Learning from the Best Customer Service Cases

Have you noticed that you learn best when you examine the work and results of others? We certainly feel you do. In this article we will examine three great customer cases. All of these offer some excellent points you can apply to your business that will help amplify your marketing.

Related: My Favorite Customer Service Blogs

Case 1

I’ve been with the same dentist for more than 15 years. He’s friendly, personal, and generally on time with his service schedule. I have considerable confidence in his abilities and he had my business loyalty, at least until now.

He does what I expect a dentist to do and he does it explaining all the issues and options without having to play 20 questions with him. For that reason I never thought about considering a change in service providers.

Then one day my wife and I started spending our winters in Florida. And now the option of finding a Florida dentist became a necessity.

The new dentist changed my entire perspective on the service expectations that I had developed over the past 15 years.

This new dentist was younger and surely ‘less experienced’. But it didn’t seem this way. He was much more personal, asked important questions, spent more time with me, and did a more thorough job.

That experience opened my eyes to the quality differences with my current dentist.

I had come to expect quality and service that was very good. But the new dentist provided something even better.

Now every time I am in need of standard dentist action, such as annual checkup, etc., I plan my appointments for our time in Florida. The Florida doctor has won my standard business.

The business lesson here?

If you are any type of service provider, never become complacent. Don’t provide standard, average or just good enough service. Always look for ways to continuously improve your service and do things better.

Because the day someone provides better results, service, or quality than you do, is the day your customers’ loyalty will dry up. Left unchanged and not corrected so too may your business.

Case 2

Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though. Lots any business can learn from Disney’s customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker. 

Disney puts a tremendous amount of attention to its parks’ customer immersion and customer experience; in fact, one could say the Disney theme park mystique is 100% about immersing the customer in the culture of Disney movies and character history. Over 150,000 employees are employed ‘on stage’ each day at Disney parks to help create this customer experience immersion. 

What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience?

Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles:

Care for customers 

In front of nearly every ride was stroller parking and in Magic Kingdom, there were plenty of strollers because nearly every group had some small children. There were areas set aside for stroller parking, and clear instructions for where to park your stroller. Guess what? Customers still managed to ignore them.

In most places, this might create chaos. Not at Disney, where they have a ‘stroller guy’ whose entire job it was to pick up after lazy customers. We have seen them organize strollers into lines, put errant Sippy cups back into cup holders, and keep his little area of the park neat and organized.

All customer facing employees are responsible for ensuring parks remain clean, friendly, organized, and most of all, fun.

Immerse customers in the brand 

At Disney, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the Disney branding all around. In the park it works to surround you with the Disney experience at every moment, even when some parts of the park are under construction.  

Not to mention the side benefit of Disney likely negotiating some discount on the construction work from businesses in exchange for allowing them to put their brand on the signage seen by millions of park customers.

Lots of help and directions 

All stage employees are encouraged to be ‘assertively friendly’.  They are to seek out those who look like they need help, before they come looking for help.

The parks at Disney are very large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is to not be able to find what they are looking for. As a result, signs have to be super easy to navigate and offer simple ways to get from one place to another. Disney does a great job keeping their signs easy to understand.

They also have logical layouts for parks and plenty of places to pick up copies of maps as you’re walking around their parks. 

Random acts of kindness

Each employee is encouraged to offer random acts of kindness often.

The Fast Pass system at Disney is a work of analytical art that is designed to keep people moving through attractions faster and in a more optimized way. To use it, you just insert your own park ticket and the Fast Pass will give you a specific time to return to a ride in order to board it without a wait.

Only one active at any one time however. At several, you also got the unexpected surprise of a bonus ticket to a nearby (and usually less popular) ride. Thanks to this bonus ticket, you had the chance to ride an extra ride in the same time and feel just a little better about your experience all day.

A random act of kindness that costs nothing.

Be flexible with rules 

Many of the rides take photos of you while you are on board. Those photos are sold to riders after the ride, a classic amusement park upselling technique. At Disney, they show you the images and put a person below those images just standing by to answer questions.

Of course, some people will just take a cell phone photo of their image instead of buying one. Many places would put up big signs preventing that. Disney, instead, puts a person there working under the photos to make it a little more socially awkward to take a photo of your photo, but they don’t outlaw it. The result is that they probably still get a high percentage of people buying the photo who really want it. They don’t need to have the typical rule outlawing the inevitable group of people who are happy with lower quality photo they take themselves.

