Providing Service that L.A.S.T.s
Statin’ the Bacon at Liberty Tree Tavern
In my last article I spoke about providing great service recovery. I talked about four ways to respond to an incident based on the severity and whose responsibility it was for what happened. I invited examples from you about different incidents and we’re going to share many of those in an upcoming Mailbag. Meanwhile, I want to extend the conversation further in discussing how to best redress a customer service challenge.
Liberty Square at The Magic Kingdom. Photo by Jeff Kober.
In November I hosted a group of participants in Orlando. We dined at The Liberty Tree Tavern in The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. The conversation turned to those who are operating partners with Disney. The discussion was around Disney’s ability to expect (and receive) excellence from third party contractors. A colleague of mine related an experience that occurred to her several years ago. She was dining in Downtown Disney at one of the third party restaurants there. Her associate asked for a Pina Colada, so she requested one as well, only she emphasized to the server that it have no alcohol since she had an extreme allergy.
She was served a virgin Pina Colada; however, the drink was blended in a mixer that had not been rinsed out properly and she immediately went into an allergic reaction and had to be taken to Celebration Health for proper care.
The manager of the restaurant took immediate action and responsibility, calling on her personally, and offering his concern. He took ownership of any bills associated with the event, and invited her and her colleague back to the restaurant for a free meal at any time in the future. She thanked the manager, but stated she was from out of state and did not plan on returning any time in the near future.
Fast forward a year later and my colleague was back at Walt Disney World with some associates on a business program. They found themselves in Downtown Disney and decided that they would check at the restaurant where she had dined previously. She didn’t think they would remember the incident, much less provide the offer of a free meal, but decided to inquire anyways. Checking at the podium, she asked for the manager on duty and gave her name. The podium attendant immediately responded to the name without any other context, stating that her incident was well known at the restaurant and that the experience had resulted in serious staff training over the last year. He went to get the manager on duty, who attended to her every need, rolling out whatever red carpet he could and thanking her for returning to the restaurant. Moreover, the manager of the restaurant, who was at home that evening, found out and he himself came over to the restaurant to attend to her personally.
She was wowed by the experience because of how they took responsibility and treated her accordingly.
Now if that were not enough, in an irony of ironies, just minutes after she related this story at our table at Liberty Tree Tavern, another participant threw her sandwich on the plate, and exclaimed that the sandwich had bacon. This participant was allergic to bacon, which was hidden beneath layers in a Salmon Club Sandwich.
Liberty Tree Tavern.
I asked what needed to be done. She said she needed some Benadryl, so I quickly escorted her to First Aid to get some medication. She hadn’t consumed much of the sandwich, and she wasn’t sure what the effect was. The cast member at First Aid was attentive, and emphasized that they would get her additional attention if she needed to go to the hospital. Upon returning to the restaurant, she asked to stop and rest for a moment in the front of the restaurant. While she did, I went back in to attend to the other participants. There I found the duty manager and chef speaking to the group. I listened only long enough to hear the duty manager respond defensively to the situation at hand. Her response was: “Everyone knows that a club sandwich has bacon in it”. Our participants were stating: “Why doesn’t it say that it has bacon on the menu? It goes into detail about the bun being toasted multi-grained and that the mayonnaise was ‘lemon-basil. But it says nothing about bacon?!”
November 2007 Menu.
I pulled the manager to the side, explaining to her that I was the leader of the group. While I didn’t tell her that I was a former cast member, I did urge her to focus on the well-being of the victim and to not posture herself defensively. I directed the manager to the participant now seated in the lobby. The participant felt that perhaps it would be best if she went to the hospital. The ambulance from Reedy Creek Emergency Services was called and she was back-doored out of the park behind Frontierland and taken to Celebration Healthcare. There my business partner met her and attended to her needs.
I’m happy to say that the participant not only recovered from the experience, but returned later that evening to join up with our group. I’m glad she took the necessary precautions. On the other hand, the duty manager’s response was in no means “red carpet.” She offered to remove the participant’s meal cost from the bill, as well as mine, which I found so token I didn’t even want to address the matter. She did call later to inquire about the participant, but again, that was more of a matter of checking off something from her list of things to do. I never heard her express sympathy for the participant; much less rise to the level Disney ought to rise to.
I’ve pondered the incident since then, and why the manager’s response was tepid at best. First, I think it had to do with the grid we spoke in our last column.
