Dennis Snow’s Service Excellence Blog

What a difference a caring employee makes. You can observe two employees doing the identical job, but one is creating great customer experiences while the other employee just goes through the motions.

A recent client arranged for a Town Car service to take me from the airport to the convention hotel and then back to the airport the next day. It was a fairly long ride, about two hours, but it was through beautiful countryside so I didn’t mind.

The driver who picked me up at the airport was wonderful. She had a chilled bottle of water waiting in the car along with a fresh copy of the local newspaper and the Wall Street Journal. She asked if I had been in that part of the country before (I had) and off we went. I appreciated her smooth and comfortable driving style with no fast accelerations or quick applications of the brakes. I felt safe.

She made the ride pleasant by sharing information about the areas we drove through, while always gauging my interest based on my responses and questions. Along the way I had to do a bit of computer work and she respected my need for quite during that time. The only time she interrupted was at the half-way point to ask if I needed a restroom break; which I did.

Dropping me off at the hotel, the driver was complimentary about their facilities and sincerely wished me luck on my presentation. It was a great customer service experience.

The return to the airport was another story. Same Town Car company; different driver; very different experience. The driver greeted me in a disinterested manner and put my bags in the car. He then proceeded to accelerate the car like Mario Andretti accelerating out of Indianapolis Speedway’s pit row, throwing me back in my seat. We were off on what proved to be a nerve-wracking ride to the airport with quick starts, stops, and lane changes. I certainly wasn’t going to get any work done on that ride.

To make things a bit more comfortable I tried to make some light conversation, but his manner clearly indicated there would be no chit chat. And there was no offer of a restroom break at the half-way point - I had to ask for one. We arrived at the airport, he put my bags on the curb, and drove off as I stood there wondering what had happened to make him so bitter.

I share this story because it demonstrates the behaviors that differentiate great service from poor service:

Accuracy - The first driver was a good driver and she immediately made me feel safe. The second driver was an erratic, aggressive driver, who made me wonder if I would make it safely to my destination. Being good at the job technically is a vital part of customer service.

Responsiveness - The first driver was talkative when it was appropriate, and was also quiet during the time I needed to do some work. She was responsive to the moment-by-moment needs of her customer. The second driver, on the other hand, was simply performing the task of getting his customer from Point A to Point B. Being genuinely responsive to the customer demonstrates a willingness to move beyond simply completing a transaction.

Care - The first driver is clearly a professional who cares about her customers. She made the trip interesting and wowed me with little details like the bottle of water, the fresh newspapers, and the offer of a restroom stop. The second driver only cared about finishing his shift and listening to the radio (his choice of station, not mine).

Accuracy, Responsiveness, and Care. Those three little words, when translated into action, make all the difference. One driver saw her role as an ambassador of the Town Car company and of her community, while the second driver saw his role as a driver.

Same job, but a completely different experience.

Tags: Commentary, Service Analysis, Tips for Better Customer Service // 1 Comment »

I’m constantly amazed at the lengths to which some companies will go in order to alienate their customers. They may have clunky processes, poorly trained employees, or any of a multitude of customer-alienating practices.

But the one that really fries me most is when a company distrusts their customers. Sure, there are those customers who take advantage by doing such things as returning clothes after they’ve attended the prom, returning furniture after the party, etc. But those abusive customers are in the minority. Some companies, however, build rigid policies to protect themselves against the advantage-takers and end up alienating the majority of customers who would never dream of trying to rip off the company.

This all leads to a story a colleague shared regarding a damaged cake. When she contacted the company, it’s clear that the owner of the company didn’t trust the customer’s story, even though she offered to send a photo of the damaged cake. After reading her description of the event, click on the icon to see a photo of what she received (read the narrative first).

Today in the office a customer service nightmare unfolded. A bakery shipped a cake that arrived in such a mess the recipients couldn’t tell what it was. They called the company to kindly let them know; the owner was angry that she’d done so and denied there was even a problem even though the recipient offered to send a photo of what she’d been delivered. It was a strange kind of denial and she got very defensive. What is happening now though is that the photo is circulating and the story is getting around, which will obviously hurt business.

Click HERE to see the photo!

Imagine how different this customer would’ve felt if the owner had sincerely expressed her dismay at the condition of the cake, apologized profusely, and immediately sent a replacement - which the customer didn’t even ask for. My guess is that the next time this customer wanted to send a cake as a gift she would’ve immediately chosen this company because there would’ve been a high level of trust that things would turn out fine.

Instead, this customer is circulating the story, along with the photo and the company’s name, to everyone she knows. Remember, it costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it costs to keep a current one. I hope this cake company has a big advertising budget.

Do your company policies ever penalize and alienate your honest, loyal customers because of the actions of the small fraction of customers who try to take advantage?

Want to share your story? You can submit it here.

