Why is the hold time so long??

[lelew]

The changing of park passes is tricky. The original park reservation needs to be cancelled before a new park is chosen. Unfortunately that part cannot be modified. And there needs to be availability for that park/day too.

Just wanted to make sure I understand this once I make park reservations I cant change it online if I decided to go to another park that day? For example when we come back I only want to do two parks one being HS only if I can get a 7am boarding group if not I want to change to another park that morning. That can't be modified online I will have to call?

 

[wdw&sonny]

I didn’t say it’s acceptable. It’s clearly not.

It's not acceptable to some. It is acceptable to others. Many people (including the OP) are waiting, and waiting and waiting...for over 3 hours. It is not acceptable to me. I am not planning a return to WDW for many reasons posted on these boards.
It's simply supply and demand. There is great demand, still, during a pandemic, for a WDW vacation. There is little supply of CMs to answer the phone.
I am sorry for those of you who can not get through to get your answers.

 

[A Mickeyfan]

I totally get that we are in pandemic times however three hour hold times is just not acceptable customer service. Disney is aware of their hold times and should/need to be bringing back some CM's to handle it. These positions can be (I believe some already were) work from home if there's a fear of Covid19. Three hours is just insane. That's nearly half of a work day.
Just yesterday I was on hold for nearly an hour for Allstate, ok I understand that. An hour is a big difference compared to three

 

[FCDub]

Just wanted to make sure I understand this once I make park reservations I cant change it online if I decided to go to another park that day? For example when we come back I only want to do two parks one being HS only if I can get a 7am boarding group if not I want to change to another park that morning. That can't be modified online I will have to call?

No, you can change online.

 

[FCDub]

I totally get that we are in pandemic times however three hour hold times is just not acceptable customer service. Disney is aware of their hold times and should/need to be bringing back some CM's to handle it. These positions can be (I believe some already were) work from home if there's a fear of Covid19. Three hours is just insane. That's nearly half of a work day.
Just yesterday I was on hold for nearly an hour for Allstate, ok I understand that. An hour is a big difference compared to three

They simply don’t care. And as long as people impacted here keep giving them a pass by continuing to give them business, nothing changes.

Disney, very smartly, has built a brand that manipulates people’s emotions.

 

[A Mickeyfan]

Double post can't delete..sorry

 

[A Mickeyfan]

They simply don’t care. And as long as people impacted here keep giving them a pass by continuing to give them business, nothing changes.

Disney, very smartly, has built a brand that manipulates people’s emotions.

Very well said. Sure it's a business and they are in the business of making money too. There is also a fine line being crossed with customer service.
Not to mention the fact they have hundreds of CM's in limbo not knowing what is going on with their positions. They cannot be expected to wait forever.

 

[Minniebee]

I had to call to modify some tickets from a trip that was delayed from the Covid shutdowns. I called at different times and had long hold times (and hung up because I couldn't wait that long!), but when I called at 7:00 am (EST) on the dot I was able to get right in and got my issue resolved within about 20 minutes.

 

[runnermama78]

Just wanted to make sure I understand this once I make park reservations I cant change it online if I decided to go to another park that day? For example when we come back I only want to do two parks one being HS only if I can get a 7am boarding group if not I want to change to another park that morning. That can't be modified online I will have to call?

Normally, yes, you can do it online. (However, you cannot *modify* park reservations. You have to cancel the one you have, hold your breath, and reschedule for what you want.) For whatever reason, the website wasn’t working for me last night, so I had to call.

 

[lelew]

Normally, yes, you can do it online. (However, you cannot *modify* park reservations. You have to cancel the one you have, hold your breath, and reschedule for what you want.) For whatever reason, the website wasn’t working for me last night, so I had to call.

Ok thanks

 

[kylenne]

Disney should absolutely be doing better, so please do NOT mistake this reply as making excuses for them. I just want to point out as someone who works as upper level support staff at a call center (albeit a govt one), that there are a lot of valid logistical concerns at play with operating one in this pandemic that have nothing to do with money. Disney’s at the high extreme, but wait times have been high on so many CS lines since the pandemic began for myriad reasons. Social distancing is a pipe dream the way most call centers are set up, as a start...most are cube farms packed tightly in. I know Disney did have a team of WFH agents, but that’s not a magic bullet either—there needs to be infrastructure to support those agents, not just with the call taking, but also for the QA staff evaluating them, trainers, etc. Things can go wrong, too...we had an outage the other day for our Windows RA platform that prevented most support teams from being able to work for 2 days, except those of us with Macs. And for those who remain on site, clusters and outbreaks are par for the course. I’ve lost count of how many we had that I know about, and I know there were way more I didn’t because my support team has been home for long stretches. Even if you’re staffed up as much as distancing will allow (which is generally far less than you should assume), just 1 agent showing up positive will cause all kinds of chaos and service level tanks. Morale is lower even than normal times and call outs are a huge problem.

Again, Disney should absolutely be doing better—there’s no good reason why people should be waiting 4 and 5 hours to get through. I have no doubt that this is driven in part by cost cutting, to their own detriment, and it’s even more unacceptable for an org that has built their brand on CX. But folk should understand that solving this is not as simple as “just hire more people”. Of course, solving complicated logistical problems is ostensibly why the suits get paid so much. Like I said, I’m not playing apologist here. Just offering insight.

 

[LISAMWDW]

I’ve currently been on hold for 2hrs and 15 min trying to modify our one day park tickets to a different day and change park passes to that day. I tried to do it on line, but website kept glitching and I didn’t want to chance it. I’m not sure how much longer I can wait!

Try chatting on their website. That is what I did last week.

 

[2minny]

UPDATE: finally got through after about 3hrs 40min. So happy, I almost cried when he picked up.

That happened to me and then we disconnected....I really thought I might cry......

 

[2minny]

Nope, that’s not acceptable. Disney World is open, has been for 9 months now. They have thousands of guests every day & are charging those people thousands of dollars for their vacations. Let’s face it, they’re not paying the phone CMs that much. They should by now have enough of them called back to answer in a reasonable amount of time. And 3 hours is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

The reason I assume it's short staffed is I called and waited hours, finally got through and was speaking to someone and was disconnected....I was so upset, I couldn't call back, needed to cool down lol. Finally called again, waited on hold a few hours and got the SAME PERSON. What are the chances of that! That to me says short staffed, with as many calls as Disney must receive. .

 

[Indio]

My sister and I both waited on hold 8 hours last summer when trying to finalize our July 2020 trips. When the music would stop for a few seconds, we'd get either excited to finally talk to someone or have a quick anxiety attack afraid we'd been disconnected! So I'd say 3 hour waits is an improvement!!! Hahahaha!! On the other hand, I waited over an hour last week for someone at Universal to pick up at around 7pm EST. Finally hung up and called back the next morning at 8 and someone picked up after about 10 minutes.

 

[tlovesdis]

The chat feature in MDE is amazing! I always use that!

 

[disndatworld]

I had the same experience, and could never get the support I needed a few weeks ago. We just got back from a 12 day trip, and went to Guest Relations. Let's just say almost every other company I can think of dealing with lately has better service than WDW. Honestly, it's not a good look for such a beloved brand.