Customer Service, Disney Style
By Leanne Crain

A recent trip to Disney World with my family brought to light how very important customer service is. While the parks themselves were amazing of course, one of the best parts of the whole trip were the Disney "cast members". (What Disney calls its employees) As is often said - "nobody does it like Disney". This leads to the question - why not? Why don't more companies strive to do customer service the Disney way?

Think of it this way . . . you are on a road. You know where you want to go in the end, you have a picture of it, but you have no idea how to get there. You're not even sure the name of the place you're going. So as you're driving along, you may see signs, and pass them by without even knowing it. You'll probably make a few wrong turns. Also, as you're driving along, you may notice some antique stores. You stop to look in those. Then you notice some historical plaques, and decide those would be fun to read too. With all this in mind - how long will it take you to reach where you wanted to go in the first place?

While you probably don't have the budget of Disney, there's no reason your team can't adopt some of the lessons they teach, and in turn make your customers happy. The cast members were empowered to "Create Magical Moments" for the guests whenever they could, and we had them every day! Let me give you an example of something we experienced. My son saved up his money to buy a model of the Disney Monorail. While he was paying for it the cast member was smiling and talking to him about the monorail. Then she said "did you know that you can sit up front in the monorail with the engineer?" She proceeded to give us instructions how to do this - for free - next time we were near the monorail. Sure enough, the next morning we asked the monorail cast member and were greeted with a happy "SURE!", as they opened the door, bowed to my kids as they walked in, and handed them honorary engineer cards. So, what did all that cost Disney? Not much! All it took was the cast members having the knowledge of what is available, the thoughtfulness to mention it, and lots of smiles. Apparently, behind the scenes of Disney World there are signs posted stating "Be so nice to the guests they can't believe it." What a great motto! What's stopping you from encouraging your team to adopt the same goal?

Take a look around your environment, and see what you could be doing to better improve your customer's experiences. Get everyone - from bottom to top - involved in creating better moments for your guests. The CEO of Disney has been known to personally stop and pick up garbage on the streets of Disney if a cast member wasn't around to help. Does your team genuinely smile all the time? Do they look for chances to create "magical moments" for the customers? Do they apologize when mistakes are made and try to rectify them? You don't have to be Disney to provide excellent customer service - any size organization can follow the main goals of Disney and work hard at having a well educated team and happy guests. As Walt Disney himself said "Do what you do so well they will want to see it again and bring their friends."

For more customer service ideas, or to take G.E.M.S. (Going the Extra Mile on Service) training, please contact Gary Gzik.