Q&A session at OKW annual meeting

[JudithM]

During the Q&A session at the OKW annual meeting last week a member, whose child works at the front desk at OKW, made the comment about CMs being abused by DVC members. The mom/member wanted members to remember that requests are requests & are not guaranteed & basically should not be taken out on CMs. Jim Lewis commented that she was speaking as a concerned parent.

I do NOT want this thread to turn into a bashing or a debate, but I do want to make an observation. A CM friend who works Guest Services/Guest Relations at a different WDW location made the observation that DVC members are difficult guests because not only are they demanding, but expect things they are not necessarily entitled to or have paid for. I know first hand we all spent a lot of money initially & continue to pay dues & spend money on every trip. BUT, a friendly reminder to remember everyone - Members & CMs - like to be treated nicely, politely, kindly, etc.

 

[Chuck S]

Absolutely! I'm sure the front desk CMs do their best to find available rooms that match our needs/requests. As high an occupany rate as the DVC resorts have, sometimes they just aren't available.

 

[yitbos96bb]

Definately... Golden rule people.

I worked as a College Program Kid 3 times and had the fortune of getting to work at least one day at Every Park, (I was DAK and Studios, but did training at Epcot and OT at MK) Nearly Every Hotel (My 3rd was as an AV tech and I did a shift at nearly every hotel), PI and Typhoon Lagoon. So I have been treated well and abused at all locations. I still remember the day when I was chewed out for 10 minutes because of the rain. THe guest insisted that Disney made it rain to sell ponchos. I took it in stride and bore the brunt (and gave him free Ponchos which made his day) of his rant, but at times people lose their god given sense when in Disney (all of you parents who let your kids climb 50 feet up the tree of life... THIS INCLUDES YOU!!!) Definately treat the CMs well. If something isn't right be nice and polite. They are much more likely to go out of their way for the polite person than the raving lunatic. AND if a CM isn't polite to you, don't get into a screaming match, instead ask for a manager and let them know (and if a CM goes out of their way for you and makes a magical experience... PLEASE DO THE SAME THING... Ask for a manager and tell them what happened.)

SOrry, but manners are very important and sometimes people who are normally polite forget theirs when away from home.

 

[PBader]

I agree CMs are entitlted to respect, you may not always like what they are telling you--but getting nasty with them is not a solution. They are there doing their job. There are always people who will "abuse" others, I just hope that I never treat a person that way. Kudos to the CMs that make our Disney stays as magical as they are.

 

[paults]

During the Q&A session at the OKW annual meeting last week a member, whose child works at the front desk at OKW, made the comment about CMs being abused by DVC members.

Hold on members!! just remember that a lot of people rent off these boards so it's possible that some of those renters abuse the CMs thinking they should get more then they deserve. That's why I'm not a big fan of renting pts for our HOME.
JMO

 

[Simba's Mom]

During the Q&A session at the OKW annual meeting last week a member, whose child works at the front desk at OKW, made the comment about CMs being abused by DVC members. The mom/member wanted members to remember that requests are requests & are not guaranteed & basically should not be taken out on CMs. Jim Lewis commented that she was speaking as a concerned parent.

I do NOT want this thread to turn into a bashing or a debate, but I do want to make an observation. A CM friend who works Guest Services/Guest Relations at a different WDW location made the observation that DVC members are difficult guests because not only are they demanding, but expect things they are not necessarily entitled to or have paid for. I know first hand we all spent a lot of money initially & continue to pay dues & spend money on every trip. BUT, a friendly reminder to remember everyone - Members & CMs - like to be treated nicely, politely, kindly, etc.

Thanks so much for that. I forgot about that, but I hate to see people "shoot the messenger" and abuse the front desk staff, especially as a CM Mom (at least formerly) myself.

 

[AMcaptured]

Honestly, I think it was out of line for a mother of a cast member, whether a DVC member or not, to bring up such grievances at an annual meeting.

I think by the time you get to having a job as an adult that your parents shouldn't be fighting your battles any longer, I don't know, to me it's just weird.

I am sure the mother thought she was helping her daughter but if that was my mother, I wouldn't have been to happy she brought up what I thought of the guests in front of my boss.

JMO.

 

[Chuck S]

Being the mother of a CM has nothing to do with her pont, which is right, respect returns respect, and being rude and obnoxious to a CM is just plain ridiculous. Evidently it must be a problem..though I doubt it is a problem exclusive to DVC members.

 

[bicker]

Honestly, I think it was out of line for a mother of a cast member, whether a DVC member or not, to bring up such grievances at an annual meeting.

I would assume that she was also a DVC member (otherwise she shouldn't have been allowed to speak at all). As such, she surely had every right to bring up anything about her ownership interest that she was concerned about.

I think by the time you get to having a job as an adult that your parents shouldn't be fighting your battles any longer, I don't know, to me it's just weird.

Perhaps, but for a parent to stand up and say that still carries merit, especially in light of all the corroberation we've read about here in the forums, DVC members overhearing other DVC members giving the CMs a hard time.

 

[anniet]

Honestly, I think it was out of line for a mother of a cast member, whether a DVC member or not, to bring up such grievances at an annual meeting.

I think by the time you get to having a job as an adult that your parents shouldn't be fighting your battles any longer, I don't know, to me it's just weird.