The Service Recovery Matrix.
I feel the incident was taken seriously, so clearly severity was not the issue. But there was still that sense of responsibility. It doesn’t really matter whose fault it was that the individual consumed the sandwich unknowingly; one should respond either by pulling out the red carpet or by stepping forward to be a hero. Their defensive response suggested that they felt she should have known that a “club” sandwich would obviously have bacon in it. It’s as if the intended message was: “It’s her own fault; she should have figured that out in the first place.”
It’s not too different than: “It’s their fault they lost their car. They should have remembered where they parked it—especially after we told them three times on the tram not to forget where they parked!”
Which is why our experience with the parking lot is so amazing. They approach the same kind of experience with a solution for being the hero of the day—even when it’s not Disney’s fault.
So it wouldn’t really matter if they had treated it as a situation of being a Hero or as a Red Carpet; just as long as they did one or the other. Instead, the approach was more token… more a response to protecting one’s self legally, rather than identifying opportunities to create loyal customers.
How should the manager have treated the matter? There’s an acronym for it—L.A.S.T. And what does L.A.S.T. stand for?
Listen – Let the customer share what happened. Let them vent if need be. Let them get it out. Don’t rush to answer. Maintain good eye contact and open body language. Ask open-ended questions. Capture the critical details. Consider how the guest’s emotions are influencing their words. Make certain that the customer feels completely heard before you start offering solutions.
Apologize – Express sincere disappointment for the situation not meeting their expectations (no excuses, no blame) and that you are committed to making it right.
Solve – Find the right solution and provide it immediately. This is where the grid makes the most sense. If it’s a case of offering Empathy, do so. If the matter needs to be fixed—Fix It! Most importantly, roll the Red Carpet out if you’re at all to blame, or be a Hero when you aren’t.
Thank – Often, the best gifts we receive from customers are the complaints they register. Feedback is the breakfast of service champions. While it isn’t our nature to appreciate negative comments, those complaints can act as a road map to tell us if we’re on track to providing the quality of service we want to offer. Being genuine and authentic is critical.
There was little (if any) of that coming from the manager on duty at the restaurant. Not that I blame her entirely, I encountered similar responses from other people involved. While the folks at Reedy Creek Emergency Services were right on cue, the chef acted just as defensively. A couple of other area managers called to assist at the scene were also emotionally detached. One of them was someone I had worked with over 10 years ago when I first started in a small office above the Italy pavilion in World Showcase. He remembered me, but not once did he approach me or my guest with the least bit of genuine concern. I felt like I was just another number on the way out the back door. Once the ambulance moved on, I approached the manager I knew and we spoke for a moment about where our careers had taken us, never once did he ask questions or express concern about the individual in need.
I thought about this for some time afterwards. My summation was that these managers have been through so many memos and presentations on how to not hold Disney liable, that they were either paralyzed or defensive in their reaction. It could also be that they experience so little empathy from senior management for their own experience, that they are burned out and simply over it.
Don’t mistake me—there are so many great stories I’ve heard across Disney property about cast members who went the extra mile—and we’ll report many of those in a mailbag column. This is one of the key ingredients for creating magic, and with millions of people returning to Disney every year they must be doing something right.
For that matter, my tri-cornered hat is also off to the wonderful hosts and hostesses that make up the Liberty Tree Tavern. I’ve eaten there enough times to know that they really can make the magic themselves. There’s even something positive to be said about the management. Last week we took another group for lunch at the Tavern and frankly I was concerned. The last thing I wanted was to check another one of our participants into the hospital. But Tony’s was closed, and the other restaurants were not the right fit for our needs.
So I rejoiced when I got there and took a look at the new menu:
January 2008 Menu.
Yes, there’s bacon at the Tavern tonight—and that’s no ordinary bacon, that’s Apple-wood Smoked Bacon! But more humorous was that as one of the participants at our table ordered that very same sandwich, the hostess no sooner went into a spiel about the sandwich having bacon, then she stopped herself mid-sentence and said: “Oh, I don’t have to say that any more…they changed the menu.”
Whose responsibility? Does it matter? What do you think? What has your experience at Disney been like? What has it been like in your own business? Share if you will. We’d be happy to hear your experiences.
Meanwhile, consider that when it’s necessary in your own organization to either throw out the red carpet or become a hero yourself. It’s the only way to make the magic in your own business.
