I was excited to go on a long awaited vacation at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. We are two big kids and the lure of endless roller coaster rides, Margaritaville and a stay at one of the beautiful onsite resorts is irresistible.
I'm also the ultimate pre-trip planner. I always visit the hotel website, research activities at the location, and look at websites with tips and information. If you are going to a theme park and love rides, you also check to see if any rides are under repair or maintenance. I took a final peak the day before we left and was happy to see nothing noted as "closed" or unavailable.
Check-in at the lovely Royal Pacific Resort at Universal was effortless and we were met with smiles and welcomes from the moment we exited our car at the entrance. Loews owns the property and it is clear that creating a wonderful Customer Experience has been part of the staff training. Each "Moment of Truth" was positively met and even exceeded our expectations including early check-in to a fabulous room looking out towards Universal and a lagoon pool below. We were thrilled!
Unfortunately the same could not be said for the start of our visit to Universal Islands of Adventure.
The first missed opportunity to delight the customer came during an interaction with the surly unsmiling ticket booth attendant who must've transferred in from an airport TSA interrogation team. No welcome, just a barked out "Can I help you?". That was my first clue to the quality of her service skills.
She stared at the paper I handed her which detailed my credit card points to ticket "purchase" months earlier. She made no eye contact with me but instead focused on entering the code to print the actual ticket. Apparently there was a problem.
As we know, most customers don't mind that you have a problem accessing their information if you just tell them what the heck you are doing and apologize for the wait. Not this agent. She kept entering the numbers, staring, shaking her head negatively, trying again. Finally another agent came over and they both looked like someone had just cancelled their lunch breaks because the frowns were deepening by the minute.
The window had a tiny opening on the bottom so I bent low and said, "Is there a problem? ... Do you need any other information from me to help?" My question was met with silence and more typing. She finally got the system to cooperate and I had my ticket. As expected given her poor skills to this point, the ticket agent simply handed over the ticket without an apology for the wait or any other acknowledgement of appreciation. In fact, she gave me more of a death stare as if I had done something to cause the issue.
We had decided upon arrival to go on some water rides since it was a hot day and after a long drive to the park. As we entered the enclosed waiting area for the first ride, we saw many people with glazed over eyes and attendants looking worried. As the film in front of the ride promised you a great time and showed happy people getting wet, the ride workers countered with the announcement that there was a minor glitch which would be fixed. Some people had been waiting 20 minutes in a hot interior area, apparently afraid to give up their highly sought place in the front of the line. No water or beverages for purchase, probably 100 degrees inside, angry people complaining, helpless attendants trying to avoid eye contact with the crowd. This was one of Dante's levels of hell for theme park people that he had forgotten to add to The Inferno.
We'd had enough and left since there was no indication of a fix soon. One of the workers told us it had been working "off and on" all day. We understand malfunctions can happen but of course we were disappointed. We went to the next water ride only to find the sign indicated what their Universal website did not: "Closed for Seasonal Maintenance." We had now spent the first hour at our favorite theme park walking in circles or standing in a line to nowhere.
As we walked away feeling very disappointed with our visit so far, we decided lunch was in order. We remembered the great Customer Service & food at an on-site restaurant called Confisco Grill we had visited when last onsite in 2008 (it was that good!). We were not to be disappointed. This is the wonderful "Moments of Truth" customer experience we had in dealing with the motivated, well-trained and customer focused staff:
1. RAPPORT: The Greeter/Hostess asked about the rides and how our visit was going while she checked for a table for us. We shared our disappointment about the ticket issue, the broken ride and the closed one.
2. EMPATHY & TAKING RESPONSIBILITY: The hostess empathized and apologized for the lack of communication and ride glitches (despite not being her work area!),
3. LISTEN & MAKE THE CUSTOMER FEEL IMPORTANT: The manager visited all of the tables and when she came by ours, we complimented the Hostess on her excellent skills. She told us that the Hostess had told her that we had decided to come there based on our past positive experience and to make up for the initial park problems we had.
4. THANK YOU: The Manager told us how much she appreciated that we chose their restaurant out of all of the choices there and were returning customers.
5 . ABOVE AND BEYOND: The manager offered us a free pitcher of Sangria to make up for "the bad start to our visit".
The Sangria was delicious, the food as great as we remembered and the waitress was equally welcoming and efficient. In fact every employee in the restaurant was smiling and said "Hello" to us and other patrons throughout the restaurant.
We talked about the "can-do" and customer-focused attitudes we'd experienced and made a note of names so we could recognize them on the survey we would receive later. We have also told this story countless times because we were so impressed, despite a poor start to our vacation there.
Customer experience really is about all of our contact with the various touchpoints along the way. It shows that even one person (or in this case the entire staff of one of the Universal restaurants) can change a negative initial experience into a memorable one. Or rather lemons into Sangria!
Image via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Infrogmation
(For another Customer Experience at Universal, please visit this post by my friend, Guy Winch: Why Customer Service at Harry Potter World's The Three Broomsticks Lacks Magic http://bit.ly/hDUFdf )
