SEVERAL years ago, a story was published in The Nationalist trac¬ing the ancestral roots of Hollywood legend Walt Disney to a graveyard just outside of Nurney.
Genealogy was all the rage at the time and if Ballyporeen in County Tipperary could trace the ancestral roots of former US president Ronald Reagan, then Carlow could could adopt Walt Disney as one of her own.
Not alone did the famous cartoonist re-define the world of business – he rewrote the rules.
His creations, such as Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Snow White have been responsible for the creation of theme parks all over the world – attracting millions of visitors, young and old on a yearly basis. Children dream dreams about visiting these parks and, on arrival, those dreams are turned into reality.
The Disney World resort in Florida has grown to become the largest single-site employer in the United States, comprising four theme parks, two water parks, two waterfront entertainment districts, more than 20 resort hotels and 600,000 square feet of meeting space – all stretching over 47 square miles.
And that is just one location.
Obviously, Walt and his brother Roy knew a thing or two about running a business.
In fact, Disney is now recognised as the best at what they do, which prompted the organisation to open the Disney Institute in 1986, which has been attended by millions of people from all over the world.
Here are some of the key guidelines set out by the institute:
Customers are the most important people within a business, and without them an organisation will fail
Good people working towards a common goal can accomplish anything they set out to do
It may not be your fault but it is your problem
Successful customer representatives are knowledgeable, efficient, and professional
Rule 1: the customer is always right. Rule 2: re-read rule 1
By now you are wondering exactly what am I rambling on about. It’s very simple: customer service – or rather the lack of it in Carlow.
I have worked in the service industry all my life. It doesn’t matter whether that has been in sales, the hospitality industry or journalism, wherever you interact with people who, as far as I am concerned, are the service industry.
Over the years, people have never shied away from complaining to others about me. Sometimes they were wrong, sometimes right. Along the way, I would hope I have learned a thing or two.
Maybe it is just me but, of late, I find that people in the service industry do not want to be challenged in any way.
Let me give you two examples. Last weekend, I ordered a glass of wine in a hotel in this county – the name of the establishment doesn’t matter.
The barman, if you could call him that, served up the wine in a 6oz glass – the first one which came to hand. Shortly afterwards, I noticed him serving another person, but this time the glass was akin to a goblet, almost twice the size the one he had given me.
When challenged about the difference in glass sizes, his reply was “I don’t know anything about glass sizes” and promptly walked away. That was annoying enough but when I saw him titter to a colleague about the incident, that was the last straw.
Next came an incident at a newsagents/deli in town, which advertises a number of fillings in a sandwich for a given price. Noticing a discrepancy between the advertised price and what I was being charged, I asked the operator at the cash desk “why are you charging me x when the sign says y.”
Not too happy to have to explain matters, his first reply was that he was not charging me anything, but “they” (his colleagues at the deli counter) were.
I know we have engaged in a race to the bottom regarding what we charge for services, but employers would all claim their staff have not suffered. In these two cases, either management are wrong in that they have not properly trained their staff or these employees are unhappy in their jobs and should get out before they are asked to leave.
Whatever the reason, both they and their employer should take the time to look up the internet and read what Walt Disney had to say when it came to running a business.