Universal's guest service now rival's Disney's

[tahqa]

I was at Universal yesterday and found that, for the most part, while Universal's guest service is comparable to Disney, there are still many places for improvement. I have two examples:

1) At a show a cast member picked up a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal a child was carrying, held it up to the crowd and starting yelling "Boo, rat" repeatedly.
2) Once again a cast member thought they were being funny and told me that there was a 20% surcharge for using my Disney Visa card there.

To my mind neither of these are acceptable.

 

[cheezbat]

I was at Universal yesterday and found that, for the most part, while Universal's guest service is comparable to Disney, there are still many places for improvement. I have two examples:

1) At a show a cast member picked up a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal a child was carrying, held it up to the crowd and starting yelling "Boo, rat" repeatedly.
2) Once again a cast member thought they were being funny and told me that there was a 20% surcharge for using my Disney Visa card there.

To my mind neither of these are acceptable.

Universal has always teased about Disney. It's nothing new.

Personally, it makes me laugh.

 

[tahqa]

Universal has always teased about Disney. It's nothing new.

Personally, it makes me laugh.

*Shrug* To me this is poor manners from front line cast members. If you want to be better than your competitor you do it by offering a better product (which Universal does in many areas), you don't do it by engaging in these kind of antics. Would Universal think this was teasing if Chase came by and asked why their visa cards were being questioned?

 

[nerdboyrockstar]

Ironically, before the Marvel acquisition, one of the featured players in Lights! Motors! Action! made a comment about a little boy's IOA Spiderman shirt about how he was in the wrong park. I think these little jabs are pretty funny and not at all mean-spirited.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Disney Cast Members do the same thing if you wear Universal stuff. Both sides are just trying to get a laugh out of you and see it as a light-hearted joke. I don't like it, but whatyagonnado?

 

[JT3000]

I was at Universal yesterday and found that, for the most part, while Universal's guest service is comparable to Disney, there are still many places for improvement. I have two examples:

1) At a show a cast member picked up a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal a child was carrying, held it up to the crowd and starting yelling "Boo, rat" repeatedly.
2) Once again a cast member thought they were being funny and told me that there was a 20% surcharge for using my Disney Visa card there.

To my mind neither of these are acceptable.

Have you considered investing in a sense of humor? I hear you can get one for pretty cheap. It even comes with a free commemorative pin if you purchase at Disney. Unfortunately, Universal isn't thoughtful enough to offer that kind of deal. The curmudgeons.

 

[HTF]

Have you considered investing in a sense of humor? I hear you can get one for pretty cheap. It even comes with a free commemorative pin if you purchase at Disney. Unfortunately, Universal isn't thoughtful enough to offer that kind of deal. The curmudgeons.

I think if everyone found its sense of humor again the world would be a better place. Great Post!

 

[Gabe1]

Title says it all. Seriously. They've improved so much. Just spent an entire day there, every single Team Member was friendly, approachable, helpful, and enthusiastic. In some ways they even surpass Disney - I hear more themed phrases used from Universal TM's than Disney CMs.

Everyone used to trash their guest service, but now, I honestly, truly feel that there really isn't a difference anymore between Disney CM's guest service level and Universal TM's.

Kudos, Universal. Kudos.

My DS working Disney Guest Relations says the same thing. He went to Horror Nights and even late into the night he said their staff was good. What he has noticed is Universal Guests do not abuse their Guest Services or their staff as often or for petty little things like Disney Guests do. That has to make it easier on the staff.

 

[tahqa]

Have you considered investing in a sense of humor? I hear you can get one for pretty cheap. It even comes with a free commemorative pin if you purchase at Disney. Unfortunately, Universal isn't thoughtful enough to offer that kind of deal. The curmudgeons.

I do have a sense of humor. But that wears out rather quickly when I am repeatedly told that they can't accept my Disney Visa. The first time it was funny. The second time a little bit less. It's about 50/50 that they'll make some joke about it. When you're being told that your valid credit card is no good that frequently it becomes a problem.

In the case of the kid with the stuffed animal -- the parents were looking at the cast member in horror. That is a problem.

Universal is #2 in Orlando and they know it. They want to be #1 and that's fine. More power to them. But when you're in that position you always compete up. You always compare to say why you are better than #1, why you deserve to be #1. The company in the #1 almost never acknowledges those companies beneath them. Pepsi is fond of running ads that take potshots at Coca Cola. Coca Cola ads are always about their product, never mentioning Pepsi (generally, I'm sure that there are exceptions). As long as Pepsi acts like the #2 company they will be the #2 company.