Tags: Commentary, Service Analysis, When Bad Service Happens To Good People // Add Comment »

This is a follow up to my post this past Monday, “Respecting Those Who Serve Our Customers.” In that post, I discussed leadership behaviors that can make employees feel undervalued or “invisible.” The very next day the Wall Street Journal printed an article that focuses on a related subject - “Bad Firings Can Hurt a Firm’s Reputation.” The article discusses the insensitivity with which layoffs and terminations are often handled. Reading some of the examples provided, you can’t help but wonder about the impact on the loyalty and commitment of the company’s remaining employees.

Most of us who have been in leadership roles have either had to fire people or lay people off - or both. The Journal article makes you reflect on how you handled the process. I hope I was much more sensitive than the bosses sited in the article - but it did make me stop and think about what an outside observer might have said having witnessed my handling of those situations.

Check out the article and please comment back to me if you have any of your own examples you’d like to share.

Tags: Commentary // Add Comment »

The CEO letter at the beginning of almost every company’s annual report will include the statement, “Our employees are our most valuable asset.” That is a true statement - our employees are the organization’s most valuable asset. But just saying it isn’t what makes it true. Through their behaviors, leaders must demonstrate that their employees are truly valued.

So, here is a pet peeve. I can’t stand it when leaders refer to their employees as “headcount.” I don’t know for sure, but it’s likely that the term came from the cattle industry. Headcount = how many of head of cattle on the ranch. And even if that’s not where the term comes from; it sounds like it.

As I waited in the audience to present a customer service speech at a company’s annual retreat, I had the opportunity to hear one of the company’s senior executives give the audience a state-of-the-company speech. It was a good talk except for the fact that he kept calling the employees “headcount.” And all of the employees were in the audience to hear it. “We have x number of headcount this year,” “We’re going to have to reduce some headcount next year,” “We’ve got manage our headcount carefully,” etc, etc.

I believe that when we talk about people in a certain way, we start thinking about them in the same way. If we talk about our people as simply headcount, we naturally start thinking about them as numbers. And pretty soon we start treating them as numbers. “Reducing headcount” is simply a sanitized, clinical way of saying, “We’re taking away the livelihood of some of our people.” Circumstances may necessitate a layoff, but I believe the boardroom conversation is quite different when the focus is on how a layoff will impact real people and not simply on how a layoff will improve the “headcount.”

Click here to read an article I wrote titled, “Invisibility.” It discusses some of the leadership behaviors that make employees feel invisible and therefore unvalued.

Think about how invisible, unvalued employees treat customers. Beyond the fact that treating our people well is the right thing to do, it makes good business sense to respect those who serve our customers.

They’re not headcount - they’re people.

Tags: Commentary // Add Comment »

This is the tenth in a series of ten blog posts that provide a brief synopsis of the chapters in my upcoming book, Lessons From the Mouse - A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. You can view previous posts from the book by clicking on the Lessons From the Mouse category on the left column of this page.

Lesson #10: Take Responsibility for Your Own Career.

Walt Disney World is committed to employee development and provides many opportunities for career enrichment or advancement. However, in such a large organization, with over 55,000 cast members, there is a lot of competition when those opportunities come along. It’s easy to get lost in such a vast sea of employees, and many do - often due to their own negligence. Some cast members wait to be discovered, wait to be noticed, wait to be given more responsibility, wait to be promoted, etc. And they grow frustrated when it doesn’t happen.

Other cast members, however, take charge of their own careers. They let their managers know about their goals, they develop new skills, and demonstrate that they can be depended on. They don’t delegate responsibility for their careers to someone else. They see their careers as their own responsibility.

It’s a sad truth that some employees believe good things should just happen without doing what it takes to make them happen. And each time they get passed over for a promotion or assignment, they grow bitter and begin a downward spiral into a victim mentality; which eventually dooms any chance for future opportunities. On the other hand, companies and bosses love employees who take charge of their own careers. Responsible, self-starters are a welcome relief from the whiners.

There’s an old saying that there are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. People who make things happen will always be in demand.

Questions to consider about Lesson #10:

1. What opportunities have you asked for lately at work?
2. What specifically have you done recently to gain new knowledge or skills in order to increase your value to your organization?
3. What can you do to take more responsibility for your career?

To be released this summer

Tags: Commentary, Lessons From the Mouse, Tips for Better Customer Service // 1 Comment »

This is the ninth in a series of ten blog posts that provide a brief synopsis of the chapters in my upcoming book, Lessons From the Mouse - A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. You can view previous posts from the book by clicking on the Lessons From the Mouse category on the left column of this page.

Lesson #9: Figure Out What Ticks Off Your Customers - and Do Something About it.

