Understanding Customers Guests
Be Our Guest has been the invitation to Disney customers long before Beauty and the Beast became a box office hit. It underscores an important element in the Disney vocabulary, as noted in this 1975 Walt Disney World booklet:
“…we all work from exactly the same script, speaking the same language…the language of Disney show business…Just like any show, we have an audience, not a crowd, but we go even further. Our audience is composed of guests, not customers.”
Call them guests or customers or whatever, they are those to whom we provide products and services. If we are to serve them well, we must understand their needs and wants. There are five “human truths” of what people want as consumers; let’s look at how Disney pays attention to these needs.
Customers need to feel heard and understood
The more loyal the customer, the more they want to express themselves. That’s why unofficial Disney web sites like MousePlanet are so important. They feed the need for people to express their love of Disney and to vent when they feel otherwise. Since the first park opened people have been writing to Walt Disney, Mickey Mouse, Michael Eisner, or anyone to who would listen. Scores of thousands of people write to Disney expressing gratitude or frustration about a particular experience. In the parks, they talk directly to front line managers or they head over to Guest Relations. The need to feel heard and understood is not only essential, it encompasses all of the other human truths. It’s important that we listen to others, and Disney responds through countless surveys and other means.
Customers need to feel a sense of belonging and contributing
In the real world they call it a time-share. At Disney, they call it Vacation Club Ownership. Why? Because owning or feeling like you are part of Disney is a big motivator for people to invest a large sum of money; as American Express says: “Membership has its privileges”. That’s why we cheer on our favorite sports teams, why we create allegiance to clubs like the Rotary or a street gang. We want to feel like we are a part of something. We’ll lose weight to make ourselves more attractive to others and we’ll put in overtime at work in order to prove ourselves. Belonging and contributing gives people the courage to do something they would not do on their own. It also gives us an understanding as to why we do foolish things we would have never done on our own – like taking a dare. Understanding an individual’s need to belong and contribute gives us perspective in better meeting the needs of those individuals.
Customers need to have stability and control
Giving customers informed choices about how to best utilize their time is at the heart of a previous article I wrote. That’s why we find the park entrance Tip Boards so important. Providing Fastpass accomplishes the same purpose – giving people options other than standing in line. Wanting stability and control is natural; therefore we have to provide as many opportunities for such as possible. This may be as simple as giving people scheduling or payment options. It may include letting people have their voices heard on matters they can’t control. It may be building trust so that when the opportunity arises, they will trust you to provide the products and services they want.
Customers need to experience variety and significance
It’s at the heart of why customers are referred to as guests at Disney. The same Walt Disney World brochure I quoted earlier had this to say about making people feel special: “EVERY GUEST on our entire 42 square miles of property is a VIP whether they are visiting the Magic kingdom for a day or vacationing in our resort-hotels for a week or more…Remember that 99% of our guests are great people with everything going their way and having the time of their life. They are the easy ones to serve. Your real challenge will be that tiny 1%…the guests who are hot, tired, hungry, confused, frustrated and perhaps missing their luggage, ticket books or cameras. Or perhaps all of the above. They may not be very understanding and it may be up to you to turn their day around into the positive kind they came here to experience.”
Customers need to experience growth, opportunity and development
Why is it important to understand this need? How can you help people reach their full potential? People want to succeed—that’s why Disney is such a hit. Mickey Mouse is the personalization of the every day man succeeding against whatever comes his way. The Three Little Pigs is more than a short story—it’s about a society getting past the throes of a major depression. Snow White, Cinderella, and every princess story thereafter is about “happily ever after”. Disneyland and every Magic Kingdom is a place where families can be happy together—where the memories created will last forever. Epcot is about a better future—filled with global peace. People love Disney because they see it as the vision of something better that they long to achieve themselves.
To the degree that Disney succeeds at understanding and meeting these five human truths, they succeed as a business. On those occasions when Disney has failed to meet your expectations, it’s because they didn’t pay attention to one or more of these five truths. The same can be said of any company or organization whether it’s a hospital, a bank, or a realtor.
Earlier I mentioned treating a customer like a VIP—a Very Important Person; there’s another way to define VIP—a Very Individual Person. This is important when using the Platinum Rule. Most of us are familiar with the Golden Rule—to treat others as we would want to be treated. The Platinum Rule suggests that we treat others the way that they themselves would want to be treated. This stronger approach means we have to understand what people really need and want.
That’s why it’s important to look at your customers in terms of the five human truths I’ve outlined. The results we seek are that our customers are extremely satisfied with the services we provide. We measure this by asking our customers the extent to which they are satisfied, received the service quickly and were made to feel like a valued customer.
And here’s the twist! Customers are internal as well as external. For some of us, our role may be to serve those who serve those outside of your organization. For most of us, there is an opportunity to serve those inside the organization by understanding others. Serving our fellow employees is referred to as internal customer service. Often, when you receive poor service specifically from one individual, it’s because the organization doesn’t understand their own basic needs. Either way, whether it’s someone who pays us, or some one we pay to work for us, we should consider them a customer.
For yourself, or for your own organization, ask the following:
- What can we do to better listen to our customer’s needs? What can we do to create better opportunities to listen to each other?
- How does the need to belong and contribute manifest itself among those we serve? How does it come across among those who are part of our organization?
- How do you feel when you’re in control of something? Is it always positive? How do you feel when you’re not in control? Is it always negative? In what ways do we serve those who feel they have no say or control? How can we build trust with them in serving their needs?
- What makes you feel special? How does that feeling of being made to feel special impact our willingness to help others? How can we orchestrate opportunities to make those we serve feel special each day?
- What contributes or detracts from reaching our potential? What potential do we have as an organization? What potential would we have if we didn’t have a fear of failure?
So whether you refer to them as customers or guests—understand them. Treat them how they would like to be treated. In the process you’ll create some real magic.