It's the same with Universal. They started to turn around with the Wizarding World (though that has flaws of its own). But until that #1 culture is ingrained at Universal and is projected by their employees they'll continue to be #2. And maybe that's the place that they want to be.

But I still stand by my original point that Universal still has a long way to go in their customer service. Buying tickets for Universal is a pain in the , for example. I went there on Sunday with my friend from out of town and stood in line for 20 minutes to buy his ticket. In contrast we went to Epcot on Friday and walked right up to a ticket booth with no wait. My friend made the comment that it was much better at Disney. And this all happens before we even got into the park.

Last August I wanted to buy my HHN ticket and after standing in line for 20 minutes it took the poor girl at the counter another 10 minutes to figure out that she couldn't sell me the ticket I wanted and I had to go to guest services. So another 10 minute line at guest services and another 10 minutes for the poor girl there to find out that those tickets hadn't been loaded into the system yet. And this was after the web site had been announcing their availability for a week. I had to buy my ticket online and pay their extra service charges because even with the pickup option there is no option to buy without a service charge.

So grouse all you want and call me a curmudgeon with no sense of humor, that still doesn't negate the fact that Universal still has a lot of catch up to do to match Disney in customer service. They're getting better for sure, but there's still a long way to go.

 

[ParentsOf4]

Buying tickets for Universal is a pain in the , for example. I went there on Sunday with my friend from out of town and stood in line for 20 minutes to buy his ticket. In contrast we went to Epcot on Friday and walked right up to a ticket booth with no wait. My friend made the comment that it was much better at Disney. And this all happens before we even got into the park.

So, a 20-minute line at Universal to but tickets, a 0-minute line at WDW. That's interesting.

It could simply be CMs working the WDW ticket booths are brilliant while being considerably less so at Uni. Perhaps the people buying WDW tickets know exactly what they want while people buying Uni tickets need the CM to explain the options to them.

Alternatively, it could be WDW has more advanced ticket sales while Uni has more spur-of-the-moment sales, along the lines of "Gee, we're here in Orlando visiting WDW but got bored because it's the exact same thing it was 5 years ago the last time we visited so let's try that new Harry Potter land we see advertised on TV".

I've run into a number of these during my last 2 trips, people who weren't planning on visiting Uni but decided after arriving that they wanted to give WWOHP a try.

 

[tahqa]

So, a 20-minute line at Universal to but tickets, a 0-minute line at WDW. That's interesting.

It could simply be CMs working the WDW ticket booths are brilliant while being considerably less so at Uni. Perhaps the people buying WDW tickets know exactly what they want while people buying Uni tickets need the CM to explain the options to them.

Alternatively, it could be WDW has more advanced ticket sales while Uni has more spur-of-the-moment sales, along the lines of "Gee, we're here in Orlando visiting WDW but got bored because it's the exact same thing it was 5 years ago the last time we visited so let's try that new Harry Potter land we see advertised on TV".

I've run into a number of these during my last 2 trips, people who weren't planning on visiting Uni but decided after arriving that they wanted to give WWOHP a try.

A lot of it was that every ticket booth at Epcot was open while not even half at IOA were open.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Oh please, people wait 20 minutes or more at the WDW booths all the time. It all depends on your timing. You could just as easily have purchased tickets in advance, gone to a redemption screen, and been done in 5 minutes.

The exact same stuff happens at Disney but when it happens at Disney its "expected" but when it happens at Universal, oh man what a bunch of morons LOL! WDW is ALWAYS gonna be number one! *goes and rides Splash Mountain pretending not to notice that everything is broken*

 

[cheezbat]

Oh please, people wait 20 minutes or more at the WDW booths all the time. It all depends on your timing. You could just as easily have purchased tickets in advance, gone to a redemption screen, and been done in 5 minutes.

The exact same stuff happens at Disney but when it happens at Disney its "expected" but when it happens at Universal, oh man what a bunch of morons LOL! WDW is ALWAYS gonna be number one! *goes and rides Splash Mountain pretending not to notice that everything is broken*

Yep. My second last visit to the MK...we didn't have our tickets and had to wait almost 40 minutes to get ours