So if we still pay the same dues and more why are there less people working at member services?

[Lumpy1106]

I'm going to suggest that this is two-fold; there are fewer EXPERIENCED people answering the phones, and there is a FAR greater demand right now. Did you ever call Member Services before COVID? Probably not. The borrowing restrictions and glitch in allowing borrowing has certainly not helped. FWIW - having to run everything by a supervisor before allowing the glitch to be fixed is where I got stuck on hold - and I was only looking to borrow 10 points. Major KUDOS to the people I did talk to - they were all really nice and it was a pleasant experience (and no, they have not outsourced the call center - I talked to nothing but Floridians).

 

[Sandisw]

If the park and resort CM's have to be in the line of fire, I believe all employees should be forced to work in the office. I am an educator and have worked F2F this whole school year. Mask up and move on. We have had zero in building transmissions because we mask up. There is no reason these employees cannot come into work now.

As a retired teacher I salute you! We have school districts here that are still all remote so teachers can work from home.

I can’t fault any company who makes this kind of decision as it is their right to do so.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I'm going to suggest that this is two-fold; there are fewer EXPERIENCED people answering the phones, and there is a FAR greater demand right now. Did you ever call Member Services before COVID? Probably not. The borrowing restrictions and glitch in allowing borrowing has certainly not helped. FWIW - having to run everything by a supervisor before allowing the glitch to be fixed is where I got stuck on hold - and I was only looking to borrow 10 points. Major KUDOS to the people I did talk to - they were all really nice and it was a pleasant experience (and no, they have not outsourced the call center - I talked to nothing but Floridians).

Yes I called member services before COVID at the same rate and my experience has been VERY different since COVID.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I wouldn't assume that the "screeners" are untrained, outsourced. They are probably new hires who are still learning the systems and can only handle the most basic functions themselves, thrown on the phones too soon in an effort to address the "inexcusable" wait times.

Of course, they could refuse to put those trainees on the phones until they are fully qualified, but then the wait times would be even longer. I imagine that managers are tracking wait times and abandon rates and doing everything they can to throw bodies on phones ASAP to try to get them back down.

Bottom line: when demand explodes faster than you can staff/train you're going to have long wait times and less qualified agents, and there's not really a good way around that other than overstaffing the rest of the time.

Except I have been on the phone with cruise lines a lot since COVID too and there has been no difference there. We’ve had 5 cruises cancelled by Princess and Carnival and they’ve had serious layoffs, but their customer service is as always. And I don’t pay dues for their customer service. My question is why has dvc member services become so crappy overall? We pay the same dues. I get why General Disney customer service may be suffering. But dvc should be steady. There is a guaranteed income flow. What gives? I am not saying cms are crappy btw. I am saying something has changed and it isn’t just a training lag.

 

[MICKIMINI]

I guess I got lucky on Tuesday with a 40 minute wait time to get a REAL Disney employee. I've been in this since 1996 so I know what to expect and she was able to quickly transfer points for me and had that wonderful Disney attitude. My points disappeared and the person I transferred to got them immediately. Done and done.

I'm sorry for those that aren't getting that Disney treatment as with things going off the rails, losing ME and other issues, at least you want to speak with someone who knows how to help and understands DVC. Things like this just make me sad.

 

[bobbiwoz]

FWIW, I hope you both sent emails to Member Satisfaction describing these interactions. The more complaints with specific criticisms, the better, IMO!! Sorry for your less than satisfactory experiences.

Because I have used the points, I am satisfied with the outcome. I do not wish to go back to the problem. I am taking a pass this time.

 

[sethschroeder]

I believe all employees should be forced to work in the office.

It's 2021 there is zero reason any of these call center individuals should basically ever be in an office. Even if they did work for Disney office space is not free, you will likely get a better candadite pool offering remote work, and you likely will be able to pay less.

I am an educator and have worked F2F this whole school year.

Plenty of schools are not actually face to face or are on a limited basis.

Part of the issue is public education is treated like daycare instead of a purely educational institution. So even with covid concerns it forces schools to be face to face.

