Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: So yesterday, Sunday 3/18, my sisters and I swooped down into the Magic Kingdom for a bit of a vacation away from Morva. At one point I decided to purchase some sweet little snack at the bakery on Main Street, since both Orwen and Orgoch were off doing their own things. At first everything seemed well enough. I was the only guest in line around 4 pm and stood there for a few seconds while deciding what I would buy. I noticed that there were 5 cast members clustered together on the other side of the counter--all laughing and joking around with each other. At first there didn't seem to be anything wrong with this. But, then, after about a minute of standing there waiting to be acknowledged, these cast members seemed to not be aware that there was even a customer in sight! I tried to make eye contact with each one but they continued to joke around and be oblivious to the fact that they had a customer who needed to be waited on. At long last, one of them sheepishly asked me if I needed something. By then my patience had worn thin and I replied, "Indeed I do, miss. I was beginning to think I was invisible due to the lack of anyone acknowledging me until just now." Then I proceeded to place my order. But the fact that it took as long as it did to be acknowledged made me realize that some cast members are so inattentive at the parks these days. This hasn't been the first time I've experienced a lack of attentiveness at the parks lately. It also points up the need for the former Traditions Training Class to be reinstated. While some cast members at the parks are very good at what they do, there are some who just don't seem to want to do their jobs at all. Of course you find this happening at ANY job these days. But it just stands out more when it happens at the Disney theme parks. Thank you for allowing a witch to vent.
Originally Posted By ballesbl Reminds me of my years of working at Nordstrom. We would've had our heads cut off!
Originally Posted By disney pete It's quite sad too see this happening on a regular basis i see the differences between my first trip in 1997 and our last for our wedding in 2010,whilst there are still awesome and hard working courtious CM's there are a lot of average ones getting through come on Disney sort this out get back to what you did best FIRST CLASS GUEST SERVICES.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom Usually my experience with the cast members in the park shops ( especially the Magic Kingdom shops ) is that they are overwhelmed with quests purchasing things. I do agree that the Disney Traditions Training needs to be reinstated. This becomes particularly obvious when your in EPCOT and you get different service depending on which country pavallion you are in. This can also be said about the degree of service one gets in the various Disney resorts. I have noticed how some cast members pretend to be invisible ( mouse cleaning ) and others can be overtly engaging ( gym at the Animal Kingdom Lodge ).
Originally Posted By hopemax Here's a CM story that happened to my parents today at Pin Central at Epcot. There was some sort of trivet on display at both cash registers (maybe for Flower & Garden, I'm not sure about this point). My Dad said he wanted to purchase one, but wanted one in a box if they had one. The CM first said they weren't for sale. Then she picked it up, saw the SKU and said, "Oh, I guess we do sell them." Then she couldn't find anymore. My parents noticed a spot on one of them, and when they pointed it out, the CM put her finger in the mouth and then tried to wipe off the spot. Can you saw eeew. So my parents decided they would take the other one. My Dad pulled out the Maingate pass (card spouses use to get their CM discount/admission). CM didn't know what it was or what she should do with it. Called another CM over, but in the mean time my Mom pulled out her CM ID and said, "that card goes with this." When the 2nd CM saw the ID, he just wanted to use that to ring them up, instead of taking the opportunity to show the 1st CM how you ring up someone with a Maingate pass. There are thousands of CM's at WDW, lots with spouses, the CM NEEDS to know what to do with a Maingate pass. And you know what, this is not unusual. My Dad says about half the CM's he deals with don't know what a Maingate pass is. This started a discussion between us about how WDW doesn't use Mystery shoppers anymore. They rely on the survey takers at the front of the park. It's only stuff that bothers enough guests that they point it out in a survey hours later (if they were surveyed in the first place) that maybe get dealt with. It's an unreliable method if you want to maintain consistent and proper customer service. So we can only assume that WDW management doesn't care about providing good service.
