Tagged : culture

in Culture, Customer Experience, Customer Service

Amazon’s Obsession Becomes 3 Keys to Success

I’ve talked about Amazon’s obsession on the customer and their innovative approach to business and customer service. I came across this video from a fellow customer service guru, Michel Falcon.

Some awesome points from Jeff on what’s made Amazon so successful (Do you see the pattern?):

1) Obsess over customers

Pay attention to your competitors. But put your energy and get your motivation from your customers. -Simple, Powerful, Genius.

2) Invent for the customer

You can invent your way out of any box you find yourself in.

3) Think long term of customers

Projects and services may pay dividends to customers right away (it has to), but may not pay off for the organization for several years. And that’s ok.

Early on in the video, Jeff talks about the mistakes, FAVORITE MISTAKES, he calls them that they made with Amazon. I love that…mistakes can be a good thing, it’s really one of the best ways you can learn and become better. It’s much easier to learn from what went wrong, than from what went right. Also much easier to learn what DOESN’T work, than what DOES work.

Amazon didn’t find an excuse to NOT provide awesome service. They just went out and did it with what they had.

Obession over the customer and focus on customer service doesn’t require a fancy office or a complex business environment. Amazon started out in Jeff’s house, with extension chords coming in from a bunch of different rooms into an office where a bunch of computers were setup.

in Culture, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Training

Disney’s 3 Keys to Magical Service Experiences

I recently spoke to a rock star customer service team at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel on the Disney property in California. Disney is famous for their customer-focused training regiment for all of their employees at their resorts and theme parks.

People come from all over the world, and many plan years in a advance before visiting Disney’s theme parks and resorts. Because of the expectation of a magical experience, Disney’s customer service focus HAS to be based on creating magical experiences for all of their customers (“guests”).

Service at Disney, involves a number of “Magical” aspects, of which I’d like to touch on 3 of them.

The Magic of Setting

At Disney’s parks, guests are treated to re-creation of famous Disney settings. Visiting the various areas of the park, guests are immersed in the Disney experience and feel as if they’re a part of Disney. Every detail of the settings counts towards creating that magical customer experience.

Your customer experience setting will be wherever your customers interact with your people and systems. Every detail of the encounter sends a message to the customer. Phone calls, emails, live chat, even Web sites speak to customers. What’s the message you’re sending? Does it say “we care about the customer”?

The Magic of Cast

Think of your last Disney experience? What were the people like? At Disney, all “Cast” Members (Employees at the Park) are friendly, approachable, and helpful without being condescending or mechanical. I recently was at Disneyland with my family and as we entered the park at opening time, we were greeted as we walked down Main Street by smiling, happy, employees waving to guests with giant Mickey Mouse hands.

at Disney, every team member knows, studies, and understands the behaviors, mannerisms, terms, and values that are specific to his or her job function.

Every job function is measured against the core service values of the organization.

The Magic of Action

At Disney, team members are trained to look for combustion points. Combustion Points are where even finely tuned, positive customer experience processes break down, creating negative customer experiences.

Where are the combustion points at your organization and within your team? What are your positive customer experience creating areas where because of break downs, system failures, or poor performance by team members, negative experiences breed?

Disney focuses on uses cast-guest communication, guest-flow, and service attention processes to eliminate or control these points.

Your customer service can be magical too!

Disney sets the customer service bar high with their attention to every detail of the customer experience. But their successes are focused around effectively implementing these keys to creating amazing and magical experiences for all of their guests. The Disney service model can be applied in any organization if management and team members are committed to creating magical experiences for their customers. The model isn’t expensive or complex. It simply requires commitment on the part of the individuals involved to creating a magical experience for each customers.