The Law of Customer Service “Wow”.

Satisfaction is dangerous.

There, i said it.

Customer satisfaction is dangerous to your long-term brand reputation, financial results, and shareholder value.

No one tells us this.

Why?

Because they’d be ridiculed.

Why?

Because most organizations measure it.

CSI. Customer Satisfaction Index.

Patient Satisfaction.

There’s no magic in satisfaction. When we meet the needs of our customers they are satisfied. There’s no buzz and no story when our expectations are met.

Only when our experience is amazing or when it’s awful is there a story to tell.

When it’s amazing we recommend. When it’s awful we warn.

When things go just as we expect, there’s no buzz.

The only way to reach wow is through amazing and awful.

To become a world-class customer service organization, amazing has to be all day, every day. It’s architected into your culture. Amazing has to be par for the course.

Leadership must ensure you are hiring people who would be disappointed if they couldn’t deliver “wow” all day, every day. And this applies to every role, customer-facing or behind-the-scenes.

New employee orientation must guarantee every employee understands your organizational DNA, which includes putting every customer up on a pedestal.

Your customer service culture requires every single employee (zero exceptions) to deliver at such a high level that satisfactory service would feel like poor service to your customer.

Be so amazing at what you do that no one can ignore you.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

Lead the category or be the category?

Striving to lead your industry isn’t entirely bad if you’re ok with waiting for someone else to beat you to the next breakthrough.

Why does that sound ridiculous?

Why is it important?

Because some ridiculously important (some would say game-changing) events have happened, are happening now, and will continue to happen.

It’s called disruption for a reason.

It’s not unrealistic to expect disruptions will be bigger and more frequent.

Customers are increasingly more worldly, more sophisticated, more educated, and more discerning.

Competitors are increasingly more determined, more cunning, and more successful at leveraging technology to understand their customers (and yours) and scale solutions you’ve never thought of.

The basic function is simple; give your customers more than they expect.

The real challenge in customer service is what we universally call “customer satisfaction”. Literally everyone measures CSI, Customer Satisfaction Index, or Patient Satisfaction.

Are we truly satisfied measuring satisfaction?

Think about it.

Satisfaction is dangerous.

Customers are up for grabs when they feel no emotional attachment to a brand. Our goal at Disney is to exceed Guest expectations, not meet them. We don’t aim for satisfaction, we aim for “wow”.

None of us say, “Wow, that was really satisfying.”

To get us to, “Wow, that was amazing.”, we need to exceed expectations.

So waiting for the next big customer service approach can destroy an organization (and sometimes an industry).

What we are always aiming for at Disney is creating a new approach, one that pushes us into a category no one else can touch. Relentlessly surprise and delight customers. When done consistently and over time, you create a brand that drives competitive immunity and has your competition scrambling to catch you.

And while they are trying to catch up, you are working on the next big thing.

Remember how the music industry let Napster reinvent music file sharing?

Music executives got blind-sided.

As if that wasn’t enough, the music industry never saw a computer company coming either.

Apple, iPod, iTunes, and now, Apple Music.

Apple is a category of one.

The music industry had their chance to become the category.

Kodak had their chance too, but they held so tightly to film, they suffocated themselves.

How does this train of thought affect Disney Customer Service?

Simple, we believe the road to excellence has no finish line. We devote our careers to finding ever more effective ways to have every Guest feel like a VIP – Very Individual Person.

Early in my career Malvina Alk, our Area Manager at Disney’s Contemporary Resort Front Desk, reminded everyone not to gawk at celebrities. She also reinforced our policy of never asking a celebrity for an autograph or a photo.

Contemplate this, do all your employees make all your customers feel like Royalty?

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

jeff noel Deconstructed Disney to reconstruct Customer Service, for your future enjoyment

If you’ve visited a Disney Theme Park, the odds are high you’ve seen at least one sign like this:

Please pardon our appearance while we refurbish this attraction for your future enjoyment.

Walt Disney Company

Why are the odds high?

The odds are great because Disney is always working to improve the Guest Experience.

Consider the effort, though. Every Attraction is unique, and each one comes with a different set of issues, opportunities, and strengths.

Closer inspection then will yield you a quick, and much deeper, appreciation.

Now imagine the difference between one closer inspection versus a lifetime of seeing it under a microscope.

When you see the actual DNA, the smallest pieces that hold the Disney Culture together, everything you believe in, and why, changes.

When i saw the Disney Institute participants struggle with our Customer Service content, which focused on what we do and how we do it, i set out to find a breakthrough for those struggling business professionals.

i was on a mission to crystallize why, and how, we do what we do.

The why took me to the microscope, which led to brilliantly simplistic discoveries.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

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The Customer Service Gospel According To Walt Disney

Gospel: gos·pel, noun: Something regarded as true and implicitly believed: to take his report for gospel. A doctrine regarded as of prime importance: political gospel.

The good news, Disney’s Approach to Customer Service is simple and serves as the world’s business gospel.

The bad news is it’s not easy.

When i first discovered i had high cholesterol, the doctor recommended two simple steps to lower the risk of heart disease.

Diet and exercise.

Simple.

Not easy.

Disney’s Approach to Customer Service, you’ll see in a moment, is ridiculously simple.

And yet finding an organizational culture of overwhelming leadership excellence is roughly as statistically similar as finding a large number of vibrantly healthy American adults.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.

The second greatest human fear

Most people know this, the second greatest human fear is the fear of death.

What’s the top human fear?

The only thing scarier than dying is public speaking.

So yeah, no, i never wanted to be a public speaker.

No dream.

No wish.

Not even a remote thought that just randomly came and went.

No desire nor interest ever happened before the day Carol called.

After that, the idea of being a Disney professional speaker consumed my thinking.

Like a broken record, i kept repeating the same question over and over, “Why me?”

Never thought about becoming a Disney Customer Service expert.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.