Educating while entertaining

Many places in all the parks Disney provides educational material on signs around the parks. This is particularly true in EPCOT and the Animal Kingdom, and special events like the annual garden show at EPCOT. Can’t be too much of this in our opinion.

Offer reassurance

Everyone ‘on the stage’ has a cast role, and as such, is responsible to contribute to the positive customer experience by being as helpful and assuring as possible.

When we traveled to Australia, we frequently ran into the expression a ‘nervous nelly’ used to represent a timid or always apprehensive person.  We all know people like that. They check a map constantly even when they are going the right way, and usually find a reason to worry about something.

Disney does a great job of making sure those people feel at ease, with plenty of places and people to answer questions.

Show ready

Each customer facing employee is expected to be ‘show ready’ whenever they are on stage. Everyone has a part to play as a component of the show. On stage, the show is on and everyone follows costume and customer interface guidelines.  Breaks and relaxing are ONLY allowed in areas unavailable to guests.

Disney certainly knows all there is to know about customer immersion and customer experience, don’t they? It’s a culture handed down by Walt himself.

Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty. It is awesome marketing isn’t it.

Case 3

I stayed in a new Marriott Courtyard hotel a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready. There were many problems, believe me and it started as a significant customer failure.

But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service, using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail.  He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.

Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue. All customers deserve our best service, but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.

Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.

Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem. So these results show the importance of turning customer failure into full customer recovery.

Why should any company not want to seize such a great marketing opportunity?

Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business. You will be amazed at the results.

Disney World Customer Experience Design … a Difference Maker

Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though. Lots any business can learn from Disney World customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker.

Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced.

  • David Freemantle

Disney puts a tremendous amount of attention to its parks’ customer immersion and customer experience … in fact; one could say the Disney theme park mystique is 100% about immersing the customer in the culture of Disney movies and character history.  Over 150,000 employees are employed ‘on stage’ each day at Disney parks to help create this customer experience immersion.

What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on–stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience?  Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles:

Care for Customers

In front of nearly every ride was stroller parking – and in Magic Kingdom, there were plenty of strollers because nearly every group had some small children.  There were areas set aside for stroller parking, and clear instructions for where to park your stroller. Guess what? Customers still managed to ignore them.  In most places, this might create chaos.  

At Disney, they have a “stroller guy” whose entire job it was to pick up after lazy customers.  We have seen them organize strollers into lines, put errant Sippy cups back into cup holders, and keep his little area of the park neat and organized. All customer-facing employees are responsible for ensuring parks remain clean, friendly, organized, and most of all, fun.

Immerse Customers in Brand

At Disney, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the Disney branding all around.  In the park, it works to surround you with the Disney experience at every moment … even when some parts of the park are under construction.  Not to mention the side benefit of Disney likely negotiating some discount on the construction work from businesses in exchange for allowing them to put their brand on the signage seen by millions of park customers.

Lots of help and directions

All-stage employees are encouraged to be “assertively friendly”.   They are to seek out those who look like they need help before they come looking for help.

The parks at Disney are very large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is to not be able to find what they are looking for.  As a result, signs have to be super easy to navigate and offer simple ways to get from one place to another.

Disney does a great job keeping its signs easy to understand. They also have logical layouts for parks and plenty of places to pick up copies of maps as you’re walking around their parks.  

Random acts of kindness

Each employee is encouraged to offer random acts of kindness often. 

act of kindness
Employ an act of kindness.

The Fast Pass system at Disney is a work of analytical art that is designed to keep people moving through attractions faster and in a more optimized way.  To use it, you just insert your own park ticket and the Fast Pass will give you a specific time to return to a ride in order to board it without a wait.  Only one is active at any one time, however. However, at several, you also got the unexpected surprise of a bonus ticket to a nearby (and usually less popular) ride.  

Thanks to this bonus ticket, you had the chance to ride an extra ride at the same time and feel just a little better about your experience all day. A random act of kindness that costs nothing.

Be flexible with rules

Many of the rides take photos of you while you are on board.  Those photos are sold to riders after the ride – a classic amusement park upselling technique.  At Disney, they show you the images and put a person below those images just standing by to answer questions.

 Of course, some people will just take a cell phone photo of their image instead of buying one.  Many places would put up big signs preventing that.  Disney, instead, puts a person there working under the photos to make it a little more socially awkward to take a photo of your photo … but they don’t outlaw it.  

