New DVC General Manager

[Paul Stupin]

I’m just happy there’s some new blood coming in who might improve the experience. The impossibility of getting in touch with member services for a big chunk of the last year and a half, even considering the circumstances, was for me, as a new member, inexcusable. I can’t help but think that stronger, more decisive leadership could have made a difference.

 

[gharter]

concerned about him coming from the accounting side, but seriously, can he do worse?
I truly hope not. Hoping for the best.

 

[bumbershoot]

As hard as it has been to be optimistic with Disney, I want to at least give him a shot. Not all bean counters are bad

Agreed.
As a future bean counter.

He is a Dookie, so can’t be good (UNC Fan here).

Ah, they're both good schools. My sis in law went to one and her sister went the other. At the same time.

the Web site is still terrible even after multiple upgrades

There has never been a Disney website that was any good at all. That's not a DVC thing.

Fairly certain we went 2 months without a peep from DVC after the initial closure announcement

I think that was shown to be inaccurate, but really, there were lots of places that had NO idea what was going on.

Terri's biggest issue was simply not communicating during the pandemic...even if she had nothing to update, you know? That's what a good leader does.

Disagree. Saying "we don't know" enrages normal people.

Considering they made this guys intro sound like a bland internal corporate promotion announcement and didnt even let the pr department try to plus it up, thats very telling!

I think it's good. I hate PR fluff. Tell us who he is and where he came from.

She could have said "I know a lot of you have questions such as ... and we don't have any answers yet because we're trying to figure it out, but I promise to get you more information as soon as I know".

Many places in my area did, and it didn't go over well.

there was much frustration from many members over the lack of communication. So maybe those 4 times just didn't address what was needed at the time?

Nothing would have addressed what was needed. Unless she could have sent a literal hug or a puppy or similar, no email was going to give us what we needed.

 

[Ssplashhmtn]

Finance and Strategy is responsible for creating the point charts.

That would be unusual. How do you know that? Most business people are “numbers people”, but not all of them work in finance.

 

[Leight19]

It matters in the sense that decisions for the product and perks is not DVCM. They manage the program as it is. So member satisfaction on using DVC definitely falls to the head of DVC.

Getting membership perks, discounts, resale restrictions, etc is a DVD. They decide what is sold.

So, while you can certainly share your thoughts with DVCM, they will not be the ones negotiating with DPEP for things like APs etc.

I get this perspective but wouldn’t dvcm have ultimate decision for the resale restrictions? Sure dvd can decide to sell a new resort with those restrictions but wouldn’t dvcm have decision if a resort with resale restrictions can join the same association as existing resorts?

I mainly get upset with dvcm vs dvd because dvcm has fiduciary responsibility to act in owners interest but often appears to act in Disney’s interest. Dvd I do not believe has any commitments to members beyond doing what allows them to sell the most product with customer satisfaction high enough to continue to sell in future.

For me, whoever was responsible for point charts when 2 of last 3 charts had to be rolled back due to questionable practices should not have job in role that is supposed to represent best interest of dvc members.

 

[Mumof4mice]

That would be unusual. How do you know that? Most business people are “numbers people”, but not all of them work in finance.

I had a long conference call with K. Gripp (Regulatory Affairs manager) and S. Naqvi (Club Strategy manager), regarding the 2022 charts. Naqvi was introduced as "from the department that sets up the point charts, who can answer your questions in detail".

No, I was not impressed with his grasp of basic mathematics. And yes, I understand that not all "numbers people" work in finance.

 

[Great3]

So any guesses as to what his first cut(s) will be...you know...to "improve guest experience"?

You got it all wrong, not to "improve guest experience" but to "give members what they been asking for".

You know, they did a survey, and you want more availability for members use only, so they are doing away with free lead guest other than owners, so there is now a charge. Please, I hope not... but everything will be "by member demand".

Oops... I hope nobody from DVC reads the Dis boards, I don't want to give any ideas...

Things can get worse... they are plenty of ways... just read thru what is happening to other timeshare systems devaluation and you can find many more ideas. But, let's give the new guy a chance, and just see what happens.

Great3

 

[Sammie]

Terri's biggest issue was simply not communicating during the pandemic...even if she had nothing to update, you know? That's what a good leader does.

However, let's all hope that Bill will bring a fresh and better perspective to DVC.

Actually I went back searched through old emails and she sent one out on 3-16-20, 3-28-20, 4-24-20 and 5-27-20 and each one shared what she actually knew at that time and each email was very detailed and showed compassion to the challenges everyone was facing. If anyone did not find that to be enough, not sure she could please that person. The messenger always gets the blame but as we all know there was only so much that she could adjust without screwing over everyone else.

 

[disneyholic family]

has Pete said anything about this change?

 

[Sandisw]

I get this perspective but wouldn’t dvcm have ultimate decision for the resale restrictions? Sure dvd can decide to sell a new resort with those restrictions but wouldn’t dvcm have decision if a resort with resale restrictions can join the same association as existing resorts?

I mainly get upset with dvcm vs dvd because dvcm has fiduciary responsibility to act in owners interest but often appears to act in Disney’s interest. Dvd I do not believe has any commitments to members beyond doing what allows them to sell the most product with customer satisfaction high enough to continue to sell in future.

For me, whoever was responsible for point charts when 2 of last 3 charts had to be rolled back due to questionable practices should not have job in role that is supposed to represent best interest of dvc members.

There are some who feel that entrance to BVTC of Riviera is questionable

And DVD does not have a responsibility to us to the way DVCM does. But for me, I like to be clear on who does what in the ultimate scheme of things to have a better understanding of the product I own.

