What is a Guest?

[Bluegrrl]

In the midst of the hub bud about the new price hike, lack of care in the park, shoddy CMs and such, I just wanted to share something that I found.

A day ago, I was cleaning out a closet, and stumbled across my old training manuals from both my time working a Pecos Bill's and The Great Movie Ride. After laughing at my old cast member ID (God I looked young!), I found this little training bit:

What is a Guest?
A Guest is the most important person in our business.
A Guest is not dependent on us. We are dependent on them.
A Guest is not an interruption of our work, they are the purpose of it.
A guest does us a favor when they call or write. We are not doing them a favor when we are servicing them.
A guest is part of our business - not an outsider.
A guest is a human being with feelings, like our own.
A guest deserves the most courteous attention we can give them. They are the life blood of this and every business. They pay our salaries. Without them, we would have to close our doors.


This is word for word from my old Disney Food and Beverage manual, (circa 1998?)

Just some food (ha) for thought.

 

[AprilDreamsOfDisney]

Awwwww, this is so nice! It made me smile!

 

[aVASTGrl]

Nice! I know a lot of businesses these days that could use those words of wisdom.

 

[mom2rtk]

Nice! I know a lot of businesses these days that could use those words of wisdom.

The Disney of today could use these words of wisdom from the Disney of yesterday.

 

[RustManFan]

I have always felt that I was treated as a welcome guest. Hope 2016 visit is the same!

 

[Lumiere Lover]

I am happy to say we do feel like this at Walt Disney world. Unfortunately Disneyland didn't make us feel like this.

 

[BudgieMama]

A Guest is not an interruption of our work, they are the purpose of it.

I had a lovely experience of that a couple of weeks ago when I called to see what it would cost to move the dates our trip to make our flights cheaper. When the CM confirmed she could move the dates at no cost to us, and enquired if I wished to do so, I apologetically told her I needed to run upstairs and confirm with my husband, and would she mind waiting, because I would be as quick as I could be.

Her response? "Don't rush on my account, you're why I'm here and you're all I have to worry about right now. Take all the time you need."

I really felt valued as a guest, and she was absolutely delightful. I contacted customer feedback after my call to give my praise for her excellent customer service skills and manner. We just don't have anything like that in terms of customer service experience over here in the UK. Disney might be getting it wrong at times, but there are also CMs still getting it very, very right.

 

[DisneyOma]

In the midst of the hub bud about the new price hike, lack of care in the park, shoddy CMs and such, I just wanted to share something that I found.

A day ago, I was cleaning out a closet, and stumbled across my old training manuals from both my time working a Pecos Bill's and The Great Movie Ride. After laughing at my old cast member ID (God I looked young!), I found this little training bit:

What is a Guest?
A Guest is the most important person in our business.
A Guest is not dependent on us. We are dependent on them.
A Guest is not an interruption of our work, they are the purpose of it.
A guest does us a favor when they call or write. We are not doing them a favor when we are servicing them.
A guest is part of our business - not an outsider.
A guest is a human being with feelings, like our own.
A guest deserves the most courteous attention we can give them. They are the life blood of this and every business. They pay our salaries. Without them, we would have to close our doors.


This is word for word from my old Disney Food and Beverage manual, (circa 1998?)

Just some food (ha) for thought.

Shoddy CMs and lack of care in the parks? Not seeing that at all in our past 5 annual trips - I think people just think it is happening all the time because others post more about complaints than other stuff on the internet.

 

[mom2rtk]

Shoddy CMs and lack of care in the parks? Not seeing that at all in our past 5 annual trips - I think people just think it is happening all the time because others post more about complaints than other stuff on the internet.

The internet has been around quite some time. I have been on the DIS for a number of years. What I wonder is why the spike in complaints in the last year or two? Something seems different.

 

[epcotty]

It'd just be nice if corporate management remembered this more, seems all they do is try to squeeze as much money as possible out of everyone

 

[bobbiwoz]

The large majority of CMs that I have dealt with follow that code.

 

[smallworldnh]

Shoddy CMs and lack of care in the parks? Not seeing that at all in our past 5 annual trips - I think people just think it is happening all the time because others post more about complaints than other stuff on the internet.

I have always felt like I've been treated well by all Disney CM's and I'm still impressed with how clean the parks are kept. I think the problems are more with how much certain "guests" feel like they're the only ones who are important and are entitled to special treatment no matter how rude and obnoxious they are. I've seen some CM's treated very disrespectfully and they still manage to maintain a pleasant and patient manner. I, personally, would never make a good CM because I wouldn't take the crap they take sometimes!

 

[RustManFan]

One of the reasons that I always make my room reservations on the phone is that I have always talked to people that were thoroughly delightful! Same is true of my visits to the check-in desks. Doing these 2 things online would be so impersonal to me!

 

[ArwenMarie]

I like the idea of a guest as written in the OP but I always feel like I am just a customer when I am there. Which is fine.

When someone is a guest, they aren't paying for the experience.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

I agree with those who feel like this is still what Disney is trying to achieve on a daily basis, and that they are getting it right far more often than not. Still, CMs are human and they are going to have a bad moment here and there. That is what makes it even more remarkable to me because, let's face it, these "guests" that they have to deal with certainly don't act like "guests" much of the time. And while some may say that they are the customer so are not required to act like guests, they need to consider that they can't have it both ways.

Behave like a guest and you will almost certainly be treated like one.

 

[Robo]

Never mind.

 

[Dis703]

In all of our visits there have only been a handful of CMs I've interacted with that didn't seem to be true to this training philosophy.

 

[wilkeliza]

I've been going for a while now (5 years between 2-3 times a year) and I've come in contact with 2 maybe 3 down right nasty CMs at WDW. Both Disneyland trip were 50/50 when it came to CMs but the ones that went above and beyond made up for the lack luster ones. For WDW when I was a CM I made a point to step in when a CM in my area was not being so magical. The 1 or 2 CMs I constantly had to step in for weren't happy about it but the guest left happier and my management appreciated that we were dealing with it on the front line instead of them having to deal with the paper work that went along with negative guest complaints. I just couldn't take witnessing a CM being nasty to a guest and not do anything about it because I believed in the guest philosophy and knew at the end of the day the guest is who paid my pay check.

 

[KateP85]

It'd just be nice if management remembered this more, seems all they do is try to squeeze as much money as possible out of everyone

Don't blame management for that, blame corporate. Managers at the parks and resorts, even ones who are higher up, don't get to make the big decisions. That all comes from much higher up.

 

[learningtolive]

I for the most part have felt that way from other CMs and in the real world get upset by those in the customer service field not valuing me.