The result is that they probably still get a high percentage of people buying the photo who really want it, but they don’t need to have the typical rule outlawing the inevitable group of people who are happy with a lower-quality photo they take themselves.

Educating while entertaining

In many places in all the parks, Disney provides educational material on signs around the parks. This is particularly true in EPCOT and the Animal Kingdom … and special events like the annual garden show. Can’t be too much of this in our opinion.

Offer Reassurance

Everyone “on the stage” has a casting role, and as such, is responsible to contribute to the positive customer experience by being as helpful and assuring as possible.

When we traveled to Australia, we frequently ran into the expression a ‘nervous nelly’ used to represent a timid or always apprehensive person.  We all know people like that.  They check a map constantly even when they are going the right way, and usually find a reason to worry about something.  Disney does a great job of making sure those people feel at ease, with plenty of places and people to answer questions.

Show Ready 

Each customer-facing employee is expected to be “show ready” whenever they are on stage.   Everyone has a part to play as a component of the show. On stage, the show is on … everyone follows costume and customer interface guidelines.  

Magic
It is magic.

Breaks and relaxing are ONLY allowed in areas unavailable to guests.

Disney certainly knows all there is to know about customer immersion and customer experience, don’t they? It’s a culture handed down by Walt himself.

Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.

What can your business apply from Disney operations that would improve your customer experience?  Please share a story about your experience.

Remember, customers, create the most value for you … when you create the most value for them.

Like this story? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, and stories per week.

Please share a story about a creative customer experience design strategy with this community.

Read more from Digital Spark Marketing’s blog library:

10 Laws of Customer Experience Design

What Little Things Small Businesses Can Do To Build Customer Relationships

Customer Experience Improvements Begin with Understanding Their Value

Consumer Engagement … the Key to a World-Class Social Commerce Business

The key is to be part of people’s lives. People will always prefer to do business with friends.

–      Marty Kohr

Nonversation?  Heard that term before?  In context with a social commerce business?  Hope not.  Simple definition: the opposite of a productive conversation.

Many nonversations transpire at elevators, bus stops, and the like. They also occur during business situations, in which participants do not really listen meaningfully to one another. Not what you want for a world-class social commerce business.

We define social commerce business as the use of social engagement to personalize and energize the shopping experience. It provides a social context to shopping and is both a channel and a way of doing business.

consumer engagement

So how do we propose to build a world-class social commerce business? Here are 10 ways we recommend to our clients:

It starts with great employees

Employees are your service. Hire for their friendly, caring attitude and train for skills and knowledge. Empower them to be customer advocates.

Make social the centerpiece

Socialize your business. People do business with people, so make it personal. Customers should want to do business with you because of you and your employees. Make your customers “feel at home.” You may have a great location, cool displays, great value, etc. That’s all great, but if your people can’t make your customers feel welcome and appreciated, all of the other doesn’t matter so much.

Share all great service stories

As soon as possible with all of your team. Celebrate the smallest of successes.

Show common courtesy

All the time. This leads to customer respect, which leads to conversation and the building of relationships and mutual trust.

Care for customers

Assume you are the company owner. Not all owners or executives make great leaders, but the ones that are should be emulated. Watch how they take pride in how they deal with customers and employees, and then follow their lead.

Customer engagement

Analyze when things go right.

When a company receives a complaint people usually have discussions to find out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. Next time you receive a letter of praise, meet to find out what went right and how it can be repeated.

All the time

Amazing companies don’t always deliver “Wow!” type experiences, they are just better than average – all of the time. All of the time is the secret sauce.

Attention to details

 Sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest impact. Figure out the details that your customers enjoy and make them a routine part of doing business with you. Be vigilant … always listening and learning. Try and remember things customers tell you and then show them you listened. Trying new ideas. Put your social commerce business in motion by being adaptable.

Customer experience

 One sure way to erode loyalty and social commerce is to deliver an inconsistent customer service experience. One time it’s great. The next time it is barely average. And, the next time it may be great again. Inconsistency creates uncertainty and erodes customer confidence and trust. Lack of confidence and trust leads to giving customers a reason to consider your competition.

Create a customer service culture

It starts by practicing what we call, “The Employee Golden Rule”: Treat your employees the way you want the customer treated – maybe even better.

Now it’s up to you. Choose one customer service strategy to start with. Have a meeting around it. Discuss how to implement it. Then, do it and repeat the process, creating something good for your customers to talk about! Soon you will have a much stronger social commerce business.

