Five principles of Disney's success in creating a consumer experience

Wen Shu Bruce Lefler (co-founder and president of Experience International)

Everyone is urging you to grow up, but it is still guarding your childlike innocence. This is Disney.

Disney, which is popular all over the world, has always maintained a high popularity. In June, 217, Shanghai Disneyland welcomed a large number of passengers as soon as it opened. In the first year of opening, it handed over the report card of 11 million passengers in the first year.

In fact, no enterprise has done a better job than Disney in making people feel happy, happy and fulfilled, and enjoying services and fun.

what distinguishes Disney's parks and employees from other theme parks and even other enterprises in the world?

In other words, what would it be like if your enterprise could spread happiness, cultivate talents, establish principles and involve every employee, just like Disney?

In fact, the answer to the question is very simple: Disney has created an experience different from any other enterprise in the world, and it is deeply loved by customers.

Almost every company wants to follow the example of Disney in providing services and shaping its image, so that consumers can have a similar experience. However, almost no company can copy this model. The secret of this is the following five principles.

First principle: Impression

Disneyland is a "show"!

-Walter Disney

Every customer has an impression of every experience. They can not only describe them, but also classify these impressions into three categories: positive, negative or neutral.

Although "neutrality" seems to be equivalent to "no impression", its existence is as important as "positive" and "negative". "Neutrality" means that the company has not done anything to distinguish itself or its services from other competitors.

the impression left by those individuals and companies who provide cold or mediocre services shows that they are not important at all in the eyes of customers.

Impression is very important, because it is the primary factor that determines the changing trend of the relationship between enterprises and customers. Every time customers come into contact with your company in any way, they will form their own opinions.

If you study behavioral science, you will know that opinions usually affect actions. Whether positive or negative, buy or give up, bring your family next time or never come again. In short, impressions produce opinions, and opinions affect actions. This usually depends on the culture of a company: who we are, where we stand and how much we value it.

As the saying goes, "People will only care how much you know if they know how much you care." Impression is a template to consider the real importance of enterprises and their employees.

Disney has long been an expert in creating a great impression-every experience they create in Disney theme parks leaves a great impression on customers.

as for the secret, from the concrete floor painted with colors like a red carpet at the entrance to the warm and friendly smile when you leave, the determination to create the best experience for customers persists throughout.

design in advance+repeated practice = excellent impression

Disney's business philosophy is to carefully arrange and present everything that the public or customers can see.

Therefore, in any Disneyland, about 9% of the work done by cast members (that is, internal staff) is planned and arranged in advance.

What Disney is creating, and what your enterprise must realize, is that this is part of the development of the enterprise-Disney calls it "part of this show".

The main reason why every "performance" can be successful is that it was successful at the beginning of its design. If we only rely on opportunities or are not fully prepared, then we will get into trouble.

Let's think about it. How do Broadway plays or musicals maintain the excellent performance level of the same play day after day and year after year?

The answer is that by choosing the right actors, setting performance standards, constantly practicing performance skills, and expecting to achieve a consistent level of Excellence every time.

Bruce, who has worked in Disney for more than ten years, was lucky enough to be a member of the performance team of "Children of the Kingdom".

At that time, they performed in front of Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World.

The duration of the play is only 25 minutes, but before the official performance, the whole performance team rehearsed in the production center every day.

One day, Bruce calculated the time they spent rehearsing, and the result surprised him: "One minute on stage, seven hours off stage!"

The key point of rehearsal is to train the participants to be professional actors who can repeatedly show their skills.

this means that "impression" has both congenital and repetitive characteristics, and the latter is what we train our employees and hope they can always show.

Do what most people and enterprises don't do

What makes those individuals and companies so different, excellent and unique is that they can distinguish themselves from their competitors.

take a typical bank as an example.

all banks and financial institutions in the United States are strictly restricted by the American government. In fact, there is no essential difference between banks except for a few basic points.

this means that the real difference only exists in "experience" and "employees".

the service attitude, service level and personalized service they show will create excellent experience and bad experience.

whether it is financial industry, retail industry or a theme park, the promise of providing free and excellent services determines whether an enterprise can survive.

When talking with Joe scarlett, the former CEO of Tractor Supply Company, and some excellent employees, I was told that a slogan would be hung on every cashier. It says, "All team members have the right to do what is necessary."

this is the mentality and commitment-that is, the difference-needed to do what most people and enterprises are unwilling to do.

Impression and our ability to create it are one of the most powerful tools we have. In other words, the first impression will make us establish a good or bad image in customers' minds.

Second principle: Contact

Pay special attention to those who are closer to you, whether it is due to time, place or circumstance.

-saint augustinus (Roman Catholic thinker)

Few companies can use the art of connecting with customers freely by themselves, but Disney is definitely one of them.

Connection is the core of all long-term and meaningful product or service relationships. The catalyst for the opening of a relationship inflection point or the process of establishing a new relationship is the connection between two people, which is very important for the creation of experience.

every customer wants to feel important and welcome when they meet friendly staff.

if your company doesn't make this a top priority, it means ignoring a basic element and principle of the service industry: contact is the pivot point between contact and relationship.

