WOW! Guest service this morning

[dkostel]

I need to cancel one part of an upcoming trip so I called the usual number. The hold time was 161 minutes but they said that if my reservation had a cancel link in my plans I could cancel online so I hung up. When I hit the cancel link it told me to call the same number. So much pixie dust ☹

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

Calling has been rough this year. Last spring I sat on hold for a cumulative total of 10 hours just trying to straighten out some tickets. Yet I called this morning at 7:01 to modify my upcoming resort reservation and was off the phone in 18 minutes with satisfactory results.

What time did you call?

 

[dkostel]

Just got off the phone, did the callback and it only ended up taking about 30 minutes. Not bad but still they shouldn't refer you to the cancelation link as part of the recorded message and then it doesn't work. The cast member couldn't have been nicer though.

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

Just got off the phone, did the callback and it only ended up taking about 30 minutes. Not bad but still they shouldn't refer you to the cancelation link as part of the recorded message and then it doesn't work. The cast member couldn't have been nicer though.

They have a problem with incorrect and non functioning links and numbers. Silly me, I called 407-939-4357 at 7am. That number must now only be for Genie+ assistance, even though it's listed on their website mutliple times as a resort services number. The recorded message told me to call back at 7am for any other inquiries even though it was already 7. I figured the one minute delay dialing the 5277 number was going to screw me.

 

[Orion Nebula]

I feel you, sat on the phone for half a day a few times trying to get our last trip setup and that was back in January. Everything about WDW IMO has gone downhill service wise the past year. Covid or not it's kind of BS.

 

[dkostel]

Still better than American Airlines though - was recently quoted a wait time between 2hrs 54 mins and 31 hours. My call back came after only 17 hours

 

[Schneewittchen37]

I'm outraged for you. This is not acceptable.

Disney has had call centers forever and know how to run them. This is literally cheaping out and understaffing the call center with the hope that people will give up and try to use their website. Of course many people who call can't resolve their issues on the web site.

The company renowned for excellent customer service can't manage to do customer service anymore.

Hey mouse, what are your KPI's?

What's your average wait time? Is it more than 10 minutes? FAIL
What's your abandon rate? Is it higher than 10%? FAIL
How's the CSAT for the customers that just waited 3 hours for help with something they should have been able to do online, but can't because your site is trash? FAIL
Ever heard of CX? Well, you're literally killing it. I earn $65/hour. If I spent 3 hours on hold, that's about $200 of my time. I wonder what I would say if someone asked me if $200 to fix a screwed up magic band or ticket issue was a good use of my time..... FAIL

Hey mouse, I saw that Walt Disney Studio Technology Technical Services and Support tied to win "Best Service and Support Organization" at HDI last week. I'm guessing that's internal facing IT support to the movies division because your public facing support is an embarrassing trash fire.

KPIs give leadership key insights into the health of the business. I suspect the Mouse is in grave danger.

 

[Skippyboo]

I spent 2.5 hours on AP passholder line to drop a day off of my Thanksgiving trip stay at Pop. I wish callback was an option.

 

[Sandiz08]

Geez, not looking forward to calling in to switch out my pre covid tickets.

 

[Schneewittchen37]

Some of you might suspect that I work in customer service. Yes, I do. And times are hard for us.

Customer contacts / ticket volume is way up. New services introduced since March 2020 to facilitate remote work, etc. have created new problems for our customers. And some things can't be resolved with self-service or a knowledge base article. Employee retention is a problem. Hiring new people is even worse.

Anyway, a few things have made work a bit easier in the last few months. And I'm telling the mouse that's not listening that you need to do these things. Or mouse, you need to tell the garbage company that you hired to outsource your call center that they are NOT MEETING YOUR EXPECTATIONS and are DAMAGING YOUR REPUTATION:

1. Competitive pay. I pay my tier 1 staff more than minimum wage and guarantee raises with training and a career path.
2. Continuous hiring. Even if we are "fully staffed", I'm hiring new people constantly and training them to deal with the expected increased attrition.
3. In person work. Seriously, at a call center, working remotely without support from more experienced peers is awful. So many new people quit because they couldn't handle the work alone. Only experienced staff get the opportunity telework at night or on the weekends.
4. Forecasting. Come on. Every business has busy seasons or busy times of day. You have to adjust your scheduling to make a better customer experience.
5. Increase your hours. I had to do this too. Everyone needs to do this.
6. Put call back or voicemail on every line. Actually turn on your live chat and staff it appropriately with people, not robots. And create a self-service create your own ticket option too.
7. Implement some kind of service level expectations that actually hold people accountable to respond to customers in a timely manner.

 

[Orion Nebula]

I agree with you, but I don't think improving the customer experience is something Disney cares about anymore. Less CS agents = more money. It's pretty obvious that most, if not all of us WILL sit on the phone for hours just to give them our business. And who can blame them at this point? Less service, perks etc yet the parks are PACKED.

 

[Schneewittchen37]

I agree with you, but I don't think improving the customer experience is something Disney cares about anymore. Less CS agents = more money. It's pretty obvious that most, if not all of us WILL sit on the phone for hours just to give them our business. And who can blame them at this point? Less service, perks etc yet the parks are PACKED.