That’s all.

 

[AdamsMum]

.including giving owners DVC/DVD owned points to replace points that expired during and shortly after the closure...the same thing they are now doing for international owners

International owner here, can you clarify what they are doing for us now? I haven't heard anything.

 

[Henwen88]

Pete gets results. I won’t repeat his opinion on last week’s podcast of Teri Schultz (something something clown) but wow, she was gone a week later.

I’m totally giving him credit. Way to call it out.

I was telling my husband last night that this was totally in response to the DVC member survey I completed a few weeks ago where they only gave me 500 characters to air my grievances, albeit very succinctly. My voice was heard, lol.

 

[Sandisw]

International owner here, can you clarify what they are doing for us now? I haven't heard anything.

If you have a trip booked with points that will be expiring and you can’t go due to the travel restrictions , call MS and they will put in a request for you to get additional points to use through May 2022.

It’s not automatic. They won’t show up until after the other expire and there is still no confirmation whether they can be used to replace a trip booked with those expiring points during home resort.

 

[DisneyOutsider]

The website issues alone are absolutely inexcusable and an embarrassment for DVC/Terri in this day and age. It's quite obvious she never gave a damn. Any leader worth their salt will push to get this sinking ship back on track.

 

[DaveNan]

Do we have an email for him yet? We could all send him an email, congratulating him and letting him know what is important to us, his guests. Transparency, representing the guests experience and interests, honoring the letter and intent of the POS and sales pitch.... Which Member Benefits matter, restrictions.....

 

[Liquidice]

Do we have an email for him yet? We could all send him an email, congratulating him and letting him know what is important to us, his guests. Transparency, representing the guests experience and interests, honoring the letter and intent of the POS and sales pitch.... Which Member Benefits matter, restrictions.....

william.c.diercksen@disney.com - I actually already sent him an email yesterday congratulating him and re-sending an email I had sent to Terri last week that got no response thus far. No response from Bill yet either, but I'm sure he's busy after just getting promoted and/or inundated with emails

(I don't know for Terri or Bill if they actually respond themselves, or if someone from Guest Relations responds on their behalf - I know when I have emailed Josh D'Amaro, I got a response from someone else).

 

[RivShore]

I can see most of the commentators here have never worked for or with finance in a large company.

Just because someone has VP in their title doesn't mean they can move the needle at all on things like web site improvements. As someone above said, all Disney websites stink badly and I guarantee the VP's and other employees are just as frustrated as us users are but getting any kind of major IT improvements done in a large company is like banging your head against the wall...over and over and over again. Been there done that, head still hurts.

And, putting all the responsibility for cost cutting on finance is again wrong. Finance, even SVP's are just carrying out managements marching orders - C-suite says "we need x% savings this year, let me know how much savings there is if we cut a and b from y and z". Finance may have some suggestions on where the fat is but it's almost always Ops who makes the final call.

 

[Liquidice]

I can see most of the commentators here have never worked for or with finance in a large company.

Just because someone has VP in their title doesn't mean they can move the needle at all on things like web site improvements. As someone above said, all Disney websites stink badly and I guarantee the VP's and other employees are just as frustrated as us users are but getting any kind of major IT improvements done in a large company is like banging your head against the wall...over and over and over again. Been there done that, head still hurts.

And, putting all the responsibility for cost cutting on finance is again wrong. Finance, even SVP's are just carrying out managements marching orders - C-suite says "we need x% savings this year, let me know how much savings there is if we cut a and b from y and z". Finance may have some suggestions on where the fat is but it's almost always Ops who makes the final call.

Disney may operate differently, but I've worked for multiple large companies (2 in the top 50 of the Fortune 500) and our SVPs definitely can make huge decisions and respond directly to customer feedback.

I agree the website is probably not a huge concern unless the website is completely down for days and it is directly impacting revenue - then I'm sure an SVP wants reports of what is going on.

But if enough customers are complaining about lets say a specific issue? I have seen SVPs come in and say "I want this fixed, come back to me in 1 week with how".

Sure, the details are implemented by Ops - but I think SVPs have decision making power within large companies. Especially for their division.

Again, maybe Disney and the companies you've worked for are different - but my experience is not that SVPs just take direction from above and implement what they're told.

 

[RivShore]

Sure, the details are implemented by Ops - but I think SVPs have decision making power within large companies. Especially for their division.

Again, maybe Disney and the companies you've worked for are different - but my experience is not that SVPs just take direction from above and implement what they're told.

I was speaking more to those putting all the blame for cuts on the "beancounters" and not realizing the general (and sometimes specific) direction comes from above in many cases.

I have also worked in fortune 100 companies and one thing I also noticed is that the quantity and responsibilities of those with VP in their title varies greatly. One company just had a handful of SVP's and this was a company with 150k employees around the world, while another similar sized company, handed out VP titles like candy. No idea where Disney falls in that range.

 

[RivShore]

But if enough customers are complaining about lets say a specific issue? I have seen SVPs come in and say "I want this fixed, come back to me in 1 week with how".

As for the IT issues, dealing with something like that right now, hence my procrastination here...

The "I want it fixed now" order came from on high months ago and it's still being worked becuase there are so many varied inputs to the customer facing front page that come from systems and legacy processes around the company. To fix some of them would actually require a rebuild of how departments and business units were orignily set up in the system many years ago. Trying to come up with workarounds for such issues is torture! All this doesn't mean Disney systems don't suck, but I kind of understand why.