The bottom line

This is your time to create and take action on customer engagement insights from successful influencers. With good continuity and persistence, relevant insights will be helpful in developing lasting relationships with your customers.

Lead with initiative and own the moment. Dive in today and notice how much your business improvements grow.

Remember this simple fact. Stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in. Let your content marketing success be your difference-maker.

create_website_design

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. 

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

More reading on customer engagement from our library:

Influence Consumer Behavior by These 9 Personalization Strategies

 

8 Ways Disney World Customer Experience is the Difference Maker

Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing, though. Lots of any business can learn from Walt Disney customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker.

Disney World customer experience
Do you have a difference maker?

Disney puts a tremendous amount of attention to its parks’ customer immersion and customer experience … in fact; one could say the Disney theme park mystique is 100% about immersing the customer in the culture of Disney movies and character history.
Over 150,000 employees are employed ‘on stage’ each day at Disney parks to help create this customer experience immersion.
Before we continue, let me ask you a question. 
What customer experience design techniques work best for your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.
With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.
What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on – stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience?  Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles:

care for customers
Care for customers.

 Care for Customers

In front of nearly every ride was stroller parking – and in the Magic Kingdom, there were plenty of strollers because nearly every group had some small children.
There were areas set aside for stroller parking, and clear instructions for where to park your stroller. Guess what? Customers still managed to ignore them.  In most places, this might create chaos.
 At Disney, they have a “stroller guy” whose entire job it was to pick up after lazy customers.  We have seen them organize strollers into lines, put errant Sippy cups back into cup holders, and keep his little area of the park neat and organized.
All customer-facing employees are responsible for ensuring parks remain clean, friendly, organized, and most of all, fun.
Here is an interesting article about customer experience and the customer journey.

 

 

Disney World Customer Experience … a difference maker

At Disney, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the Disney branding all around.  In the park, it works to surround you with the Disney experience at every moment … even when some parts of the park are under construction.
 Not to mention the side benefit of Disney likely negotiating some discount on the construction work from businesses in exchange for allowing them to put their brand on the signage seen by millions of park customers.

Know What Customers Want: Why You Should Stop Pretending to Know

Lots of help and directions

All stage employees are encouraged to be “assertively friendly”.   They are to seek out those who look like they need help before they come looking for help.
The parks at Disney are very large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is to not be able to find what they are looking for.  As a result, signs have to be super easy to navigate and offer simple ways to get from one place to another.
 Disney does a great job keeping their signs easy to understand. They also have logical layouts for parks and plenty of places to pick up copies of maps as you’re walking around their parks.

Disney World
Disney World.

Disney World Customer Experience … random acts of kindness

Each employee is encouraged to offer random acts of kindness often.
Related: Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements
The Fast Pass system at Disney is a work of analytical art that is designed to keep people moving through attractions faster and in a more optimized way.  To use it, you just insert your own park ticket and the Fast Pass will give you a specific time to return to a ride in order to board it without a wait.
Only one active at any one time, however. However, at several, you also got the unexpected surprise of a bonus ticket to a nearby (and usually less popular) ride.
 Thanks to this bonus ticket, you had the chance to ride an extra ride at the same time and feel just a little better about your experience all day.
A random act of kindness that costs nothing.

Be flexible with rules

Many of the rides take photos of you while you are on board.  Those photos are sold to riders after the ride – a classic amusement park upselling technique.  At Disney, they show you the images and put a person below those images just standing by to answer questions.
Of course, some people will just take a cell phone photo of their image instead of buying one.  Many places would put up big signs preventing that.  Disney, instead, puts a person there working on the photos to make it a little more socially awkward to take a photo of your photo … but they don’t outlaw it.
The result is that they probably still get a high percentage of people buying the photo who really want it, but they don’t need to have the typical rule outlawing the inevitable group of people who are happy with a lower quality photo they take themselves.
One of my favorite experts in the field of customer experience is Andrew McFarland and Pivot Point Solutions. You’ll find lots of good examples and case studies to learn from in this blog.

 Educating while entertaining

Many places in all the parks Disney provides educational material on signs around the parks. This is particularly true in EPCOT and the Animal Kingdom … and special events like the annual garden show. Can’t be too much of this in our opinion.

 

offer reassurance
Remember to offer reassurance.

 Offer reassurance

Everyone “on the stage” has a cast role, and as such, is responsible for contributing to the positive customer experience by being as helpful and assuring as possible.

