Polite way to talk to servers about "excellent"

[Silverfox97]

I'm in the healthcare field. They are giving surveys out to patients about their hospital experience and are expecting all "excellent" scores from the nurses and ancillary staff as well. It's SO unrealistic.

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Nursing at our hospital is in the 96% percentile as far as patient satisfaction compared to all of the other hospitals in the US!!! It IS possible, (although harder in huge institutions).

As far as the "excellent" speech - it has varied for us. Balwan hit us with it in 2010 on the Wonder, and we let it go. I thought it would've rude to say otherwise & so did DH. On our 3 subsequent cruises after that, Marcos on the Magic in 2011, Shawn on the Magic in 2011, & the team on the Dream in 2012 saw that we were recent repeat cruisers, didn't give us the speech, or recommend dishes (which is a waste of time since we don't need help ordering). Daniel on the Fantasy in June did bring back the "excellent" speech & food recommendations, but he did a great job. In all 6 cruises, we've never felt "pressured."

I agree with the PP that said that they just let the CMs say their piece. So do we.

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[AlexandNessa]

DH suggested (in jest) that we turn it into a drinking game.

Very funny! We do that when we watch Criminal Minds ... Unsub!! Now, we'll be doing .... Excellent!!

Seriously, it doesn't really bother us much. When they ask how everything is, we just say excellent and move on.

 

[luv that cruise]

DH suggested (in jest) that we turn it into a drinking game.

I Love it!!! Our thanksgiving cruise is going to be so much fun!

 

[Yokelridesagain]

IMO, I think food service issues/ratings should be on the servers. Food quality/type issues should be on the chef.

I don't think that's fair either. The chef doesn't have control over the ingredients that the cruise line chooses to purchase. Garbage in, garbage out.

Last time I gave the food the 2/5 it richly deserved and complimented the servers by name on the comment card. Hope that balanced it out...I couldn't honestly say they did an "excellent" job recommending things, but given the fact that I found maybe 10% of the offerings to be of high quality, it's not very likely they would have been able to make me real happy with the food no matter what they did.

 

[lmhall2000]

The fault here lies in the Disney management team, not the servers. And "every cruise line does it" never, never excuses anything that should not be done. I feel sorry for the servers.

I believe you tend to have the experience you expect...we expect great servers, and seems like we always get them. We treat them with respect, don't make demands, genuinely care about how they feel and what their story is, and trust me you get it all back in spades. DCL management chooses the easy way out by demanding "excellent" ratings instead of more difficult but more meaningful performance measures; the poor servers are stuck with it. Let them give their speech and keep using the word. Enjoy it, they will to, and your experience will be fantastic.

Not at all our experience, and my dh and I have been servers for many of our younger years at fine dining and at family restaurants....I am happy you have had great experiences...but no, you do not get what you expect. And the fault may lay in part on Disney management but they frown upon harrassing customers...period. There are some servers who may ask once, or may not ask at all, then there are those that are relentless, rude, and becomes very awkward with their insistence and incessant pleas. For 2 of our 2 cruises, we have had the latter, no matter how good an attitude we may have had, they did not cease. There is nothing 'enjoyable' about letting them give their speech 6-10x during the very few moments our family has to spend together as a family...it's an outright aggressive solicitation and should be stopped.

Honestly, after having to politely suck up my own discomfort and unease for 2 cruises..I will not stand for it next time. I will politely go to the server, take him aside, and ask him to not put forth another solicitation, that act alone would garner him more of an excellent rating than filling our drinks on time. We have never asked for our drinks to be filled (although we sat through our entire appetizer with no drinks..hoping they would figure it out), we are some of the least demanding because we sympathize with their job...but we know what good service is, what 'acceptable' service is and what poor service is...at Disney you have a shot at getting all three, regardless of your expectations.

Reading some of your experiences, obviously you have not been harrassed! I can easily tolerate 1-2 comments and some of those above are very professional and sincere...no ours were horrible. The brought out a form, showed it to us at the table and said we MUST mark Excellent, they did not 'ask' they were demanding and getting a very uptight mode with it...about every time they returned to our table the last 3 nights we would get the hard sell, "You're going to remember to mark excellent aren't you?", "Remember, an excellent rating is all that you should mark."...it was harrassing! So, for those who have not had that type of treatment, be open minded...they are out there.

 

[kaphil]

Glad it's not just me-

When my daughter got married last year on the Dream all 25 of us commented on how over-the-top the server was with pushing the "excellent". It was uncomfortable for all of us, especially since our serving team was the worst we'd had on any cruise. Why don't you take some pressure off these people and let me praise them on their merits and not the quality of the food or how annoyed I was by their pushiness.

 

[sheadley]

DH suggested (in jest) that we turn it into a drinking game.

Yeah, what she said!

 

[mollygirl13]

We did a B2B Dream Cruise in May. There were 6 of us and had the same serving team for both cruises.

