Just like every other company out there, the Disney corporation is not perfect. They have faults and things to work on. But one thing that Disney does exceptionally well is treat their guests like every one is the most important person in the world. On our last trip to Disneyworld, my family and I saw many examples of exceptional customer service. I’ll just talk about a couple, since I don’t want to be writing all day and you don’t want to be reading all day, either.
Our first day at Epcot, my son left his fanny pack in the restroom. We reported it to Guest Services and they had it by the end of the day, but that’s not the story. The story is: my son had his Epcot passport in that pack. An Epcot passport, for those who don’t know, is a little passport book with pages and stickers for each of the World Showcase countries. Each country operates a Kidcot station, where kids can sit down and do a craft from each country, as well as get their passport stamped and written in by a native of that country. It’s really a neat idea, and my kids were looking forward to it. Anyway, we sat down at the Kidcot station for the first country. My older son got out his passport, and the younger one didn’t have his. He was visibly upset, so the girl working the Kidcot station asked him what was wrong. He gave her the whole story. She immediately went to the shelf and gave him another passport. We didn’t ask her to…she didn’t “check with her supervisor”…she just handed him another passport. Now, the passports aren’t all that expensive: They were about 12 bucks. But still…what other company that you can think of does things like that? She singlehandedly took a negative situation and turned it postitive.
One more example: We happened to be at Disneyworld for my son’s 7th birthday. We spent the day at the Magic Kingdom, which is a great place to spend a birthday, by the way. The Magic Kingdom has a birthday program especially for kids. You stop in at the Town Hall on Main Street, and they give you a button that says, “Today is my Birthday!” All day as we walked around the park, cast members went out of their way to wish my son a Happy Birthday. The ride operator at Space Mountain even got his name and broadcast a happy birthday message over the loudspeaker as we got on the ride.
I’ve never seen customer service done quite like Disney does it. Just my opinion, but some of the companies around here should take a page from Disney’s customer service handbook!