 

[gillep]

I hardly ever have to call MS, maybe once every year, if that. I had to call on Tuesday because they didn't automatically return our club level points correctly when we checked out. Although the actual calling process was very painful (multiple dropped calls, busy signals, 45 minute wait to reach the CM) the CM I got was extremely competent and was able to return my points correctly, bank them, and reallocate those banked points to an existing reservation in a short amount of time.

 

[Brett Wyman]

I had two positive experiences in the past two weeks. One to transfer points between accounts(my first time doing this and the lady took extra time to tell me the ins and outs) and once to book from banked points that I couldn't get to show up when booking online. I did have just about a 40 minute wait time each time though.

 

[New Mouse]

Member services does not outsource. There is not a single person on 1099. The lines are busy because of four reasons: 1) The Aulani free night promo. 2) The ticket free days promo and 3) members with February and March use years who didn’t deposit their points into rci to save them and members being upset their points are going to expire. 4) it’s the 11 month booking window for thanksgiving/Christmas... cast are on mandatory overtime because of this and the fact that they are still short staffed. Be nice to your cast members and I always double check my points before getting off the phone (out of habit)

My cast member from the other month was flat out nasty and literally wouldnt hang up the phone to let me get to the survey.

 

[justadreamaway77]

It's 2021 there is zero reason any of these call center individuals should basically ever be in an office. Even if they did work for Disney office space is not free, you will likely get a better candadite pool offering remote work, and you likely will be able to pay less.




Plenty of schools are not actually face to face or are on a limited basis.

Part of the issue is public education is treated like daycare instead of a purely educational institution. So even with covid concerns it forces schools to be face to face.

No, the issue is the majority of students are not learning online...especially those of lower income. So now, there is an even larger gap between education of the have's and have nots. We offered optional virtual school in my district along with F2F...1st semseter we had over a 60% FAILURE rate with virtual kids! The majority of kids do not learn online. We actually forced those students back to F2F for 2nd semester. Ohio schools reduced the quarantine days for close contacts exposed during school to ZERO days because no kids were passing it to each other in the school buildings since we require masks at all times and sanitize desks between classes. We have also had ZERO teachers contract it at our school. All staff members who have contracted it in my district, have exposed themselves outside of the schools, not in school. This is not some fact I have read, this is actual experience.

As far as the call center, someone used the excuse that since the people were at home, they could not take as many calls and that is causing the bad experiences/waits. Soooooo, there does seem to be a reason to go back into the office...2021 or not.

 

[sethschroeder]

We offered optional virtual school in my district along with F2F...1st semseter we had over a 60% FAILURE rate with virtual kids!

Because your school district slapped something together it was not a newly designed school offering. It was also likely something you intended from the start to remove fairly quickly.

Also as I previously stated parents leverage school as a daycare system. So what is happening is that parents are either not involved or more likely not at home during a virtual school day. This then will create students not properly learning.

Online learning is not a set and forget mode for parents. Online learning is also not a copy and paste from traditional public school.

Its not the teachers fault online learning fails when they spend 16-20 years learning in a old school style classroom, are taught over 4-8 years how to structure a in person classroom learning environment, and then spend another 1-30 years teaching in a face to face environment.

And yes my family has a history of teachers back 100 years with my great grandma teaching out of a 1 room school house.

It was set up to fail as a learning method based on the situation.

If it was a teaching style flaw home schooling would be wildly unsuccessful as well.

Soooooo, there does seem to be a reason to go back into the

Again another flawed system where they slapped it together and who knows if it's completely accurate or they are just saying that.

Remote work is not copy and paste in office. It also does require technology and new systems/policies to make it successful.

 

[Sandisw]

No, the issue is the majority of students are not learning online...especially those of lower income. So now, there is an even larger gap between education of the have's and have nots. We offered optional virtual school in my district along with F2F...1st semseter we had over a 60% FAILURE rate with virtual kids! The majority of kids do not learn online. We actually forced those students back to F2F for 2nd semester. Ohio schools reduced the quarantine days for close contacts exposed during school to ZERO days because no kids were passing it to each other in the school buildings since we require masks at all times and sanitize desks between classes. We have also had ZERO teachers contract it at our school. All staff members who have contracted it in my district, have exposed themselves outside of the schools, not in school. This is not some fact I have read, this is actual experience.