I am sure the mother thought she was helping her daughter but if that was my mother, I wouldn't have been to happy she brought up what I thought of the guests in front of my boss.

JMO.

I have to agree-we hear a lot about DVC members who treat CM's poorly, but I have to highly doubt those are the majority of DVC members. Like any other position where you are dealing with the public, it goes along with the territory--you can't tell me everyone CM at the non-DVC resorts are all treated peachy keen by those guests. I work in Health Care and can't tell you the number of people who went off on me when their policy didn't cover something or they went out of network and thought their HMO policy should cover it. It's the nature of working with the public.

That being said, I always treat people in service positions very kindly and if I have a problem I bring it up as a plea for their assistance instead of berating them for what went wrong.

But I do agree, wrong forum, wrong person and I wouldn't want my mother embarassing me like that either!

 

[bicker]

Like any other position where you are dealing with the public, it goes along with the territory

True, but if there is a bias -- if as a group there are more outliers at DVC resorts than at other Disney resorts, then we can expect to get poorer service, since the premium CMs will rightfully insist on being transferred to the preferred positions.

 

[greenban]

True, but if there is a bias -- if as a group there are more outliers at DVC resorts than at other Disney resorts, then we can expect to get poorer service, since the premium CMs will rightfully insist on being transferred to the preferred positions.

And I think Bicker hit it on the head. The 'Bad' DVCers are outliers in several categories. They probably complain both more in quantity and more intensly in quality. Thus a few bad apples can ruin it for the rest of the 'Good' DVCers.

All of us have had poor service somewhere, sometime, and I bet most of us 'forgave' or understood that someone was having a bad day, and let it go.

But remember your 'worst' customer service experience, and at least in my case, I complained loud and long. I took it up the ladder until I got results.

Sadly, I think that these 'Bad' DVCers are the CM's worst experience, and thus not only do we all get tarnished by association, we do drive the 'better' CMs away from the 'trailer parks' (DVC) of Disney.

-Tony

P.S. As another poster already said, when I have a problem, I approach the CM asking for their help. Truely, the nicer and more respectful I am to them, the quicker and more fully the problem gets resolved. Honey Vs. Vinegar.

-Tony

 

[Chuck S]

True, but if there is a bias -- if as a group there are more outliers at DVC resorts than at other Disney resorts, then we can expect to get poorer service, since the premium CMs will rightfully insist on being transferred to the preferred positions.

Excellent point, if DVC members are perceived as treating DVC resort CMs worse than comparable CMs are treated at regular WDW resorts by cash guests, DVC resorts will no longer lure the highest quality CMs.

The OP did not want this to turn into a major debate. Take the info as it is, don't shoot the messenger. It shouldn't matter whether the info came from a CMs Mom or not...we have heard on these boards of folks going off on CMs. It has been several years ago, but I witnessed an incident personally at OKW, so it does happen. It may not apply to you, you may always treat CMs kindly...but be aware that there are those that do not...and it is not a reputation we as DVC owners need.

 

[disney13]

Do as you would be done.

 

[Rozzie]

I can't stand to see a CM being abused. I have seen some nasty stuff that makes me shudder. Where DVC members get this extreme entitlement thing is beyond me.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I can't stand to see a CM being abused. I have seen some nasty stuff that makes me shudder. Where DVC members get this extreme entitlement thing is beyond me.

If I see a guest abusing a CM, I have stepped up and said something... Usually Calm Down, etc. Usually this stops a lot of people who are ranting right in their tracks... they suddenly realize they are making total ***** out of themselves and people are watching them. I would say 90% of people chill at that point. The other 10 are pretty much just miserable human beings who think anyone besides them are scumm and no one would be able to get through to them.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

There seems to be a premise in some of the posts in this thread that DVC members are fundamentally a different breed of guest, and are more likely to "abuse" cast members than other guests. I find that premise hard to accept.

Yes, I'm sure there are some obnoxious DVC members who treat cast members like dirt. And I'm sure there are some equally obnoxious guests at the All Star Resorts to the Grand Floridian who are rude and disagreeable — but who don't own a single DVC point.

 

[bicker]

I think there is little doubt that DVC members are a different breed of guest, for good and for ill. If nothing else, the fact that we're almost surely going to be repeat guests makes us foster expectations based on past experience more readily and more thoroughly.

 

[Chuck S]

There seems to be a premise in some of the posts in this thread that DVC members are fundamentally a different breed of guest, and are more likely to "abuse" cast members than other guests. I find that premise hard to accept.

Yes, I'm sure there are some obnoxious DVC members who treat cast members like dirt. And I'm sure there are some equally obnoxious guests at the All Star Resorts to the Grand Floridian who are rude and disagreeable — but who don't own a single DVC point.

True, but the cash paying guests probaby don't have the "attitude" I saw in the outburst I witnessed. The "guest" was "you work or me, I own this resort." That is the difference, the greater feeling of "entitlement" and "class superiority" that seems to go along with that segment of DVC owners that do act inappropriately.

 

[bicker]

And it's not a majority, even, of DVC guests, I suspect, but just a very small minority, but a greater proportion, perhaps, than that of non-DVC guests at non-DVC resorts that hold the same perspective.