are.

“We now want to see our web chat facility go from strength-to-strength and for agents to think of contacting us online as readily as picking up the phone. We will invest in further staff training and continue to promote its availability to the trade so that agents across the UK & Ireland know that we’re always on and only a click away.”

The chat function is available via Princess’ sales information portal at www.onesourcecruises.com.

Princess is also giving agents the chance to join a preview sailing on Sky Princess, departing 16 October 2019. The trip includes return flights, overseas transfers and a variety of complimentary on-board activities.

Agents need to make a Princess booking between 1 May and 30 June 2019 on any Princess voyage and submit the booking reference to www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/skyprincess. There is no limit to the number of entries.