As far as the call center, someone used the excuse that since the people were at home, they could not take as many calls and that is causing the bad experiences/waits. Soooooo, there does seem to be a reason to go back into the office...2021 or not.

But it still comes down to the decision of the private business to make a decision as to what is in the best interest of safety for their employees. Disney has not restored all CMS back to full time work and the last I knew, that includes CMs who may work for DVCM. So yes, having employees working from home may be playing a role in the level of calls. It is not an excuse...it is a reality.

Not to get off tracks with school, but we have very few districts in my area back to full time schools for children and many still doing completely remote. They have made the decision for safety reasons.

Again, right now, the decisions are what they are and with everything, more people having to cancel and change, demand for MS has exploded and there is no way to handle it all.

 

[sethschroeder]

more people having to cancel and change, demand for MS has exploded and there is no way to handle it all.

I don't really remeber the long waits/busy signals since summer until more recently when the promos have dropped.

I brought this up but moving forward special promos need to have a fully seperate call in/hold line or make it all online.

 

[justadreamaway77]

Because your school district slapped something together it was not a newly designed school offering. It was also likely something you intended from the start to remove fairly quickly.

Also as I previously stated parents leverage school as a daycare system. So what is happening is that parents are either not involved or more likely not at home during a virtual school day. This then will create students not properly learning.

Online learning is not a set and forget mode for parents. Online learning is also not a copy and paste from traditional public school.

Its not the teachers fault online learning fails when they spend 16-20 years learning in a old school style classroom, are taught over 4-8 years how to structure a in person classroom learning environment, and then spend another 1-30 years teaching in a face to face environment.

And yes my family has a history of teachers back 100 years with my great grandma teaching out of a 1 room school house.

It was set up to fail as a learning method based on the situation.

If it was a teaching style flaw home schooling would be wildly unsuccessful as well.

My district didn't slap together something. It was actually an already existing online program set to Ohio standards that we purchased. Again, our schools in Ohio have proven that virtual school is not needed. With proper procedures, it is completely safe. Other jobs would fall into this as well.

My favorite part of this quarantine is all the parents I've seen talk about taking their kids to Disney during this pandemic but don't feel school is safe. Or asking where they can set up a computer in EPCOT so their kid can get the "required" log in time!

 

[Sandisw]

I don't really remeber the long waits/busy signals since summer until more recently when the promos have dropped.

I brought this up but moving forward special promos need to have a fully seperate call in/hold line or make it all online.

I agree, I didn’t add those because I had in a previous response, but there are just too many things going on right now that owners need to call MS...including online issues...that these waits are crazy,

And, there were many times in the summer when waits were long too. I myself waited over 20 minutes a few different times.

 

[Carol_]

This has to be a record for me. I've been on hold waiting for a human to answer at Member Services for 1 hour 33 minutes.

Update: At 1hr45mins, a human answered, turfed me to another human after another 10 minute wait, who turfed me again to another. At that point an automated voice told me it’d be 40 minutes. I hung up.
At no point did an automated voice say, “Your call is important to us,” which I hate, because it’s automated lying, so at least there’s that.

 

[Travel60]

When we first bought (25+ years ago), we had a person assigned to us. We had her direct number and if we wanted to do something that couldn't be done online, we called her directly. When she retired, she called and formally handed us off to the next guy. He was great, too. Whenever we checked in anywhere we had a Welcome Home message waiting for us. Any problem, call him. Then he disappeared and since then, it's been luck of the draw. Some very good, some sort of hapless. With I had my "gal" or "guy" back.

 

[Carol_]

Update: I got through this morning after 40 minutes and the CM couldn't have been more competent or polite. Disney has another $813.66 of my dollars and I have another AP renewed. Now to calculate the number of days I have to go to break even... 8? I can do that.

 

[DisneyByMarriage]

I don’t think call center people need to work in an office right now. Aside from the safety aspect, would you actually want to talk to someone in a call center who had to wear a mask? They would be so hard to understand.