 

When we traveled to Australia, we frequently ran into the expression of a ‘nervous nelly’ used to represent a timid or always apprehensive person.  We all know people like that.
They check a map constantly even when they are going the right way, and usually find a reason to worry about something.  Disney does a great job of making sure those people feel at ease, with plenty of places and people to answer questions.

Customer Support: Can We Learn from 3 Customer Service Cases?

 Show ready 

Each customer-facing employee is expected to be “show ready” whenever they are on stage.   Everyone has a part to play as a component of the show. On stage, the show is on … everyone follows costume and customer interface guidelines.   Breaks and relaxing are ONLY allowed in areas unavailable to guests.
Disney certainly knows all there is to know about customer immersion and customer experience, don’t they? It’s a culture handed down by Walt himself.
customer_experience_improvements
Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.
What can your business apply from Disney operations that would improve your customer experience?  Please share a story about your experience.
Remember, the customer creates the most value for you … when you create the most value for them.
 
Like this story? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.
Please share a story about a creative customer experience design strategy with this community.
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
10 Laws of Customer Experience Design
Building a Customer Experience Strategy for Business Success
10 Ways to Employ Customer Experience for Influence
 
 

Customer Experience Case Studies: Ultimate Cheat Sheets to Learn From

In this article we will examine three great customer experience case studies. Each of these cases offers some excellent points you can apply to your business that will help amplify your marketing.

customer experience case studies
customer experience case studies

Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced.
-David Freemantle
 

 Case 1 My local dentist

I’ve been with the same dentist for more than 15 years. He’s friendly, personal, and generally on time with his service schedule. I have considerable confidence in his abilities and he had my business loyalty, at least until now.

Here is a very good short video on how to build self-confidence.

He does what I expect a dentist to do and he does it explaining all the issues and options without having to play 20 questions with him. For that reason I never thought about considering a change in service providers.
Related post: Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements
Then one day my wife and I started spending our winters in Florida. And now the option of finding a Florida dentist became a necessity.
The new dentist changed my entire perspective on the service expectations that I had developed over the past 15 years.
This new dentist was younger and surely ‘less experienced’. But it didn’t seem this way. He was much more personal, asked important questions, spent more time with me, and did a more thorough job.
That experience opened my eyes to the quality differences with my current dentist.
I had come to expect quality and service that was very good. But the new dentist provided something even better.
Now every time I am in need of standard dentist action, such as annual checkup, etc., I plan my appointments for our time in Florida. The Florida doctor has won my standard business.

business lesson
A good business lesson to know.

 
The business lesson here?
 If you are any type of service provider, never become complacent. Don’t provide standard, average or just good enough service. Always look for ways to continuously improve your service and do things better.
Because the day someone provides better results, service, or quality than you do, is the day your customers’ loyalty will dry up. Left unchanged and not corrected so too may your business.
Related post: 10 Ways to Employ Customer Experience for Influence

Disney World
Disney World is a great case.

 

Case 2 Disney World

Ever been to Disney World? With most of our family living 50 miles away, we often felt like tour guides. Not a bad thing though. Lots any business can learn from Disney’s customer experience design and operations. A real difference maker.
Disney puts a tremendous amount of attention to its parks’ customer immersion and customer experience; in fact, one could say the Disney theme park mystique is 100% about immersing the customer in the culture of Disney movies and character history. Over 150,000 employees are employed ‘on stage’ each day at Disney parks to help create this customer experience immersion.
What are the ways Disney uses its park designs and ‘on stage’ employees to create the best possible customer experience?
Consider Disney’s explicit operations and design principles:
 
Care for customers
In front of nearly every ride was stroller parking and in Magic Kingdom, there were plenty of strollers because nearly every group had some small children. There were areas set aside for stroller parking, and clear instructions for where to park your stroller. Guess what? Customers still managed to ignore them.
In most places, this might create chaos. Not at Disney, where they have a ‘stroller guy’ whose entire job it was to pick up after lazy customers. We have seen them organize strollers into lines, put errant Sippy cups back into cup holders, and keep his little area of the park neat and organized.
All customer facing employees are responsible for ensuring parks remain clean, friendly, organized, and most of all, fun.
 
Immerse customers in the brand
At Disney, you can’t look in any direction without seeing the Disney branding all around. In the park it works to surround you with the Disney experience at every moment, even when some parts of the park are under construction.
Not to mention the side benefit of Disney likely negotiating some discount on the construction work from businesses in exchange for allowing them to put their brand on the signage seen by millions of park customers.
 
