Have your servers ever "begged" for a good review on the survey?

[Happy4Disney]

Wow, our servers were wonderful and nothing like some described here. That is a shame that some feel they need to beg for "excellent" ratings and I am sure it is reflected on their survey. I am not surprised that some guests would mark the staff more negatively on the survey after being begged for an excellent rating.

Our head waiter, Alessandro, mentioned the importance of the survey on the first night and told us to please let them know during the week if there was anything they could do to improve their service. The survey was not mentioned again by anyone. All of the dining staff should follow the same pattern, there seems to be too much inconsistency.

I guess if someone had begged me for an excellent rating I would simply tell them that I will be honest on the survey and leave it at that. Like a previous poster said, a good server KNOWS if they are providing excellent service and doesn't need to beg.

 

[frdeb1999]

Our servers were wonderful too. They mentioned the card and that they would greatly appreciate our just filling it out....end of conversation. I honestly think I would be totally turned off if someone did this. Everyone knows what great service is....if it truely is there is absolutely no reason to push for something.

 

[dolphingirl47]

We had that issue on the Magic. Our serving team was wonderful and I could not have wished for anything else. However, we were all put out on our table when we got the talk on the penultimate night and then again on the last night. We were told that they might not get their contact renewed if we gave them anything other than an excellent. We all felt that this was not on.

dolphingirl47

 

[orlandothebeagle]

We had that issue on the Magic. Our serving team was wonderful and I could not have wished for anything else. However, we were all put out on our table when we got the talk on the penultimate night and then again on the last night. We were told that they might not get their contact renewed if we gave them anything other than an excellent. We all felt that this was not on.

dolphingirl47

That might just be enough to get them a bad review in my book!!
Although I could never be that rotten in theory.

 

[wuv tigger]

We had that issue on the Magic. Our serving team was wonderful and I could not have wished for anything else. However, we were all put out on our table when we got the talk on the penultimate night and then again on the last night. We were told that they might not get their contact renewed if we gave them anything other than an excellent. We all felt that this was not on.

dolphingirl47

just wondering as we had the same issues & were on the Magic in Nov 08

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Oue serving team were also outstanding on our recent cruise and on the last evening they simply mentioned that we would be getting a survey, which bit of it applied to them, and asked us to please take the time to fill it in. There was no begging or pleas for us to mark them as excellent although of course we did. I also mentioned them by name on the survey and in an email to DCL on our return. I received a lovely email back from DCL, saying that our comments would be passed on to the individuals we had praised - so that is good to know.

 

[wwwosie]

on your eval - thanks for the tip as I now what score to give you ---- a big FAT ZERO!!!!!
WHY?? Because I also work in the hospitality industry & I take that exact kind of an attitude (joking or not) as an affront to the industry.

First time visiting WDW / DCL --
01-07-09 through 01-15-09

P.S. Yes - I do welcome feedback from anyone on this post.

Kris

Hey Kris,
As someone who grew up in the hospitality industry and has a degree in it, I don't necessarily agree 100% with your post. I do agree that anyone who goes into the hospitality business should give excellent customer service 100% of the time or find another career. If you don't like serving people, man! you are in the WRONG business.

That said here's what I don't agree with you on:
If someone had given me excellent service I wouldn't penalize them all the way to 0% for asking for a good score. I actually would try to make a note of my annoyance at the begging or deduct some points for it. I think that if enough folks send the message that "yes, great service, but cut the spiel", maybe they'll stop it.

On the other hand, if I received rotten service, I would also make a note of that and would also communicate that in my score card. And in the comments section I would add something about "begging for an undeserved score".

 

[gentah]

We recently got back from our first cruise, so we don't have anything to compare it to, but we were very happy with our servers. She did tell us at the beginning that there would be a survey, and that their goal was to provide us wonderful service. On about day 3 she asked us if there was anything in their performance that we would like to see improved. On the last day, she mentioned the survey and that she had asked if there was anything wrong or any areas that needed improvement, and that we had told them at that time that everything was fine--it did feel like she was concerned about getting good reviews, but I didn't mind it--if my job reviews were being conducted by random strangers, I would probably be uptight about it as well.

 

[cats mom]

"Have your servers ever "begged" for a good review on the survey?"

Yes, and it made me extrremely uncomfortable and actually less inclined to give the excellent ratings they deserved (up until the begging started that is)

If DCL is really looking for honest feedback I agree that they need to make sure that last night speech is not so darn high pressure.

 

[dolphingirl47]

just wondering as we had the same issues & were on the Magic in Nov 08

We were on the 5 night special cruise sailing on September 1st and I will PM you the names as I do not feel comfortable posting them on a public board. You never know who reads them and they provided really outstanding service apart from the begging part.

