Keys to the Kingdom: Part II
September 08, 2008
You don't need to be the Sorcerer's Apprentice's to train employees to give customers magical service (although a little pixie dust can't hurt). Here, more training tips garnered first-hand from the Disney Institute.
By Margery Weinstein
In last month's issue, I detailed the first two days of my sojourn to the Disney Institute, a management training program operated by The Walt Disney Company. There, I experienced the "Disney Approach to Quality Service" curriculum track, during which I learned about empowering employees to deliver what they perceive as the right service for the right guest, training to "theme," and meeting both guest and employee expectations. Days three and four provided even more House of Mouse insights.
Day Three
The day began on an uncharacteristically unoptimistic note: Not everyone working under Disney's corporate roof is happy. The night before, a few of my classmates encountered participants in Disney's college intern program who weren't thrilled with the company. They complained of getting the worst assignments and a barrage of "grunt work." My Disney Institute facilitators, Austin Brock and Susan Pearsall, weren't defensive about the criticism. The company knows its internship program has "unique challenges," compared to its larger pool of employees, and, for that reason, interns receive a survey every year developed especially for them. A few of our fellow Institute participants were Disney employees studying to become facilitators. One of them, Johnny Garner, told me over breakfast at the Animal Kingdom that, like internship programs at other companies, the experience at Disney is what you make of it. Garner, a Queens, NY, native, said he approached his internship with more of a go-getter mentality and reaped rewards—and a career—for his efforts.
After the outdoor breakfast and with headsets on our ears, we followed our Animal Kingdom tour guide, Amber, who, fittingly for our "Indonesia jungle" journey, is from Indonesia. Like the addition of the 19th century headdress and other real Native American artifacts to the make-believe Northwest of the Wilderness Lodge, Disney makes a point of hiring employees native to whatever environment it's portraying, so when you're in "Norway" in Epcot, you're liable to run into a few real Norwegians, and when you're in the Animal Kingdom, it's perfectly natural that your guide hails from the same place as the "jungle" and animals on your path. As we headed into an open-air room displaying bats hanging upside down, the Disney approach to employee engagement also was clear. Foot and handprints of the children of Animal Kingdom designers are etched into the cement—and like everything at Disney, not by accident. The company agreed the prints would add something to the "natural" setting, so, they asked employees to bring their children to the park to leave their mark, literally.
 In the afternoon, on the shuttle bus back to the Contemporary Resort's ballroom, the topic of unions came up. Surely, with such a congenitally happy workforce, no such thing is necessary, we speculated. Well, no. As a matter of fact, Disney's employees are organized into 17 separate unions with 11 collective bargaining agreements monitoring their relationship with the company. "Many people say this doesn't seem like a union environment," said Brock. "[The reason for that is] our relationship with the union is good. It's a partnership."
On other scores, too, she said the company does a good job creating a culture that avoids conflict. Brock mentioned, for example, that from her experience, Disney is free from the competitive backbiting between employees found at other companies. She said when she got promoted relatively fast from her first Disney position, her co-workers, some of whom had been in that same role longer, seemed genuinely supportive. "People understand when it's your time and turn to move," said Brock.
Tucked once again into our chairs, we recapped lessons learned from the Animal Kingdom visit, namely the role "set" plays in our organizations. By "set," our facilitators were referring to the environment created for customers or clients. Brock and Pearsall said the Institute recommends taking a trip through your company through your customers' eyes. If you're a hospital, for instance, that means maybe putting yourself in a wheelchair and going through the admissions process. Set also refers to the environment you create for your workers. At Disney, they noted, there are "off-stage" areas where staff can unwind. This means giving them the ability to detach enough from their work situation to relax. It used to be that Disney music played both "on stage" in the parks, as well as in "off-stage" break areas. Eventually employees mentioned it might be nice to hear something else on their coffee breaks, and the company complied, providing pop music.
Our lunch that day didn't go so smoothly. At the buffet meal in one of the Contemporary Resort's Fantasia ballrooms, with the serving table located just outside the room, culinary chaos reigned. Plates at one of the table, utensils at the other; soup bowls here, soup there. In the ballroom, the music jumped from drum beat rhythms to soft jazz. Some of us—I have to admit—were a little too interested in food to fully note the ambiance (or lack thereof), but for many others, the disorganization was startling. Back in the classroom, Brock asked us, a little mischievously, if we noticed anything out of the ordinary about our lunch. "Were we being empowered to change the process?" one astute learner asked. It turned out she, and the few others who took the initiative to rearrange the buffet for greater efficiency, got it right. The point of the experience is process matters—and a lot—to your company's setting.
 At Disney, recognizing employees who respond proactively to guests helps maintain efficient process. That means not doing as Brock did during our lunch when a classmate explained the buffet disorganization to her. "Food and beverage set it up," she said by way of excuse, instead of taking responsibility and making the necessary changes. Employees who take charge of guest comfort and convenience instead of ignoring it, or looking for someone else to do the work, are awarded a Great Service Fanatic card featuring an illustration of Tinker Bell bestowing blessings. The back of the card has spaces to record the name of the worker recognized, who recognized him or her, for what, the employee's ID number, and his or her supervisor's signature. The cards then are entered into drawings for prizes, and made a part of the worker's official record.