Originally Posted By tashajilek I know what you guys mean about the customer service i had a horrible experience at the bakery. So my husband and i waited for about 20 miniutes and we ended up with almost cold coffee. It took the dunce cast members about 5 minutes to give me new coffee and she opened up my coffee and told me in a very rude manner it was my fault because i put cream in it. I have never been so offended at any CM anywhere else. Go figure i put my cream in the "fresh coffee" and it was hot.
Originally Posted By WDWdreamin I totally hear you witches. When I was in "Mexico" in January, getting tacos, I had to wait numerous minutes and kept switching lines trying to place my order because all the servers at the ordering stations were chatting to other CMs. They ignored me even when I did catch their eyes and try to talk to them.
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: We're sorry to hear that so many of you ducklings have had equally bad service. I don't mean to come across as if this is supposed to be 'Cast member bashing time'. So many cast members out there really DO care. Unfortunately it's the few bad apples that we seem to remember the most. I did go to Guest Relations and tell them about my experience and the Cast member, there, said they were glad I took the time to report the situation. They promised to look into it. But Disney management really should do more to educate their incoming cast members about how to give better service. Again, I believe this is another example of how things deteriorate whenever they scale back on the former Traditions classes.
Originally Posted By tashajilek Im not sure we really want to bash Cast member, but sadly we have all had a few bad experiences. I have only had one run in with a bad CM at Disneyland with my many many trips to DL and have had my worst experience with the one at WDW. I think a lot of us here know what good customer service should be. It's good you took the time to complain and hopefully crack down on people chatting rather than working.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< So we can only assume that WDW management doesn't care about providing good service. >>> I think a more accurate statement would be that they care about Increasing Shareholder Value more than good service. Upper management is disconnected from the fact that de-emphasizing the second impacts the first, even if it can't be measured in SAP on an hourly basis or affect the current quarter's bottom line.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper I keep seeing reference to the "Traditions" class not being given anymore. Is that so? Do they not even put the College Program Cast Members through that? I ask because I suspect "poor" service is typically generated by cast that are not familiar with the procedures and seeing that a large chunk of staff these days is turned over during the end of each College Program term it stands to reason there are going to be "at risk" times when you are more likely to get that poor service. Traditions was supposed to be the tool to keep that to a minimum so I'm surprised it isn't still in use.
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: From what I have heard, there is still some sort of training class for new hires but it's nothing like the former Traditions training class that they used to have. If someone with more knowledge about this wants to comment it would be much appreciated. But there was a topic thread about a scaled back version of Traditions that someone created right here on Laughing Place a couple of years ago.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost Speaking of management...where was the supervisor during all this? Bad employees (CM's) comes from bad management. Traditions would be a good start but all of the traditions programs in the world will not work unless someone is making sure it happens.
Originally Posted By dagobert That's what people usually expect from Disneyland Paris. Although it's already four years since we have been to WDW, but back then we never encountered such behaviour. In fact it was the other way round. For me the CMs were too friendly. At first it was nice to be treated that way, but after a few days it just seemed to be so fake. I don't need this over-friendliness, I just want a polite CMs who cares about my order or problem.
Originally Posted By WDWdreamin Oh, I definitely know that it is not all CMs. We have been to WDW twice, for some days each time, and I have only had this one bad CM experience in food service. I should have reported it to someone... This was around January 20th, I don't know where that is in the college program schedule. Personally, I have never felt that any CMs were too friendly, but then I'm American and we like that. It's one of my favorite things about Disney. I have certainly felt rudeness from waiters and cashiers across Europe. On the other hand, I am sure if I felt a CM was being fake, I would rather he or she tone it down and just be polite.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Speaking of management...where was the supervisor during all this? Bad employees (CM's) comes from bad management. Traditions would be a good start but all of the traditions programs in the world will not work unless someone is making sure it happens. >>> It goes back to this: "Quality is ALWAYS a management problem." In this case, it's due to a funamental shift at WDW that someone else alluded to: it used to be that standards were set and set high, and independently verified that the standards were met. These days, more or less the only standard is that things not be bad enough to show up as a blip on an exit survey. As long as that doesn't happen, cut as much as you can. Is it the front-line employees' fault that they have not been properly trained on how to operate their point-of-sale system?
