During the planning of the new Chef Mickey’s restaurant at Disney World in Orlando, we had some HUGE service hurdles to overcome.
Chiefly, how to direct Mickey Mouse through the sea of tables in the restaurant.
You see, we had over 400 seats in the restaurant, made up of tables of 2, 4, 6 and 8 seats.
What’s the problem you ask?
Well, the tables of two people dining had an average meal time of 43 minutes.
We had to design the Service Standards around that metric; getting Mickey Mouse through the dining room to see 400 people in 43 minutes.
Yowza!
And it had to be a MEMORABLE experience.
After all, that is what Disney is all about, making dreams come true. You just can’t have Mickey speeding through without pictures, autographs and a few hugs thrown in.
If you think Grumpy the Dwarf was upset, just try consoling a child who was just snubbed by her lifelong friend, Mickey Mouse. And of course the parents yelling that we ruined their ENTIRE vacation.
The pressure was on.
The parents and children HAD to have THE PERFECT MEMORABLE experience.
Of course, this had to be balanced with the need of the company to have a profitable experience. It would have been very easy to just let guests sit there for four hours, eat all they wanted (to add to the degree of difficulty, this was a buffet, so guests could conceivably be there a long time) and have Mickey stop by for an extended chat.
Here were my marching orders for my team, create a dining experience that was:
- Perfect for our Guests
- Executable by our employees
- Profitable for our company
Here is a sampling of the step-by-step process I directed to create the perfect guest experience:
- I brought together ALL of the stakeholders, Chefs, Servers, Disney Reservation Agents, Housekeepers, the folks in charge of the characters, the interior designers, entertainment & musical directors, bus boys, dishwashers and concierge agents and a bunch more that can’t all be named here.
- Each stakeholder agreed to the mission and would create service sequences to help achieve the mission. For example: a. The busboys designed special table reset packages to speed up the resetting of tables between parties. b. The music directors created specific songs and music designed to get guests moving quicker. c. The interior designers created furniture that was easily moved, cleaned but yet looked decidedly Disney. d. The reservation agents were trained on how the reservation system would work for this restaurant and given OUR scripts for speaking to guests. e. The character managers helped design the layout of the tables to ensure the smoothest flow of the character through the tables
- Then we rehearsed. We practiced. We adjusted. And then we practiced some more.
The Result of all this Mickey Mouse Work?
Chef Mickey’s was the #1 rated Character Dining Experience in the entire Walt Disney Company for the four plus years I was at the helm.
We also had the highest Reservation count and highest revenue of any Walt Disney Character restaurant.
Now I know your business is not on the same scale as Disney – HOWEVER I do know one thing… YOU DO NEED A SYSTEM. Even if it as simple as a one page checklist, it needs to be in place, enforced and followed up on.
Your profitability and existence just might depend on it. Which is why I am so excited to be hosting a training LIVE From Walt Disney World – so I can share how to use the secrets of Disney and their incredible systems – to delight and thrill your clients and patients.
So, if you want
- clients for a lifetime that stay, pay and refer
- More money without working harder
- Engaged, happy, whistle-while-they-work employees
Then this event is for you.
But you need to register! the event is tomorrow 12/8/21 at NOON EST. https://uih32rfi.pages.infusionsoft.net
