Kings Island Eliminates Park Ambassadors

Saw this on Facebook, but seems legit: https://www.facebook.com/gr...7602214012

I visit KI a couple of times a year. I never interacted with these people personally. I'm terrible at remembering faces.

But as soon as I saw this post, I recognized all of them. They were everywhere. They got sent out when the park opened late. They were picking up trash. They were helping guests. They made themselves available when rides broke down.

I never thought about it at the time, but it was little details like these that made my visits to KI so spectacular. I always thought of KI as being in the upper echelon of non-Disney/Universal parks in terms of presentation and customer service.

And now this. The next few years scare me.

It seems like Cedar Fair went into budget cut mode last year and is really going hard on it this year. Sure, they are building Top Thrill 2 at Cedar Point. But I also feel like they are letting a lot of the little things go, and there are plenty of rumors floating around that Live-E at CP is being cut even more than it was last year.

That would be a crime to cut live entertainment.

I don't think I really understood the value and importance of people in the theme park setting until resuming visits mid-pandemic. Disney and Universal both struggled to hire, and they involuntarily understaffed things. You could tell.

So can you run a ride without someone at entrance? Yes. Should you? No. The people define the product.

100% this. It’s why parks like Silver Dollar City are so highly regarded.

I think in some regards this is also what differentiates a Theme Park from an Amusement Park. I was not there in the 80's, but Great America in Gurnee was definitely more of a Theme Park then, with the entire experience defining the day. Now it is very much an amusement park, with lots of random theming that may or may not make sense setup in the park - and has lost it's ability to do much with entertainment, as one of it's theaters is now queue space for a somewhat lightly themed ride. Cedar Point was always more of an amusement park, though parts were themed (i.e. Frontier Town.)

[Please don't quote the previous post.]

Jeff:

So can you run a ride without someone at entrance? Yes. Should you? No. The people define the product

People gotta greet

Please see my signature.

Anyone who can spend their day managing guest issues and the absurd and ugly situations they often face and still absolutely love their job is probably someone you would want to keep around. But that’s just me.

I was Customer Service my entire working life, starting with my Jr High paper route. I loved it, and I was good at it- well, the people side of it, anyway. (Clerical? Maybe not so much) Sure, there were bad days and customers whose only mission was to make nice people like me cry. But the good ones far outweighed the bad and there’s nothing more satisfying to me than what’s called “the turnaround” Taking a customer from dissatisfied to delighted is what it’s all about. So I totally get what this guy’s taking about. It actually sounds like the type of gig I’d have enjoyed in my retirement years, if I’d only lived closer.
Speaking of SDC (and Dollywood for that matter) I’d like to be the guy at the entrance with a big mustache, suspenders, and a cool hat, greeting customers every morning. I’ve noticed that often those characters get moved to the Guest Relations counter to fill out their day.
I have a friend that I’ve mentioned here before that calls herself an KI Ambassador, but it’s not like this and I’m curious about it. She’s a travel blogger and enjoys a relationship with Kings Island in exchange for favorable press, for lack of a better description. I’m going to check with her to see if she’s not affected too.

Back when I worked for Universal in 2000-2001, the park had a program that 'empowered' their employees to do essentially what these KI Park Ambassadors did. For example, we could take guests to the gift shop and buy them new clothes if they experienced an issue with the ones they had on.

I once left my ride area, with permission, to run a non-English speaking father and son to the birthday show at Seuss Landing within a few minutes of the show starting. They were very appreciative, which made me feel great. The park wanted us to be creative in making sure guests had an exceptional experience. It made the job satisfying.

Wouldn't it be great if every employee at KI took on the roll of Park Ambassador?

Disney had a similar program when I worked there. They had recently gotten rid of leads so you were empowered to do things for guests without having to call a supervisor. So if waiting with a lost child that was melting down you could get them an ears hat from a gift shop or give someone a back door pass for an attraction.

It's been a long time but remember hearing that went away or was heavily modified after my time there because of abuse. In fact, shortly after leaving got a call from a supervisor asking me questions about a coworker. Apparently someone used it to get themselves a turkey leg saying they were replacing it for a guest.

LostKause:

Wouldn't it be great if every employee at KI took on the roll of Park Ambassador?

More employers (amusement parks and others) need to empower their employees to do basic things like this.

I saw it in action myself at Magic Kingdom in 2015. My daughter was climbing in or our of her stroller while we were waiting on Main Street near the confectionery for a parade to start and took a tumble. It sounded more dramatic than it was and she was fine, but an army of employees descended on us, including one from the candy shop with a ginormous lollipop for the kid. It was pretty impressive how quick they sprang into action and I'm sure it didn't hurt that there were plenty of employees nearby ahead of the parade.