Now, the day after we got off the Magic, we had a 4 night cruise on the Wonder and there our head server briefly mentioned that there was a survey at the end of the cruise and could we please fill it in, as they are really important to DCL. She also pointed out to us right from the get go that if there is anything else they could do to make our dining experience more magical, to let either her or our serving team know. Our server and assistant server did not mention the survey at all until the last breakfast when we were reminded to drop the survey into one of the boxes before leaving the ship. When we told them, that we had already done this, they seemed happy enough. Our table mates asked them at the same breakfast if they always work as the same team and our server then explained, that as a rule, yes, but they might switch teams around if they get low scores on the survey for a couple of cruises.

dolphingirl47

 

[Kay1]

DCL needs to hear these complaints so a rule against " the speech" can be created and enforced.

 

[lreisen]

On our first night the head server told us that their goal was to provide excellent service and to please let them know if they fall short immediately. The survey wasn't mentioned until the last night.

 

[Marinate]

Does anyone know if we can mail in the surveys. We had 2 staterroms, so I only filled out one (since it took about 15 minutes to fill out and I needed to pack on the last night). So now I'm feeling guilty, because if it means so much to them, I should have sent 2 surveys for my EXCELLENT dining room team.

 

[jbuckent]

Does anyone have the mailing or e-mailing address to send comments to? I'd love to let them know I can't stand the speech and send them some of these other suggestions BEFORE my upcoming cruise. I'd hate to add them to my survey and have them dock my server because I think there are ways DCL could improve things.

 

[Soccermom-Cheri]

the first two nights our food was tepid or even cold. My husband took the head server aside and diplomatically let him know that if things didn't improve, tips would be effected. Things got a little bit better and we even received a new (and better) group of servers on the second half of our back to back without even asked for it.

I wonder if the servers beg for the reviews because more people are quick to point out the bad instead of the good.

 

[Aw Phooey]

Wasn't a problem on our DCL cruise. The server stressed the importance of the survey and asked that we please fill it out but he did not tell us how to rate him.

But DH and I know that the pressure is on based on the surveys because that's been our experience on cruises in general. It's not just DCL. It's the whole industry. I've had other servers (non-DCL) mention in that promotions were based off of scores so if we felt they did a good job please give an excellent. No one has ever told us their jobs were on the line though.

On another cruise (not DCL), it was actually the Cruise Director at the "last day" meeting that stressed the difference between "Excellent" and "Good". Being staffed by humans, no cruise could ever achieve absolute perfection. So we may be tempted to give out "goods" or "greats" to cruises that may have had minor flaws but were nevertheless very enjoyable experiences. We're not difficult people to please but we are honest. But this CD basically said those scores do negatively reflect the cruise. While we may occasionally encounter minor flaws it's nothing we'd like to see anyone get fired over. So ever since that speech, we have been a little looser with our scores giving an "excellent" to those who simply do their jobs properly (including fixing those issues that may arise) with a happy smile on their face. If someone goes above and beyond, we'll show our appreciation via some extra gratuity. Our stateroom hostess tolerated our erratic sleeping habits (and the accidental Lake Superior I made in the shower room floor) with a smile and the asst. server was very quick with keeping our beverages filled. We noticed and stuck an extra something in their envelopes in addition to the industry standard gratuity coupon.

 

[Kim&Chris]

Just back from the 12/4 3-day Wonder.

For the first time, we felt as though there was NO begging. And, because there was no begging and/or pressure to give excellent reviews, we were very willing to give excellent reviews.

 

[tink too]

We didn't experience begging, but our server did mention the comment cards and said they were important. I'd read about "the speech" on the boards before our cruise and was really dreading it - luckily, we didn't get it. Our head server visited our table every night and always asked if we needed him to address any issues. Our server and asst. worked hard, tried hard but were not as fabulous as others we noticed in the dining room. We are easily pleased, so marked them as excellent as we felt they took care of us well. However, I did not name them as our "favourite" CM's - that award went to our stateroom host.

 

[canni41]

This was our first cruise and it was absolutely phenomenal. But i Have to say my least favorite part of the cruise was dinner ... I had read so many reviews about their servers and I have to say ... we are easy to please but they were just "so-so" ... and were kind of "rushed" ... I mean the assistant server ... when I would make small talk and ask how she was doing ... actually wrinkled her nose on several occassions and said "hmm not that great" ... ! and was kind of a downer ... if I can say that It was really weird. And then the last night ... the lead server ... no actually the last TWO nights kept saying there should be no reason, did we not agree that they should get all Excellents on their card? I know these servers work so hard and such long hours ... and did "do their job" ... I did give them excellent cause I felt bad. But I have to say it just didn't sit very well with me. We ended up just tipping slightly over the recommended amount though our stateroom host ... we tipped well over ... he was just AWESOME.

 

[DaddyBeast]

I was also put off by the server trying to tell me the difference between excellent and good. Whenever he would ask how it was and I would tell him everything is ok, or fine, or very good, he would launch into his "excellent" speech.

Normally, I appreciate servers who are available when we need something and stay out of the way for the rest of the meal (which is the way I was taught to serve tables). If I had to guess, I'd say they probably ran a contest to see who could get the most excellent responses and the prize must have been "excellent".

I didn't pay for a cruise so I could assess and rate the servers and report back to the captain. It is up to me whether I wish to make suggestions to improve the experience or not. There is a built-in feedback system for servers (called tips).