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At a recent family gathering in my home, the grown-ups were trading stories about companies that
provide good customer service and those that don't. Out of curiosity, I asked my then twelve-year-old
granddaughter, Margot, what she thought were the most important rules for great service. Without a
moment's hesitation, she said, "Papi, the first rule is 'Be nice!"*
Out of the mouths of babes! I've spent my whole adult life thinking about service, beginning with
teenage stints working in a drugstore and a lumberyard in a small Oklahoma town and culminating in my
last corporate position as executive vice president of operations at Walt Disney World, where I oversaw a
workforce of forty thousand people, resort hotels with more than thirty thousand rooms, four theme
parks, two water parks, five golf courses, a shopping village, a nighttime entertainment complex, a sports
and recreation complex, and more operations. Along the way, I held positions that included army cook,
banquet waiter, food and beverage control clerk, director of food and beverages for Hilton Hotels
(including the Waldorf-Astoria), director of restaurants at a Marriott, general manager of another
Marriott, and senior executive at Disney in Paris and Orlando. |