The process put in place by Disney also facilitates employee efficiency. They are able to effectively help guests lost in Disney World's vast parking lot, for example, because those working in that area receive charts showing what time each section of the lot was filled that day. So once the guest tells the employee the time he or she arrived, finding the car, and thereby delivering satisfying customer service, is easy.
And sometimes it's not so easy. We heard that afternoon from Matthew Wilder, manager of the portion of Disney's reservation call center devoted to resolving customer dissatisfaction— dissatisfied as in "you overcharged me $345,000," he joked. There's nothing magical about such issues, but it's Wilder's, and his team's, job to ensure angry guests are left with a satisfied, if not "magical," feeling by the time they hang up the phone. Aligning with the company policy of employee empowerment, Wilder has been given broad financial authority in deciding how best to compensate upset guests. "Through training, we make employees understand they're empowered to solve guest problems with no set amount [of money] if they think it's required." The only stipulation is that employees work with their supervisors to discover the root cause of the problem. Disney management wants to know, for instance, whether it's a matter of faulty process, or if an additional customer service tool needs to be given to frontline employees. Empowerment to solve customer troubles sometimes means Wilder giving the concerned guest his personal telephone number, offering, in effect, to be their "personal concierge" on the issue. More importantly, though, Wilder said employees are taught how to listen to guests. "It's by feeling out guests, we say, that you figure out how best to help them. Most of all, we tell employees to use their hearts."
On that touchy-feely note, we got ready for tomorrow's agenda: a tour of Hollywood Studios and our graduation ceremony.
 Day Four
After the 7:30 a.m. breakfast, the day's curriculum began with an origami-like exercise that had me feeling not so good about myself. Maybe it's my lifelong problems with spatial relations, but I just couldn't fold the paper we all were given so it resembled the model projected on a screen at the head of our classroom. The solution to configuring this paper puzzle, it turned out, wasn't that complex—you had to tear it in the proper corners, and (the key) twist it. All you need to deliver superior customer service, Brock, said, by way of summing up the exercise, "is a little twist."
Like the origami exercise, that "twist" often requires creativity. That means training employees to respond "in character," or without interrupting the customer's environment when performing duties. If Disney World's Haunted Mansion ride needs to be paused, Pearsall told us, the ride operator doesn't say something such as "Excuse us for the brief delay." Instead, the employee knows to reference "prankish spirits" as the culprit of the unplanned stop. Later, we watched a film that drove this point home in profiling the work of the employee who hosts the Tower of Terror ride. Not only does the young man—not a trained actor, by the way—guide guests through the experience; he does so in Norman Bates-like character.
A squeamish ride-goer, myself, I opted not to try out the live experience of the Tower of Terror as we made our way to Disney's Hollywood Studios park—or any other ride for that matter (fear of motion sickness, of course). But I did resolve to observe closely the environmental setting and process elements Brock and Pearsall had been telling us about for the last few days. But first, I spoke to a few more of my fellow Institute participants: Drew Keller, who, at the time, was a client services representative for the CFA Institute, a global, not-for-profit association of investment professionals, and his co-worker, Diane Dean, manager of client services. Keller said CFA Institute decided to send a selection of workers from all levels of the company. "I came with a lot of questions about why we do things the way we do," said the newly hired Dean, adding she hoped the Institute experience would give her insight into some of the customer service choices her company could make. Keller said he wanted to "graduate with new ideas and understanding," and especially, become more accustomed to a service-oriented approach.
 With the goal of perfection of setting and process, and, ultimately, customer service, preparing employees for improvement changes is essential at Disney—and to us Disney Institute learners. So back at the Contemporary Resort, Brock and Pearsall discussed the art of change management, and what research has taught Disney about it. They pointed out that typically 20 percent in any organization are early adapters; 60 percent are "show me" people, open to making changes once given information about why they should; and 20 percent are lost change causes. "Too many companies focus on the last 20 percent who won't change at all," Pearsall noted. Instead, focus on the 20 percent who are on your side right away," she said of the early adapters. Those early change enthusiasts will communicate the message to the 60 percent open to change once they learn what it's all about, and from there you've got 80 percent on board with the proposed improvements. With that critical mass in hand, you have the leverage to say (just to yourself maybe) that last 20 percent can make the changes the rest of us are set on, or they can leave the company. "As Disney says," Pearsall pointed out, "sometimes we let people take their happiness elsewhere."
Brock provided us with another noteworthy thought about the execution phase of quality service improvements: "Vision without execution is a hallucination."
After three-and-a-half days inside Disney World, immersed in its management teachings, our program ended with a graduation ceremony presided over by—who else?—Mickey Mouse himself. The overzealous learner from the Buffalo Bills was so excited about receiving his diploma, he tried to pick Mickey up. Mickey, savvy to the ways of the world, assumed a joking kung fu-like stance, but no hard feelings. I decided to settle for a firm handshake. And that was it. My hand enclosed in Mickey's, I felt more confident about my ability to satisfy my customers (readers, this means you!). What do you think?
Editor's Note: For Part I of this article, go to www.trainingmag.com/disney.
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