The decline had started before Covid.
My son worked at Epcot in Merchandise and had the old traditions training which included being told about greeting every guest as they wandered around if he was free to do that. If possible engage them about how their day was going. At the least make eye contact and smile. Management were everywhere checking up on this and they got mystery shopped at the tills. Only if the entire stores were empty were the CM’s allowed to chat to each other, although I’m sure that they did.
Fast forward a few years and on a trip I wandered around the same shops. Some greeted me, some didn’t as they were busy and some were chatting and completely ignored me. On my last trip pre pandemic virtually none greeted me and in one empty room the CM didn’t even look up from whatever she was thinking about. I tried to attract her attention by looking at stuff near where she was standing but zilch.
In the next room a girl did smile so we had a chat. I asked her if management were very visible these days and she said no they rarely saw them. I asked her about mystery shoppers (which every time you were mystery shopped you were given a score and below a certain number meant a 1:1 with management.,) and she didn’t have the faintest idea of what I was talking about. She said it hadn’t happened once to her and she was coming to the end of her contract after a year or to any of her friends.
She was astonished. She was lovely and I’m sure would have done really well, but wow what a difference! Possibly there just aren’t the same number of managers even employed by Disney now or they have got other priorities. That’s just one potential reason why standards had already begun declining long before Covid even existed.
My son worked at Epcot in Merchandise and had the old traditions training which included being told about greeting every guest as they wandered around if he was free to do that. If possible engage them about how their day was going. At the least make eye contact and smile. Management were everywhere checking up on this and they got mystery shopped at the tills. Only if the entire stores were empty were the CM’s allowed to chat to each other, although I’m sure that they did.
Fast forward a few years and on a trip I wandered around the same shops. Some greeted me, some didn’t as they were busy and some were chatting and completely ignored me. On my last trip pre pandemic virtually none greeted me and in one empty room the CM didn’t even look up from whatever she was thinking about. I tried to attract her attention by looking at stuff near where she was standing but zilch.
In the next room a girl did smile so we had a chat. I asked her if management were very visible these days and she said no they rarely saw them. I asked her about mystery shoppers (which every time you were mystery shopped you were given a score and below a certain number meant a 1:1 with management.,) and she didn’t have the faintest idea of what I was talking about. She said it hadn’t happened once to her and she was coming to the end of her contract after a year or to any of her friends.
She was astonished. She was lovely and I’m sure would have done really well, but wow what a difference! Possibly there just aren’t the same number of managers even employed by Disney now or they have got other priorities. That’s just one potential reason why standards had already begun declining long before Covid even existed.
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