While Disney World’s mission is to create magic for guests, sometimes less-than-magical events occur. Rain, closed attractions, and long wait-times are just a few examples of circumstances that can result in guests being ticked off. Guests often save for years to visit Disney World, and their expectations are understandably high. Any glitch in the experience can easily cause frustration that is out of proportion to the actual problem - but the guest’s perception of the problem is the only perception that counts.

Rather than ignore those problems, however, Disney faces them head on. Over the years, for example, Disney “Imagineers” have addressed the wait-time issue in a number of ways, such as posting wait-time signs, providing entertainment while guests stand in line, and designing the queue into the story of the attraction. Most recently Disney World created Fastpass^TM - a process where guests can make reservations to go on major attractions, reducing wait times dramatically. These are all examples of finding out what ticks off customers and doing something about it.

Most customers have experienced company processes that just don’t make sense and that cause them intense frustration. Sometimes a particular process has been in place so long that the organization simply forgets how irritating it can be to customers. Other times the organization decides that their convenience is more important than the customer’s convenience, such as the appliance repair company that says they’ll be at your house sometime between 1pm and 5pm. Clearly, their convenience trumps the customer’s.

All it takes to successfully apply Lesson 9 is an understanding of how customers interact with your organization and to identify any “points of pain.” When asked, most customers are quick to share what frustrates them. Frontline employees are another source of information regarding customer frustrations. After all, those employees are usually the ones who bear the brunt of the customer’s irritation.

When a company identifies customer frustrations and takes steps to alleviate the problems, they set themselves apart from the competition. Customers think, “Why can’t other companies do it like they do?”

Questions to consider about Lesson #9:

1. What are some frustrating processes you’ve endured as a customer?
2. What do customers find frustrating about doing business with your organization?
3. What can your organization do to encourage greater sharing of ideas for improving the customer experience?

To be released this summer

Tags: Commentary, Lessons From the Mouse, Tips for Better Customer Service // Add Comment »

 This is the eighth in a series of ten blog posts that provide a brief synopsis of the chapters in my upcoming book, Lessons From the Mouse - A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. You can view previous posts from the book by clicking on the Lessons From the Mouse category on the left column of this page.

Lesson #8: Everyone Has a Customer

When it comes to internal customer service, Disney World’s philosophy is, “Cast members are treated the way they are expected to treat the guests.” This philosophy is not just directed at those in Disney leadership positions. The statement can be slightly changed to read, “Cast members treat each other the way they are expected to treat the guests.”

Only about half of Disney World’s cast members work onstage with direct contact with paying guests. The rest work in backstage roles such as Costuming, Maintenance, Finance, Marketing, Training, and countless other departments where they interact primarily with other cast members. But the attitude of these backstage employees who serve the employees who serve the guests is the beginning of the chain of magical moments. And if the chain breaks down anywhere along the way, the guest experience is likely to suffer.

To be successful in the long run, it’s important for all employees in a company to treat each other the way they’re expected to treat customers. And to be the best in the business, it must be a company-wide practice. Every organization depends on internal coordination and cooperation to succeed. With every internal interaction, imagine if employees did what they said they would do (and did it well), were responsive to the needs of other employees, and demonstrated genuine care.

World-class organizations become world-class by not only creating great experiences for customers, but by also making the organization a great place to work. Turf wars, backstabbing and finger pointing aren’t tolerated. Everyone sees themselves as contributing to the larger mission of the organization and they work together to achieve that mission.

Questions to consider about Lesson #8:

1. How effective are your organization’s employees at treating each other as customers?
2. Who are your internal customers?
3. What would excellent internal service look like in your role, department, or organization?

To be released this summer

Tags: Commentary, Lessons From the Mouse, Tips for Better Customer Service // Add Comment »

This is the seventh in a series of ten blog posts that provide a brief synopsis of the chapters in my upcoming book, Lessons From the Mouse - A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. You can view previous posts from the book by clicking on the Lessons From the Mouse category on the left column of this page.

Lesson #7: Never Ever Say “That’s Not My Job” - Don’t Even Think It

From the day a Disney cast member joins the organization, it’s clear that saying anything remotely close to, “That’s not my job,” is about the worst thing he or she can do. Cast members are expected to pick up that stray cup on the ground, find the answer to a guest’s question if they don’t happen to know, pitch in to get the job done - no matter one’s job description. In other words, cast members are expected to take ownership for creating Disney magic. And yes, they accomplish this even though Disney World is a union environment.

Imagine how you feel when you ask a server in a restaurant for water and hear, “This isn’t my table,” or when told by a nurse in a hospital, “I don’t work this floor,” or when a post office employee, after you’ve been waiting in line for an hour, tells you, “I need to close this window because it’s time for my break.”

On the other hand, there is a special energy in a company where employees feel a sense of ownership. You can see the pride in their faces, and you can feel the care in their actions. Customers reward that attitude with loyalty.

