Has Universal Lost Its Way?

[JungleSkip]

Which means everything for your experience and absolutely nothing for everyone else's...

I think I'm going to change my signature to "This is the internet so obviously the preceding post was my opinion"

"I dont like this so it shouldnt be that way" is a terrible stance.

Where did I say it shouldn't be that way? What I said was it should be optional. A TM or CM should provide the best possible service without also being forced to act like someone shoved a unicorn of happiness up their butt.

 

[tielo]

I don't know (or feel) Universal lost sight of it's vision.
What Universal delivers to me are great rides, service and above all a relaxing vacation. That last thing is something WDW stopped giving me so I stopped going.

 

[Legacy]

My issue with Ops was kinda touched on, and it skews beyond Park Operations and moves into the entirety of how the park operates. A lot of the upper management in Universal came from the front-line employee force and, while there is a benefit to that experience, it causes a very insular form of management where their only way of doing things is how they were trained to do things. Finding solutions to new problems becomes a struggle because a lot of them may not have managerial experience or training. They got where they are by being liked. After twenty years of that, you start getting copies of copies of copies and the degrading quality associated with that.

Disney does the same, but to a much more limited extent. Their middle-managers may have started as grunt CMs, but to get to the upper echelons you have actually have degrees or experience in corporate leadership. Their breadth of knowledge makes them far more adaptable to changes in the market, even despite their own lethargy.

Case in point, last year I was told about a breaker box backstage at Universal with a switch still labeled for an attraction that closed over a decade ago. The only reason that gets to stay that way is because no one has bothered to update it because every who works there “just knows what it is” without any forethought on what it could mean for the future when all of them are gone. That’s bad operations, management, and leadership, and it’s indicative of my major concerns with the company.

 

[s8film40]

No, magical moments at Disney are when a cast member gets a specific assignment (task) from the CSD system to spend the next 15 minutes of their day finding a family and making them feel special. It's pre-planned in their labor forecasting tools. Ride Ops can do this by back-dooring people directly onto their attractions/whereas park services do this through their water art on the guest pathways. It's not always a voluntary action (although that's also encouraged).

Magical moments are threaded into the fabric of Disney's employment culture. They're designed to not only make the guest feel special but to also empower the cast members to take ownership of their role and exceed the expectations of their visitors. The essential duties of operating a ride or managing a shop are still maintained.



Universal never instructs its team members to go above an beyond for the individual. They'll tell new team members that if little Timmy drops his ice cream cone you replace it free of charge, but they never encourage spontaneous acts of kindness towards their guests. It's purely operational.

To me the big difference is at Disney these are very forced and less genuine. They are a requirement of the job. You can't really force this kind of thing, they are essentially just little ways an employee can be nice to guests. Making them available is one thing, but when you tell an employee "hey it's been an hour go be nice to someone" it often doesn't really work. Sure some guests are going to be blind to what's really going on, but most of the time they can read through it even if they are happy to get whatever they're getting out of it.

As a side story, when I worked at Disney they used to do these in Monorails. They would randomly select someone and let them drive the monorail. The funny thing was more often than not it ended up being very awkward because the pilots would often refuse right in front of the guest out of concerns for safety. So then the manager would have to take over the driving responsibility to let the guest drive. The guests often felt like they had been randomly selected to cause an issue.

 

[Miketheboss]

Universal doesn't have a "Walt" figure. They don't have that story nor the "Fab 5" family characters. The closest thing Universal has is the Minions and Harry Potter. When you look at Mickey, Goofy, etc you automatically think of the parks. While the vision for While Disney World has changed since Walt ran the company, they still echo his vision. Universal does not have that. Universal feels much more corporate while Disney feels more classy. It's hard for me to put into words but when I'm at Universal I'm always saying, "this wouldn't happen at Disney".

 

[Andysol]

I think I'm going to change my signature to "This is the internet so obviously the preceding post was my opinion"

If you can't discern the difference between a well thought out opinion that not only considers one's own beliefs but also others or the majority as a whole vs just your opinion, then I don't know what to tell you.