Lots of help and directions
All stage employees are encouraged to be ‘assertively friendly’.  They are to seek out those who look like they need help, before they come looking for help.
The parks at Disney are very large and directions can be confusing. The last thing customers need is to not be able to find what they are looking for. As a result, signs have to be super easy to navigate and offer simple ways to get from one place to another. Disney does a great job keeping their signs easy to understand.
They also have logical layouts for parks and plenty of places to pick up copies of maps as you’re walking around their parks.
 
Random acts of kindness
Each employee is encouraged to offer random acts of kindness often.
The Fast Pass system at Disney is a work of analytical art that is designed to keep people moving through attractions faster and in a more optimized way. To use it, you just insert your own park ticket and the Fast Pass will give you a specific time to return to a ride in order to board it without a wait.
Only one active at any one time however. At several, you also got the unexpected surprise of a bonus ticket to a nearby (and usually less popular) ride. Thanks to this bonus ticket, you had the chance to ride an extra ride in the same time and feel just a little better about your experience all day.
A random act of kindness that costs nothing.
Be flexible with rules
Many of the rides take photos of you while you are on board. Those photos are sold to riders after the ride, a classic amusement park upselling technique. At Disney, they show you the images and put a person below those images just standing by to answer questions.
Of course, some people will just take a cell phone photo of their image instead of buying one. Many places would put up big signs preventing that. Disney, instead, puts a person there working under the photos to make it a little more socially awkward to take a photo of your photo, but they don’t outlaw it.
The result is that they probably still get a high percentage of people buying the photo who really want it. They don’t need to have the typical rule outlawing the inevitable group of people who are happy with lower quality photo they take themselves.
Educating while entertaining
Many places in all the parks Disney provides educational material on signs around the parks. This is particularly true in EPCOT and the Animal Kingdom, and special events like the annual garden show at EPCOT. Can’t be too much of this in our opinion.
 
Offer reassurance
Everyone ‘on the stage’ has a cast role, and as such, is responsible to contribute to the positive customer experience by being as helpful and assuring as possible.
When we traveled to Australia, we frequently ran into the expression a ‘nervous nelly’ used to represent a timid or always apprehensive person.  We all know people like that. They check a map constantly even when they are going the right way, and usually find a reason to worry about something.
Disney does a great job of making sure those people feel at ease, with plenty of places and people to answer questions.
Customer experience case studies … show ready
Each customer facing employee is expected to be ‘show ready’ whenever they are on stage. Everyone has a part to play as a component of the show. On stage, the show is on and everyone follows costume and customer interface guidelines.  Breaks and relaxing are ONLY allowed in areas unavailable to guests.
Disney certainly knows all there is to know about customer immersion and customer experience, don’t they? It’s a culture handed down by Walt himself.
Companies that are proactively managing all elements of their customer experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty. It is awesome marketing isn’t it.

Customer experience case studies … case 3 Marriott Courtyard

I stayed in a new Marriott Courtyard hotel a while back. The situation was that it was recently opened and should not have been opened until the problems were worked out and management was ready. There were many problems, believe me and it started as a significant customer failure.
But not only did the staff take care of the issues for me, the manager, once he got me back to ‘even’, continued to build the relationship with me. His techniques included exceptional, personalized service, using my name in face-to-face greetings, and continued follow-up and attention to detail.  He actually made me believe I was the best customer he had ever had. Not only did I forget about the earlier problems, but I was feeling great about the entire three-day experience.
Service recovery requires remaining with your customer, through follow-up, and through unexpected contact well after the issue. All customers deserve our best service, but the ones that have a negative experience represent an opportunity to define a business.
Such an opportunity represents an opportunity to turn customers into enthusiasts and maybe even advocates. And that requires going beyond the ‘break-even’ point for that customer.
Research has shown time and time again that customers who reported a problem and were delighted with the outcome have higher satisfaction with the business than the ones who never experienced a problem. So these results show the importance of turning customer failure into full customer recovery.
 Why should any company not want to seize such a great marketing opportunity?
Try it … the next time you have a customer who has had a back experience with your business. You will be amazed at the results.
 Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences?  Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
 
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
 
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
 
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. 
  
More reading on customer experience from our Library:
Customer Orientation … the Worst Customer Experience Mistakes
Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements

7 Ways to Create a Customer Service Evangelist Business

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on FacebookTwitterQuoraDigital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.