January 28, 2002 nt size=2>By KEVIN FLOOD
Editor, HR.BLR.com

Editor's note: This is the first of three articles concerning a presentation made by the Disney Institute at a recent meeting of the Northeast Human Resources Association in Newton, Mass. Future articles will focus on how Disney develops leadership and creativity in its employees.

At the Walt Disney Co., CEO Michael Eisner sums up the entertainment giant's customer-service philosophy with three words: "bumping the lamp."

The lamp in question can be seen in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?," the landmark Disney movie that combined live action with animation. In one scene, actor Bob Hoskins roughhouses in a dimly lit room with animated character Roger Rabbit. Hoskins bumps his head on an overhead lamp, setting it swaying for the rest of the scene.

The animators, who had to draw and color 24 pictures for every second of film seen on screen, made sure that the shading on Roger accurately reflected the constant changes in light caused by the swaying lamp.

Such a difficult task could have been avoided altogether by foregoing the bump. But taking that extra care to ensure realism is what makes Disney different, according to Eisner.

Chris Caracci of the Disney Institute elaborated on that idea for the NEHRA gathering. "'Bumping the lamp' means paying attention to the detail that only 1 percent of your customers are ever going to see," he said.

Caracci explained how important customer service is to a business - and what HR can do to help.

Service: cheap but essential

Once upon a time, Disney's parks and resorts were the theme-park business. No more. Plenty of places compete now for the American entertainment dollar. But despite all the competition, Caracci said, Disney remains in a league of its own because it employs the right people - or, as Disney prefers to call them, "cast members."

"Our guests tell us over and over again that they don't come for the new attractions, that they don't come for the new hotels, because we're not the only ones anymore who can put a roller coaster in a mountain."

Rather, he said, surveys show that guests return because "the cast members make them feel special."

Great customer service is "a piece that does not cost our company - and should not cost your company - a thing," Caracci said.

"That's where you can be different," he elaborated. "That's where you can exceed the expectations of your customers." Indeed, he said, it can draw customers back to your business "even though you may not be the lowest-cost provider for that service."

Disney must understand the importance of service better than most, he noted: "When you mess with an icon, it's a big mess up. You have to be careful."

Put another way: "In our business, a 1 percent drop in loyalty translates to $90 million a year."

Weeding out the bad seeds

But having great customer service requires having the kind of employees who can carry it out.

"If you don't hire people with the right attitude for your organization, you can go around in circles with customer service initiatives, and every one of them will fail," Caracci said. "You have to have the right people in place."

In too many businesses, he observed, the employees with the worst attitudes seem to be the ones who deal most with customers. "Organizations over and over again seem to put their worst employees on the front line, on the telephone."

Disney tries to keep unpleasant people away from their customers by ensuring that they don't get hired in the first place. If comes down to a question of hiring someone with great qualifications or someone with the right attitude, Disney opts for the latter.

Caracci quoted one of the many sayings at Disney: "We hire for attitude, not for aptitude."

"We can train you to do what we need to do," he explained. "None of it is rocket science. But you cannot train attitude. You either have a good attitude, a mediocre attitude, or a bad attitude."

He said studies have found that at most organizations, there's a top layer of employees - making up 20 to 30 percent of the total - who have good attitudes and therefore treat people well. In the middle lie 50 to 60 percent of the staff, who do a good job "but aren't not as gung-ho as the people at the top."

Then, at the bottom, are the remaining 20 percent, "who are upset with the world, no matter where they are or what they're doing."

Caracci was blunt: "Those 20 percent you cannot change. You can't do anything with them."

"At Disney, we call them poison." When that brought laughs, he added: "We like to be subtle."

The bottom 20 percent, he said, "are the people who are going to give poor service to your customers, and you can't afford that."

Hence, "we try to weed out that 20 percent before they even get hired."

That requires heavy evaluation of personalities and attitudes, he said, but going without it would simply put more strain on the rest of the staff.

"Managers can spend 80 percent of their time with that 20 percent of the population, and all their good people don't get any attention because those 20 percent are such high maintenance," he explained.

Defining great service

Most of Disney's tactics in customer service are simple, according to Caracci. "We like to say they're common knowledge, they're just not common practice."

Disney defines quality service with two edicts:

1. Exceed customers' expectations.
2. Pay attention to the details.

What's the first thing Disney does to assess whether it's meeting those goals? "We measure, and we measure, and we measure, and we measure." Caracci said. Why? "Because our customers are always changing, needs are always changing. We have to keep measuring to stay on top of our game."

Without a system of measuring customer satisfaction, he said, it's impossible to know whether expectations are being met, let alone exceeded.

For Disney, this entails everything from "listening posts" (namely, everyone who works there) to surveys. Indeed, it employs 24 people who do nothing but respond to letters written by guests of Disney attractions. The company used to respond with its own letters, but recently it "bumped the lamp" by calling every letter writer.

"Are you going to be surprised when we've called you? You bet you are," Caracci said. "We're going to have exceeded to your expectations simply calling you, regardless of the issue."

All the measuring has produced some interesting data, Caracci said. For instance, the most-asked question at Walt Disney World in Florida - after "Where's the bathroom?" - is, "What time is the 3 o'clock parade?"

That's not a typo.

But the people who ask that question aren't necessarily stupid, Caracci said. "They know the parade is at 3 o'clock, but they're asking something else. And it's up to you, as a customer-service agent, to figure out what the real question is."

Disney has learned that the guest is really asking something like, "What time will the parade pass by where I'm standing?" Or, "Which direction is the parade coming from?" Or, "Where's the best place to stand for it?"

Caracci went on to provide these guidelines for businesses interested in getting their employees to think focus more on customer service:

Create a service theme

A service theme does the following:

1. Communicates a message internally.
2. Creates an image of the organization.
3. Clearly defines the organization's purpose.

Set the parameters

Walt Disney World has set the following parameters, or service standards, for itself:

Safety. This is providing for the welfare of the guests and cast members and maintaining their peace of mind through the use of environmental protection, emergency services, prevention and loss control, and security.

Courtesy. This involves respecting the individual. It requires treating each guest like a VIP, making resources available to all, meeting the needs of the individual, providing for service recovery, and having employees treat each other like guests.

Show. This means creating a "seamless" guest experience. For instance, cast members are strictly prohibited from eating, drinking, and smoking in front of guests. But at the same time, Disney ensures that they have time and space "offstage" for that.

Efficiency. This involves providing for the smooth operation of all of the following: the capacity of the facility, guest flow patterns, operational readiness, and teamwork.

Develop service standards

After developing a service theme, do the following:

Identify words or phrases that would serve as standards for delivering upon your service theme.

Define what the standard looks like in terms of delivering the service.

Prioritize the standards you have listed.

Communicate those service standards within your organization.

Links

• The Disney Institute
• The Northeast Human Resources Association (NEHRA)