I've gone through some of the Disney Institute training in the past and employee empowerment is an overriding theme for any of the classes that are service related. A story from one of them that stuck with me involved a rare plush item that a kid lost over a fence. It took several hours to retrieve it and, once it was found, it was damaged and filthy. An employee routed it to a costume repair department, had it cleaned and fixed, and then made sure it was delivered to the guest's room.

When Simon was little, sudden changes in expectations were potentially day-ending affairs. He still struggles with change, but doesn't necessarily melt down as a young teen. For example, when he was 4 or 5, you can't explain away a ride going down mechanical when you were next to board. This happened to us on Pooh at Magic Kingdom, and as soon as I saw the crew going into the ride with their lockout tags, I knew we weren't going to ride. He was a mess pretty quickly. The kindest cast member working entrance busted out the roll of stickers, gave us fast passes, etc. She went a long way toward deescalating the situation, without really knowing his deal.

But even in a less serious situation, right around the time of Irma, Test Track was down for some reason. Simon was 7 by then, and pretty bold about talking to ride ops, his heroes. The woman working entrance entertained all of his questions, and when her relief came out, she invited him in to walk around the ride. So she pointed out stuff in the queue, and then walked us through the station over the bridge behind controls. She didn't have to do that.

This is what I'm talking about though. You can have the best rolly coasterz and ridez in the world, but the people are the front line interface to that. If they suck, the product is less valuable.

BrettV:

More employers (amusement parks and others) need to empower their employees to do basic things like this.

I agree, but the whole point of Park Ambassadors was to have employees who were freely dedicated to addressing guest service issues. Other employees are supposed to be checking bars, measuring kids, or serving food, so they can't just abandon their post to go help someone who is lost or having a bad day.

This reminds me of one of our most mind blowing customer service experiences. Of course... at Disney.

It was a morning at Magic Kingdom. We hit a few rides and had just rode Pirates when we were back outside the ride, when all of the sudden our daughter starts vomiting all over the pathway. Before I could blink there was an army of employees surrounding us. One of them rubbing her back while saying "it's ok princess, get it all out", while others were dropping towels over the mess on the ground, directing traffic away from the area, another person brings over a wheel chair and hand towels, another with bottles of water. We were surrounded in seconds, and they could not have been more proud to swoop in and help.

Thankfully she was fine the next morning and we were back in the park and on rides. But that moment from the cast members? I'll never forget it.

I love Jeff's examples. I may have shared this before, but a couple of summers ago when we went out to Disneyland I purchased Genie+ so we could hit everything we wanted to do in our limited time. My son really wanted to ride the Matterhorn (since we don't have one in Florida) and I set it up in Genie+ for the end of the night on our last day.

At least, I thought I had. When I walked up to the FP line I realized I did not have the "tickets" for the two of us. I looked at my kid and his face dropped. He was an older teen at the time and was understanding, but his look was one of extreme disappointment. I basically said, "sorry, buddy, maybe if we get back to California one day...". The ride op asked where we were from. When I told him, Florida, he said..."man, you came a long way for this. Follow me." He led us right up to the loading platform and away we went.

Post script: that ride beat the crap out of me like nothing since Mean Streak. But, it was a very nice gesture that was completely unnecessary...and I'll be telling that story for years.

Random thoughts on the issue:

Working for the Mouse provides a huge boost beyond pay for many people. Same won't apply for most businesses.

Expect different employees when you hire for year round, permanent positions compared to seasonal jobs with a lot of turnover from season to season.

With costs increasing in general (including labor), makes sense that businesses look at ways to save costs (other option is to increase prices which is harder to do for some businesses/in some industries than others.

There are a lot of businesses that depend on people (until the machines take over pretty much all of them on some level). You win with People as Woody Hayes wrote. But none of that really is dispositive in determining best staffing levels. No exact science there. And all of the above factor into that.

PhantomTails:

the whole point of Park Ambassadors was to have employees who were freely dedicated to addressing guest service issues. Other employees are supposed to be checking bars, measuring kids, or serving food, so they can't just abandon their post to go help someone who is lost or having a bad day.

I think allowing all employees the power to make a bad situation is a smarter move though. Instead of having ten employees throughout the park that can help when something goes wrong for a guest, everyone who works at the park are trained and are able to help. Everyone is keeping an eye out and can swoop in if needed. If someone is checking restraints, they can holler on the walkie to an available host; the host who is sweeping the queue or the host who is about to go on break. Or the supervisor.

Someone who is stuck in one position can easily hand out a front-of-the-line pass, for example. There are almost always a way to relieve staff. Sometimes a ride host needs to pee. Rarely, someone might get an emergency call into the ride. And sometimes a ride host needs to help a customer, even when not in a program like this. Maybe the customer needs directions. Ect.

Freely roaming park ambassadors are useful too. Maybe have both park ambassadors and train/empower everyone who works at the park to be able to help when needed. I think customer service is almost as important as safety when running a business.