So feel free to change your signature- but it isn't as simple as you put it. Your opinion - which you stated as fact - completely disregarded the millions of people that like the "magical" fluff simply because you dislike it.

"Magical moments" are cutesy pie BS that come off as so fake.

... that come off as so fake- to you.
And only because you used to be a CM and have a skewed view from the millions of other people who don't see it as fake and enjoy it.
This isn't InsideJungleSkip. You can have an opinion and still consider why things are done and who they are for. It's called being objective- and that is certainly a better approach.

 

[JungleSkip]

If you can't discern the difference between a well thought out opinion that not only considers one's own beliefs but also others or the majority as a whole vs just your opinion, then I don't know what to tell you.

So feel free to change your signature- but it isn't as simple as you put it. Your opinion - which you stated as fact - completely disregarded the millions of people that like the "magical" fluff simply because you dislike it.


... that come off as so fake- to you.
And only because you used to be a CM and have a skewed view from the millions of other people who don't see it as fake and enjoy it.
This isn't InsideJungleSkip. You can have an opinion and still consider why things are done and who they are for. It's called being objective- and that is certainly a better approach.

My objective opinion is that Magical Moments are great when a TM/CM is genuine and forced magical moments are corporate BS, which I've said like multiple times here, which is why my objective opinion is they shouldn't be mandatory corporate BS.

Thank you for your daily dose of condescension tho. My doctor says I don't get enough of it.

 

[deathcab4cutie]

my only problem with universal is that everything they make is thrill rides.It needs to be better balanced.They need more slow relaxing rides like et so you can slow down and prob let your stomach settle

 

[agentj]

Never been a TM or CM, but go to Universal about 20 days a year or more. Have never had a bad experience with any employee, just the opposite. Been going about 20 years and love the fact that we have known many people there for most of the years we have gone. Stopped going to Disney because prices kept going up but nothing was changing. I can relate tons of stories of TM's going out of their way to provide
a special experience for my family-also some opposite stories from our Disney experiences. As someone mentioned before, we are also a "nice" family that gets treated accordingly. I've seen A**hole guests at both parks that I would never have the patience to be nice to. I would have been fired quickly. But all in all, in MY experiences at Universal have been fantastic PLUS we get a great value for the money we spend.

 

[s8film40]

my only problem with universal is that everything they make is thrill rides.It needs to be better balanced.They need more slow relaxing rides like et so you can slow down and prob let your stomach settle

Yeah I learned after having a child that this is a bit of an issue at Universal. Even E.T. has a fairly high height requirement. Fortunately my now 3 year old is 42” so quite a bit has opened to us, but about a year ago it was pretty much the carousel and HE.

 

[MrRoamer]

I'm gonna say Universal ops is around 75 good/25 bad but some of those bad are really bad. With ops I'm including back of house type people too.
Anecdotal evidence, I switched my daughters and my passes from flex pay to pay at once. We continued to be charged the flex pass fees for 4 months until we realized it on both of my daughters passes and were told hopefully we'll be able to refund your money. Mine we caught after the first month of getting charged, which upon them fixing it then canceled my pass. Many times you get answers from one TM and then a totally different one usually with someone at guest relations vs on the phone.

The biggest break down I can think of was at Fallout Boy when people began panicking because they were telling people to go one way to get out only to get blocked and told to go back to where they came from. I saw kids crying and parents freaking out because they needed to get their children out but felt completely confused and trapped with the people helping them making things worse.

 

[Andysol]

My objective opinion is that Magical Moments are great when a TM/CM is genuine and forced magical moments are corporate BS, which I've said like multiple times here, which is why my objective opinion is they shouldn't be mandatory corporate BS.

Yet that was the entire argument. That Ops at Disney "force" those magical moments and Universal doesn't. And as a result, Universal doesn't have those magical moments- or at least near the quantity of them- and public perception sees them are more off-putting instead of "over the top" like they do Disney.

So if Uni had a directive to force more magical moments- and that, in turn, increased public perception- that would be a good thing. "Fake" or not.