Originally Posted By hopemax > Speaking of management...where was the supervisor during all this? < Probably, in an office some where or walking around picking up trash. When they want to be "visible" it's the latter. Managers are more tasked more with making sure the cast deployment system is working properly, vacation and HR concerns are handled, stuff like that. Not things like making sure that people on the floor know and can perform the tasks that are expected of them. My Mom has worked in a few areas now, and she continues to be shocked about what CMs are allowed to get away with. At her position, before where she is now, one of the CM's would refuse to help with wheelchairs or process freight when she was scheduled. Management KNOWS this, but she was allowed to not have to perform her tasks. This puts even more pressure on the remaining CM's who are already overburdened as then they have to perform their tasks but cover for the slacking CM. > Upper management is disconnected from the fact that de-emphasizing the second impacts the first, even if it can't be measured in SAP on an hourly basis or affect the current quarter's bottom line.< The example, I have used before. When my Mom was working in a previous location, they had a serious rainstorm. People flooded into the building wanting to buy ponchos. But only one CM was manning the register. Ponchos could be sold at any of the registers in the shop, but the other CMs didn't bother to call over any guests to sell them ponchos. They had to have sold fewer ponchos, with one register with a line 20 people deep, than having additional registers open. Since people would come in see the line and then walk away because they didn't want to wait that long. Where she is now, she sees more issues with failure for proper merchandising. Fragile items are jammed together where they get broken more easily. Displays don't look nice, wrong things are put in the wrong places or have the wrong size distribution etc. She's got 35 years of retail experience, and when she tries to point these things out, no one cares, and she's making trouble. As much as the Spirit complained about the Walmarting of Disney, I think Walmart would care more about the merchandising of their stores than Disney appears to care about theirs.
Originally Posted By hopemax And I'm sure there are plenty of you that will read my last post and wonder what is the big deal about what a merchandise display looks like, or if inventory is adequate. It may not be your job to care, but retailers spend millions of dollars a year making sure that their stores are set up in a way to maximize sales. So Disney absolutely should care, and the point is they don't. And if they don't care in that major aspect of their business, what else are they not caring about?
Originally Posted By TP2000 hopemax, I notice the displays. You can tell when someone took some time to set it up right, and kept it that way. I encountered a similar thing at the Disneyana Shop at Disneyland a couple weeks ago, after it opened from its rehab. I wandered in there, a nicely dressed guy without horns growing from my skull, and spent some time looking at the merchandise. There were 3 CM's standing right in the middle of the shop gabbing about non-Disney stuff. They just gabbed and gabbed, and I was embarassed for them at how unprofesional they were. No one said a word to me, or even pretended to acknowledge I existed or had walked into their store. I spent several minutes in there, and then left, and the CM's just went on gabbing like they were hanging out at Starbucks and they completely ignored the operation of Disneyland around them. Amazingly bad customer service, and quite unprofesional. The problem seems to be two-fold: 1. Very poor training. It's obvious these CM's have had very little or no training in customer service. Their lack of retail profesionalism is startling, and they only seem to know what to do when they are staffing a register with a line of customers 10 deep. 2. Very poor management. They don't seem to be held to any real standard, and no supervision appears to care. Add those two things together, bad training programs and ineffective management, and you've got a whole generation of CM's who just stand around talking to each other until they are forced to perform some basic task like ringing up merchandise. The sense of gracious hospitality rooted in strong profesionalism and sharp customer service skills has long since departed Disney theme parks.
Originally Posted By EmmaJayne I know I don't spend as much time at the Disney parks as many of you but the only time I would say I feel ignored by CM's is when I line up by myself for character pictures.. Especially if there isn't a straight line to stand in.. Kids who turn up 5 minutes after me get their pictures taken first.. It gets really frustrating.. Just because I'm old enough to know it's not really Mickey doesnt mean I should have to let every kid go in front of me.. Though I have had a lot of exceptional CM's go out of their way to make sure I get a good picture it's the one time when I feel I am overlooked!
