Originally posted on Compass Consulting & Solutions – Paul Nottingham
I recently returned from a visit to Orlando to see my daughter and her family. My wife and I are blessed to have 4 Grand children and one lives near us in Boise and unfortunately the other 3 live in Orlando. We visit when we can and this was a trip to spend time with family and visit one of our favorite places to go in Florida-Walt Disney World.
My Twin Daughters were part of the Walt Disney World College program which is an internship available through most college and if you are interested you can learn more here: https://jobs.disneycareers.com/disney-college-program. They both were selected for the program and had a great time in it. One of my daughters returned and one stayed and married and has her own Disney family now as she and her husband are employed at the “House of Mouse”. When we visit we spend a lot of time at the parks and are pretty much immersed in the Disney culture.
One of the things taught at the “traditions “course for cast members is the huge role in creating magic for Disney guests-which leads me to this week’s topic: Doing whatever possible to exceed guest’s expectations.
Disney is by far the Gold standard in providing memorable customer service for families and guests. No other vacation destination on the planet has the customer loyalty and word of mouth praise that Disney has owned for decades. Our recent visit had one very memorable example of this. Briefly our twins were celebrating their birthday and the adults all went to a dinner together at Cape May. Now the food was very good as it was a fresh sea-food buffet. Yes, you heard correctly a buffet. Now ordinarily no one would think of a buffet as a great opportunity to demonstrate noteworthy customer service, but this is Disney remember?? Our waiter was named Craig, but for some reason I thought I heard him say “Crank” so as we laughed at my obvious hearing deficit his name was changed to Crank for the evening. Now Crank was not your ordinary waiter. He had been at two other venues at Disney and promoted up to this higher ticket venue based upon his expertise and personality. To say he was excellent at his job is a gross understatement. He was engaging, remembered our names and what we were drinking (adult beverages) and always had the refills ahead schedule. So, what you say? Well, He also told us a little trivia, talked about the college program with the girls and almost felt like one of the family. Now I don’t normally gush about service but I do like to recognize it when it is good or exceptional. “Crank” did something else that added his name to my best of list: on one of my many trips to the Cracked crab, he sought me out and wanted to get the correct spelling of My daughters first names. He also wanted to be sure he had the seating correct to match the name with the seat. Later in the meal when we were nearly finished he brought out personalized desserts for my daughters with the proper spelling of their names and made a bit of fuss about his new friends. The whole area was engaged in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday” and I have no doubt that my daughters and my Wife and I truly enjoyed the extra attention to detail Crank displayed. The interesting thing is he didn’t have to do that. He did a great job well within Disney specs for good customer service, but “Crank” was a professional. He was on stage and he owned it and made sure that his audience felt like there was none more important than them that evening. In short, He FAR EXCEEDED OUR EXPECTATIONS. And his tip which was set at 18% for our party size was exceeded by almost 40%- He was that good.
Now “Crank” understood the meaning of good customer service and chose to exceed it. He makes a very good living off of a buffet. He created one of the more memorable experiences of our trip and I have no doubt he does this on a daily basis for families all over the world. Think about it: what if one of your employees could provide that kind of customer service experience for your guests. would that type of Employee be worth to you??