 

[JungleSkip]

Yet that was the entire argument. That Ops at Disney "force" those magical moments and Universal doesn't. And as a result, Universal doesn't have those magical moments- or at least near the quantity of them- and public perception sees them are more off-putting instead of "over the top" like they do Disney.

So if Uni had a directive to force more magical moments- and that, in turn, increased public perception- that would be a good thing. Fake or not.

It would increase public perception with the Disneyana crowd. I've never heard, outside the theme park centric sites, complaints about Universal's lack of wishing guests a magical day.

 

[belloq87]

Lost its way? No.

Stuck in a cycle of building rides using similar techniques and gimmicks? Yes.

Too quick to dismiss its own rich history of great attractions in favor of ones deemed more relevant or flashy? 1,000%.

 

[s8film40]

Yet that was the entire argument. That Ops at Disney "force" those magical moments and Universal doesn't. And as a result, Universal doesn't have those magical moments- or at least near the quantity of them- and public perception sees them are more off-putting instead of "over the top" like they do Disney.

So if Uni had a directive to force more magical moments- and that, in turn, increased public perception- that would be a good thing. Fake or not.

No, it would definitely be a negative change. Real quality interactions are far better than a larger quantity of cheap forced interactions. Sure people are going to rate getting something free or special treatment as a positive, but it’s nothing at all compared to genuine real interactions.

Here’s an example. Every time we go to Disney someone gives our son a sticker, sometimes multiple people do until he has 3–4 stickers on his shirt. It’s great he enjoys it. It’s simple, it’s cheap and an overall nice gesture. Sometimes CM’s genuinely enjoy doing it sometimes you can tell it’s forced and really just makes it kind of awkward. It’s almost expected now and it’s nothing really special. On the other side, one time we went to E.T. we love the ride and so does our son. He was wearing an E.T. shirt. The team member noticed it and made some comments to him about it then directed us into the Express line. Again this is a cheap and easy gesture. It however was more meaningful because he didn’t have to and did it because he genuinely seemed to appreciate that we appreciated the attraction. I’ll take that over stickers any day.

 

[Andysol]

No, it would definitely be a negative change. Real quality interactions are far better than a larger quantity of cheap forced interactions. Sure people are going to rate getting something free or special treatment as a positive, but it’s nothing at all compared to genuine real interactions.

Here’s an example. Every time we go to Disney someone gives our son a sticker, sometimes multiple people do until he has 3–4 stickers on his shirt. It’s great he enjoys it. It’s simple, it’s cheap and an overall nice gesture. Sometimes CM’s genuinely enjoy doing it sometimes you can tell it’s forced and really just makes it kind of awkward. It’s almost expected now and it’s nothing really special. On the other side, one time we went to E.T. we love the ride and so does our son. He was wearing an E.T. shirt. The team member noticed it and made some comments to him about it then directed us into the Express line. Again this is a cheap and easy gesture. It however was more meaningful because he didn’t have to and did it because he genuinely seemed to appreciate that we appreciated the attraction. I’ll take that over stickers any day.

I agree with you. But they are not mutually exclusive.
I can give you multiple experiences I've had at Disney- some identical as your ET experience where a CM allowed us to go in the FP line.

So I agree completely that real interactions will always outweigh forced interactions regardless of quantity. But again, they arent exclusive of one another. One can have a corporate mandate and still have genuine interactions.
I love kicking Disney in the nuts as much as the next guy- but their customer service is still revered and a multitude of companies can and do take notes from them.
And Disney didn't get that reputation by wishing they had really good employees who went above and beyond- they got that reputation by instilling policies.

 

[s8film40]

I agree with you. But they are not mutually exclusive.
I can give you multiple experiences I've had at Disney- some identical as your ET experience where a CM allowed us to go in the FP line.

So I agree completely that real interactions will always outweigh forced interactions regardless of quantity. But again, they arent exclusive of one another. One can have a corporate mandate and still have genuine interactions.
I love kicking Disney in the nuts as much as the next guy- but their customer service is still revered and a multitude of companies can and do take notes from them.

Yeah I’ve definitely done some of these things in my time at Disney and the genuine ones do occur. From my perspective Disney has shifted overall more and more to the forced ones, while Universal seems to allow their employees to often overall be more genuine.