Anyway, Howard said his spiel and was truthful in saying that he wanted everything to be 'excellent" for us and that if it wasn't he would change whatever it was to make it that way. My family liked that approach so we were honest with him. If the food/drinks or service was excellent, we said it. If it wasn't, we didn't. Howard made sure that whatever it was that one of us didn't care for was changed. That only happened a few times during the week but he made sure our week with him was indeed 'excellent." He was not pushy and he genuinely seemed to care. I guess we got lucky!

We liked the honest approach. It worked well for our family. We didn't give Howard a hard time or snarky responses.

We felt that Howard had a job to do just like in the "Real World" so did we. We have to abide by rules that our employer enforces. Sometimes we don't agree but we follow the rules because it is our job to do so. Howard didn't come up with the "excellent" speech. It wasn't his idea so we cut him some slack. He was doing his job and following the rules and by doing that he DID make sure that our week with him was indeed "excellent!"

Maybe other servers are pushier, I don't know. This was just my family's experience.

 

[ilovetexas]

DCL should be ashamed of themselves for putting their servers in this position. Yes, all cruise lines strive for excellent ratings but I've certainly never experienced, or heard about, or read about servers on other lines torturing guests with the "excellent" speech several times a cruise.

On both of our DCL cruises our servers were fabulous!! Excellent, if you will. What was not excellent was the food. It ranged from yuck (rarely) to good (mostly) to excellent (again, rarely).

DCL is obviously aware of two problems: 1) something in the dining room is not excellent and 2) they have created an environment where the servers feel pressured to pressure the guests into rating them excellent. BOTH of these problems are on DCL and they need to figure them out (secret shoppers/secret cruisers, anyone?) instead of torturing their hardworking servers.

I GUARANTEE you that if DCL found five to ten guests (each with >2 DCL cruises and preferably >2 cruises on other lines) on each sailing and offered them 10% off the cruise fare to do a thorough written review of the MDR experience, they would do it. That way, DCL would be getting good feedback (not just "check this box") in a timely manner from experienced cruisers and could address any issues without putting the burden where it doesn't belong.

 

[ilovetexas]

My cat stepped on my computer and did a double post!

 

[CarolAnnC]

As someone who has worked in the hospitality industry for 15 years, I can tell you that Excellent or 10 is the only score that matters. Surveys are a little misleading, in most a good or 9 holds the same point value as a poor or 0.
Although I could imagine how annoying the constant reminder would be, the servers are trying to engrain the word Excellent in your mind so that is what you think of when the survey comes around.

This is true for the industry I work in as well. Survey scores are all or nothing - "A" will pass, "B, C or D" will fail. Because I have worked with these, I am very sensitive to scoring on any type of survey. If I were truly dissatisfied I would send a letter to DCL directly instead for something like the quality of the meal ingredients. IMHO it is unfair to hold the dining room serving staff accountable for quality of the food.

 

[DreamGirl90]

As soon as we sense that they are about to make the "excellent" speech, we tell them, "We are aware of the importance of excellent ratings on the comment card, so no reminders are necessary. We are always honest with our ratings and we do EXPECT them to be excellent." Said with a smile.

So far that has worked to silence the reminders and prompt them to STRIVE for excellence instead of begging for it!

 

[mjmyers10]

We had the same speeches on our RC cruise last summer. Everything was great so we rated them excellent. I willard sure to watch out for this on our cruise next summer.

 

[GoHabsGo]

Let's not forget the marketing value to DCL of being able to tout the percent of passengers rating their experience as "excellent"...

I like the approach mentioned earlier: It's getting less excellent every time you ask.

PS when taking delivery of the last car we bought, it was the same thing "please rate everything a '5'" (5 being the top rating)

 

[mmackeymouse]

DCL should be ashamed of themselves...

I do want to be fair to DCL here. No one knows exactly what DCL did or did not say to staff members. This could be a bit of CM lore started in the beginning and passed down from one staff generation to the other. I have no doubt that DCL strives for excellence and preaches excellence. As to whether some furious person sends a howler threatening "Excellent or off with your head," I think that is a bit of a stretch.

For those of you in the service industry that admit to being held to impossibly high standards, have you or would you ever basically beg for a good review?

As someone mentioned earlier, DCL must be aware of this sales pitch, as they have added, "Has anyone pressured you into this rating?" or something to that effect. How do we know that DCL, in response to customer complaints, didn't have a meeting or send a letter that they are NOT to be giving the Excellent Speech, and they are doing it anyway? Again, we don't know what position DCL has put them in. It could be something as simple as promotions and salary are based on performance. It's like that everywhere.

 

[CEGrant]

The job these guys have is not easy. Yes I don't want to wate my vacation being badgered but I don't want to waste it giving someone who isn't on vacation a hard time. Yes I know we pay through the nose to do this. We work hard to afford this. But we are on vacation. They aren't.

I suggest (and plan on) merely saying, "Look, I know the importance of receiving excellents on your comment card. Just take nice care of us, and I'll make sure you get them."

If I feel the need to comment on food (which likely I won't), I'll do it directly to DCL later.