What's funny to me is I'm listening to yesterday's DIS Unplugged right now. Pete is ranting around this topic and he's right. He just said something about spending extraordinary amounts of money for a weeklong vacation in WDW and people realizing - hey, I could have gone to Hawaii or taken a cruise.

Now, I'm sitting here, wondering if I should be pricing out a trip to Oahu and the Big Island in April and thinking long and hard about cancelling our annual visit to WDW.... or maybe I should look into Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands. I've always wanted to go to the Caribbean.... because it's not about the money, it's about the service and the experience. If I spend a lot of money on a trip, I want to have a good time and not be stressed out.

And BTW, I did just get back from a family vacation at Universal. It was amazing. No stress. Easy to wing it. Lovely stay at Royal Pacific. Great staff. Good food. Fun rides. Literally didn't need my phone to figure everything out. None of the weird simmering Disney World competitive anger/frustration from the other guests......

DH is already asking me to drop a Disney day from an upcoming Feb DLR trip and replace it with a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood. Gasp. And he did ask about adding Universal days to the April trip already.....

 

[Orion Nebula]

My wife and I talk about the same thing. Right now with the way things are it's hard to justify a trip. I am hoping after the 50th and so many people get their WDW bug out of their system it will calm down, at least a tiny bit (prob not). But there are things they scratched off that I am not happy about. Even the "you probably will pay more" dining plan.

In fact we just got back a week ago or so from Riviera Maya, stayed at an all inclusive adults only five star for HALF of what WDW costs. We had an amazing time, and while sitting on the beach with a margarita felt content to wait longer on WDW.

 

[Robbie Cottam]

I recently had to help my fiancée change so ticket for her two littlest ones. She had called Disney 4 previous times and no one ever fixed the problem.

I want to call DVC and see if they could do it.... She insisted that only ticketing could.

So I called ticketing.... Waiting time 150 something minutes.... exactly 2 hours in to that wait, I got disconnected .....
So I called back...... This time wait time was 130 something minutes exactly 2 hours in to that wait, I got disconnected....

So all of my morning wasted, I called DVC..... they answered the phone in 4 minutes. fixed the problem in another 3 minutes and waiting on the line with me while I checked the MDE app to make sure the problem was fixed....

Then they went out of their way to schedule the park reservation for the two little ones that matched the rest of the party....

not sure what happened with the normal ticket line but the DVC member service was on point, and minimal wait time.

 

[Schneewittchen37]

My wife and I talk about the same thing. Right now with the way things are it's hard to justify a trip. I am hoping after the 50th and so many people get their WDW bug out of their system it will calm down, at least a tiny bit (prob not). But there are things they scratched off that I am not happy about. Even the "you probably will pay more" dining plan.

In fact we just got back a week ago or so from Riviera Maya, stayed at an all inclusive adults only five star for HALF of what WDW costs. We had an amazing time, and while sitting on the beach with a margarita felt content to wait longer on WDW.

DH and DS have basically said they want to cancel our April trip and go to PR instead. DH is going to chat with a friend that goes there frequently about beaches and cities. And maybe I'll be asking my parents if they want to sell me any of their timeshare points.....

 

[shh]

I agree with you, but I don't think improving the customer experience is something Disney cares about anymore. Less CS agents = more money. It's pretty obvious that most, if not all of us WILL sit on the phone for hours just to give them our business. And who can blame them at this point? Less service, perks etc yet the parks are PACKED.

Some of us won't. When I read these threads, it stops me from booking ANYTHING, just out of fear/caution that I may have to change it or need help. I can't sit on hold...just have no patience. And WDW is hardly a necessity with so many other fun places to visit. So they lost me.

 

[shh]

DH is already asking me to drop a Disney day from an upcoming Feb DLR trip and replace it with a visit to Universal Studios Hollywood. Gasp. And he did ask about adding Universal days to the April trip already.....

I completely changed my spending from WDW to UO - and don't regret it. Night and day difference. I hardly believe I'll be the only one to spend my money elsewhere. As more people visit and have disappointing or frustrating experiences, slowly they'll look elsewhere too.

 

[Orion Nebula]

I completely changed my spending from WDW to UO - and don't regret it. Night and day difference. I hardly believe I'll be the only one to spend my money elsewhere. As more people visit and have disappointing or frustrating experiences, slowly they'll look elsewhere too.

I have never been to universal, although thought about it just for the Harry Potter stuff. Mostly due to being so close to WDW and being a disney addict I couldn't handle it. lol

But someday for sure my wife and I will go, it doesn't help though that my two ASD kids won't ride anything exciting.

 

[Sakurachaek]

Yikes!! Like DAS live chat

 

[RangerPooh]

I have had many holds like this in recent months waiting to speak with DVC as well as the general 407# for general assistance. The worst was a 4 hour wait over the summer to speak with recreation to confirm our fireworks cruise. Summer 2020 there were many holds well over 3+ hours to speak with DVC. I just assume that any call will have a long hold at this time.