Is the customer always right?
The suggestion that they are apparently dates back to the early 20th century in the retail business. But the only people whom I've ever heard say those words inside a theme park have been customers trying to cut a line, get a discount or score some other freebie. No one who actually works in the parks seems to believe in the infallibility of customers' points of view.
When I went through training at "Disney University," my trainer gently pushed back on the cliche that "the customer is always right." One of Disney's first lessons to its new hires is that the people who come into the parks are "guests," not customers. While they might not always be right, guests are always deserving of respect - even when they walk the wrong way or ask a seemingly stupid question. It's the cast members' job to ensure guests' safety, with courtesy, in an efficient manner that preserves the high quality of Disney's show while making all feel welcomed. That, very often, requires gently showing or telling guests that they are, in fact, incorrect.
But once in a while, the guests will get something right that the company got wrong.
Back in the days when dinosaurs lived in EPCOT and stars actually paraded through the Studios, one of my many jobs in the Magic Kingdom was working at the Country Bear Jamboree, which back then was the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown. "Bear Band," as Disney called the location internally, had three cast positions back then: theater, turnstiles, and greeter. Working the greeter position, you were responsible for maintaining the queue so that the line of waiting guests backed up precisely to the queue's entry point without spilling into the street while also not leaving people to walk back and forth through empty switchbacks. You were to keep the strollers lined up neatly and not blocking any pathways. And finally, you were to keep people from hopping the planter to Adventureland.
The exterior queue section of Bear Band then snaked back and forth under cover between the Country Bear Theater and Frontier Mercantile store. The front part of the queue opened to the Frontierland street, while the back of the queue looked out onto Adventureland's plaza, which was graded about three feet higher than the ground level of Frontierland. A planter divided the Adventureland plaza from the Bear Band queue, so that people would not accidentally stumble into it from the edge of the Adventureland plaza.
Which no one ever did. At least, not accidentally.
But since cutting through that planter intentionally allowed guests to save a several-minute walk to get from the center of Adventureland to the middle of Frontierland, sharp-eyed guests with spatial awareness and no fear of a three-foot jump crawled through that planter all the time. Walt Disney World management therefore tasked Bear Band greeters with stopping them, for their own safety.
Some of us took that job seriously, keeping a side-eyed glance at the planter whenever we could. Others could not have cared less, allowing anyone who wanted to make the jump to do so. Fear of having to do paperwork after a guest accident from failing to stick the landing seems to have been the determining variable for which approach you took.
Years after I left Disney, when I returned to the Magic Kingdom for a visit, I noticed that something had changed in the old Bear Band queue.
Where a three-foot retaining wall once stood, Walt Disney World had regraded the pathways, creating a sloped walkway that now connected the middle of Adventureland with the middle of Frontierland. No more jumping - or trying to stop the jumping - required.
In design, there's a concept called a "desire path." For an example, think of the dirt pathways that college students create across otherwise manicured lawns, cutting the most direct pathway between campus buildings. The trampled planter between Adventureland and the back of the old Bear Band queue was perhaps the most notorious desire path in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, so - eventually - Disney did want attentive designers and planners do, and gave the people what they wanted.
There was an easy way to allow guests to save steps getting from Adventureland to Frontierland, and vice versa, and the customers were right for wanting it. So in the interests of safety, courtesy, efficiency, show, and inclusion (the new pathway is much more wheelchair-friendly, after all), Disney relented and gave it to them.
No, the customer isn't always right. But they're always worth listening to... because they're not always wrong, either.
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Very interesting topic. Actually more then one topic in this same article.
I pick in on just ONE of the topics.
Although countless sources always praise the Disney "guest" approach, we know (In Europe) that it is an approach that is completely artificial, for sure when leaving the American corporate-smile context.
Nothing ever (this side of the Atlantic) has been so bad, as the irresponsible adagio "the client is king". Contemporary (sociologic study background) reality is telling us the complete opposite. As in the contemporary society every aspect of master versus servant (slave) got fought back, we concider customers and staff as being absolutely equal in respect.
Let's consider this quote, from above : << One of Disney's first lessons to its new hires is that the people who come into the parks are "guests," not customers. >>
This actually, involves playing a ROLE, it is theatre, and whatever Disney is brainwashing their employees with it, is is completely fake.
All comtemporary people know ... that being guests, is connected to being invited with... 'close friends'. (Without ANY commercial connection)
From the very first moment this get's mentioned in a situation where they pay for services, the idea is opera, it's fake. They ARE customers, whatever you invent for your opera performance.
I love by heart the south European approach that customers have to get the best experience possible (food or whatever), but that the customer in no way ever, is "KING". The service provider (food or whatever) is presenting THEIR product, with proud. If the customer is NOT coming in to ENJOY the unique product AS offered, then the customer is literally unworthy for the PROVIDER ! Should leave at once. Because, the respect goes both ways, at the same level of respect. The customer, telling the provider "what-and-how" he should do it, is literally UNWORTY of the visit to the provider.
In a restaurant, it is THE CHEF who is expert, has the art of bringing HIS PERSONAL creation to the customer, who then will try-&-learn to appreciate it. The customer exiging alterations, is committing a DEATH SIN in this relation (in southern Europe). Americans never have understood this. The basic ideology behind the American way of doing is: enslave themselves to the customers, thus DOWNGRADE every possible experience.
I know this is especially focussed onto restaurant business. (> the most important leisure business all over Europe > theme parks do not even match a fraction of the global restaurant business totals, in Europe)
However, theme parks (in Europe) suffer structurally under the imported American dogmas, about how to run custumer service. The far majority of problems concening conflicts between staff and customers in European theme parks, reside in this dogmatic OPERA copy-paste from American parks. It does not fit the cultural backgroud of the staff, nor of the customers. It only creates confusion and then a spiral up of bad experiences.
I've been pleading (since about 2008) to throw out all of the American imports, and re-install the original European 'contemporary' concept of customer service :
a/ The provider is willing to bring His Personal very best, individual (thus unique) customer experience. (His personal art)
b/ The client is NOT king, ever.
c/ The provider is NEVER going to make himself a prostitute to the client's wild whims.
c/ If the client is not interested in the 'expert' service, which the provider is offering, he must go elsewhere.
... end of the line.
100% two way honesty !
:-)
Cheers
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Working for Universal Hollywood, I always encourage guests to fill out the surveys they get from the park survey takers. It’s literally the only way to get park improvements for guests because the higher ups do pay attention to that(Especially if many are saying the same thing).