This principle doesn’t mean that everyone has to know how to do everyone’s job. Expecting a hospital housekeeper to adjust a patient’s IV tube, for example, is impractical and unsafe. A housekeeper who takes ownership of the patient experience, however, will tell a nurse that a patient is complaining about the discomfort of the IV. It isn’t always about doing the job; it’s about taking ownership to make sure the job gets done.

Questions to consider about Lesson #7:

1. What are some examples of the “it’s not my job syndrome” you’ve experienced in your organization?
2. What causes that attitude?
3. What are some examples of behaviors that would communicate a sense of ownership to your customers?

To be released this summer

Tags: Commentary, Lessons From the Mouse, Tips for Better Customer Service // Add Comment »

This is the sixth in a series of ten blog posts that provide a brief synopsis of the chapters in my upcoming book, Lessons From the Mouse - A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. You can view previous posts from the book by clicking on the Lessons From the Mouse category on the left column of this page.

Lesson #6: Pay Attention to the Details - Everything Speaks

Disney “Imagineers” go to great effort to design the details that make the Vacation Kingdom a truly magical environment. The goal is to transport guests from the real world to a magical place. The details don’t stop with the design. Cast members understand that they are a key part of the story the environment is designed to tell. They maintain the integrity of the story by paying attention to the details. They wear appropriate costumes and play their roles with enthusiasm. Cast members pick up that stray piece of trash or report that peeling paint on the fence. They know that when it comes to the details, “everything speaks.”

Regardless of the business or industry, the details communicate messages to customers. Sometimes these messages seem trivial such as a napkin stain or withering flowers in a flower bed. But sometimes they can be significant like an unattended help desk or dangerous potholes in the parking lot. Trivial or significant, every detail says something about the organization’s commitment to the customer experience.

Everything the customer sees, hears, smells, tastes, or touches impacts their experience. Anything that is out of alignment causes a disconnect in the mind of the customer. Everything speaks! Customers may not consciously notice every detail, but subconsciously clues to your culture are being communicated. What is your service environment saying?

Question for Applying Lesson #6:

1. How does the Everything Speaks philosophy apply to your job or organization?
2. Take a walk through the physical environment of your organization (preferably with a team). What messages are being “spoken” in your work setting?
3. What needs to happen in order to ensure the details support your organization’s brand?

To be released this summer

Tags: Commentary, Lessons From the Mouse, Service Analysis, Tips for Better Customer Service // Add Comment »

This is the fifth in a series of ten blog posts that provide a brief synopsis of the chapters in my upcoming book, Lessons From the Mouse - A Guide for Applying Disney World’s Secrets of Success to Your Organization, Your Career, and Your Life. You can view previous posts from the book by clicking on the Lessons From the Mouse category on the left column of this page.

 Lesson #5: Don’t Be a Customer Service Robot

 Most of the jobs at Disney World have certain repetitive tasks, such as telling guests to “watch your head and step” as they board an attraction; emptying endless trashcans throughout the day; or reciting the same spiel (such as on the Jungle Cruise attraction) twenty-times a day, five-days a week. It would be easy for those jobs to eventually become so routine that they become robotic. And worse, for them to appear robotic to guests.

The Disney rule is to treat each guest as a VIP - a Very Individual Person. And you certainly can’t do that if your actions have become robotic. Disney cast members are expected to be animated, not automated. They are expected to make a real connection with each guest, even if it’s only for a few seconds. Sometimes it just takes a sincere smile, or secretly observing a child’s name stitched on his Mickey Mouse ears and welcoming him or her by name. The result is that guests feel Disney cast members care about them as individuals.

Robotic behavior doesn’t usually occur on purpose; it’s just that some tasks become so routine we do them without thinking. The bank loan officer who instructs her customer to sign here, here, and here, without acknowledging that the customer is using the money to send her only child to college - has fallen into the trap of automated behavior. Or the hospital receptionist who, without looking up, hands a patient a clipboard full of forms to fill out - has forgotten how nervous the patient may be. In both of these scenarios it is likely that the employee has performed these tasks so many times they can do them without thinking.

The problem is that when customers experience robotic behavior from employees they feel processed rather than valued. And it’s hard to generate loyalty when customers feel processed. The secret is to identify those routine tasks that involve customer interaction and commit to staying mentally present and to be fully conscious of how you come across while performing these tasks. It’s about maintaining an experience mentality versus a task mentality.

 Questions for Applying Lesson #5:

1. In your organization, what routine tasks could potentially appear robotic to customers - with the result that they feel they’ve been processed?
2. What can be done to personalize the tasks listed in question #1?
3. How can you make what is automated in your organization (such as voicemail, phone trees, or Website) more “animated?”

Tags: Commentary, Lessons From the Mouse, Tips for Better Customer Service // Add Comment »