Disney’s customer service has really gone downhill over the last decade. The reputation hasn’t quite caught up with them yet, but it will.

 

[Paulio]

Agree and disagree. Universal obviously make rides based on 3D simulators and screens rather than incorporating piratical effects. That's way too overused and needs to be cut down. In addition in some aspects, Universal does lost its way of the "rid the movie" concept and adds for whatever it's popular. Kinda like Harry Potter for example, it's something you expect from Disneyland or Magic Kingdom. On the other hand, NBCUniversal and Comcast have repeatedly shown to have being committed to building the best theme park attractions and taking out others that are either outdated or not relevant to the present eras anymore. It's not just Universal Orlando parks, but here in California as well. Universal Studios Hollywood obviously needs to expand the Lower Lot instead of leaving it really small and congested for the past 5 decades.

 

[Andysol]

Disney’s customer service has really gone downhill over the last decade. The reputation hasn’t quite caught up with them yet, but it will.

This I can't agree with. If you had said "Quality" or "Show"- I would agree with you (although I believe the last ~2 years have been a significant turn in the right direction). After experiencing what I experienced with the Hurricane - It was arguably the best service I've had in my entire life given the situation and scale.
And I travel a lot for work and typically stay in higher end locations.
And if you compared to what I got from Loews at Royal Pacific it was night and day. Nothing wrong with RP- I love it there- but it was apples and oranges.

And I experienced this first hand. With the backlash they received from the "boxed lunch" fiasco from the previous hurricane- this one was a complete company-mandated directive. The fact they paid attention and listened is a fantastic sign of things to come. Corporate set the policy for the Wave to have a Buffet- and Corporate set the price point (I think it was $15 adult/8 kid for dinner incl. drink and dessert- I forget). This coming from the lips of the contemporary F&B manager to me directly. Then it was up to their staff and chef to deliver, what was the best buffet Ive had at Disney (and I hate buffets).
So here you have a directive from "high level" corporate- executed by "low level" CMs. One, without the other, it would have failed. Great food at $50 is extortion. Crappy food at $15 is crappy food. Great food at $15 during a hurricane is customer service perfection.

 

[s8film40]

This I can't agree with. If you had said "Quality" or "Show"- I would agree with you (although I believe the last ~2 years have been a significant turn in the right direction). After experiencing what I experienced with the Hurricane - It was arguably the best service I've had in my entire life given the situation and scale.
And I travel a lot for work and typically stay in higher end locations.
And if you compared to what I got from Loews at Royal Pacific it was night and day. Nothing wrong with RP- I love it there- but it was apples and oranges.

And I experienced this first hand. With the backlash they received from the "boxed lunch" fiasco from the previous hurricane- this one was a complete company-mandated directive. The fact they paid attention and listened is a fantastic sign of things to come. Corporate set the policy for the Wave to have a Buffet- and Corporate set the price point (I think it was $15 adult/8 kid for dinner incl. drink and dessert- I forget). This coming from the lips of the contemporary F&B manager to me directly. Then it was up to their staff and chef to deliver, what was the best buffet Ive had at Disney (and I hate buffets).
So here you have a directive from "high level" corporate- executed by "low level" CMs. One, without the other, it would have failed. Great food at $50 is extortion. Crappy food at $15 is crappy food. Great food at $15 during a hurricane is customer service perfection.

There's always going to be high and low points at any point in time. To me the overall trend has been to a much poorer overall customer service. By the time I left I oversaw and managed two operations at Disney and would receive essentially daily feedback, measurements and secret shopper reports. Disney is very good at manipulating this stuff to look good, but when you read between the lines and look at it in a more practical way things really have declined. I can't speak to the last two years, but I haven't seen much to change my opinion. The focus has been more and more on the technical side of things as in did the CM's say this, did they do this, etc. but here's a whole lot less of the overall real world judgement of the interactions. I would sometimes receive compliments on my operation for things that I considered to be serious customer service failures, but they "checked all the boxes". It's just all so fake and very few people care about real customer service anymore.