Developing customers and customers from consumers to "ambassadors" depends on your ability to create connections in reason, emotion and individuals.

Ambassadors will think your employees, products and services are very valuable, so they are willing to be a "walking advertisement" for your company.

For your company, "ambassadors" are like a "gold mine"-they will not bring any cost to the company, but bring huge profits to the company.

the most important value

contact will establish a harmonious relationship with customers or some other relationship. It is more profound than mere communication, and it represents the way we build trust, confidence and loyalty by laying the foundation for a long-term relationship.

and the secret of communication and relationship building can be found in the value-added part of experience, in short, that is, value. It's just like people have just established contact or started a relationship. Unless the relationship is "love at first sight" from the beginning, the fulcrum of most relationships stems from a transactional relationship-both parties will gain value.

even the connection of "love at first sight" will not last forever if there is a lack of deeper or closer meaning in work.

the role and law of value

value must appear in contact with excellent relevance. This is the real reason why companies such as Disney are different.

Expressiveness does not mean false behavior. Excitement, enjoyment and the connection with customers are not only manifested as authenticity, but their presentation level is different from that of ordinary customers and employees.

Third principle: Attitude

Weakness of attitude means weakness of character.

-Albert Einstein

There are many factors that make Disneyland superior to all other theme parks in the world, but we believe that the first factor is "attitude".

If we can identify some factors that distinguish Disney from other enterprises in the world, it is the way Disney conveys its ideas, beliefs and corporate image.

for customers, the experience may come from the first impression;

for those who are responsible for providing service experience, their first consideration is "attitude".

what is attitude?

what you think is usually expressed in the way you do things. Lu Holtz, a famous former college football coach, once said, "Ability refers to what you can do, motivation determines what you want to do, and attitude determines how well you can do it."

you can control what you are now and what you want to be by controlling the way you look at things.

The famous writer Charles Swindle once said, "The longer you live, the easier it is to realize the influence of attitude on life.

attitude is more important than facts.

It is more important than experience, education, money, environment, failure, success and what others think, say and do.

it is more important than appearance, talent and skills.

it will make or break a business, a person or a family.

why is attitude so important?

Over the years, people have done a lot of research work, including the experimental group, to explore the internal relationship between attitude and success.

The Dale Carnegie Foundation found something interesting in the course of their research.

As to how people can succeed in the workplace and life, researchers have narrowed the scope to two main aspects:

The first aspect is technical knowledge and skills;

the second aspect is people's ability and attitude.

in the process of exploring the secret of success, they found this conclusion: 15% of all successful cases are due to technical knowledge and skills, and the remaining 85% are due to people's ability and attitude.

however, the question we are trying to answer is not "how to succeed" or even "how to get the job done", but "how to succeed by completing a great job".

there is no doubt that you must master some technical knowledge and skills to complete a job. However, in the process of gaining relevance experience, people can only accomplish great work through the correct attitude and excellent skills they have mastered.

We should have a great attitude, establish an "ambassador" consciousness ideologically, and bring vitality to enterprises, services and experiences.

Fourth principle: response

There is a space between motivation and response, in which we choose to respond, while response reflects our own growth and freedom.

-Victor E. frankl (American psychologist)

Response is the key to our pursuit of customer service and excellent experience.

if the time, tone and ability of the employee's response do not match any other aspect of the excellent experience, then everything will be in vain.

in the past 15 years, customers usually only chose to visit those big physical stores. But now, the power of the Internet and the increase of online shopping opportunities make it necessary for us to provide "personal service" more effective than the services provided by the Internet.

"response service" is dedicated to helping employees and companies, and it can provide excellent service every time it comes into contact with customers. In the final analysis, service is about helping, meeting needs and caring for others.

response and response

You may think that

response means that you should know how to best meet the needs of customers;

on the contrary, reaction is just "taking action".

It's great to involve yourself in it, or even face an argument directly, but the response is not just to take "arbitrary" actions, but to ask people to take "correct" actions.

Reaction comes from impulsiveness, and even well-trained and self-disciplined employees are usually unable to control their reactions.

There is a saying in the medical field:

If patients recover better or their condition improves, it means that they are responding to treatment;

if they are in trouble or the situation gets worse, it means they are reacting.

the fifth principle: excellent characteristics

you can design, create and build the most wonderful place in the world, but you need help to make this dream come true.

-The secret behind the Walter Disney

experience refers to the relevant expertise and execution of the people responsible for providing the experience. If the management and employees are neither prepared for this experience, nor have the power and responsibility, then it is impossible to create and provide an excellent experience.

of course, this experience must be accepted by the enterprise and its employees. The emergence of excellent service can not be separated from everyone, every department and enterprise * * * raising the expected standard of Excellence.

at Disney, this experience begins "behind the scenes". The way you treat your partners and colleagues will ultimately affect the way those colleagues treat your customers and interact with them when you are away.