Each year presents the opportunity to take a closer look at the customer experience and how you and your team can continue to develop your influence. As you examine how you affect this process, keep in mind this central question: “How do we obsess over our customers?”
This doesn’t just cover how we obsess over a customer at the moment we’re interacting with them. It’s important to remember that the customer could be someone you never even see:
- Patients
- Family members
- Residents
- Other corporate leaders
It’s not just about how you can “wow” them the moment you happen to interact with that person. Instead, focus on how you as a team and an individual can build a wow experience infrastructure. Through technology, people, and processes that focus on the bigger picture, you can consistently deliver a wow experience that carries influence past the moment they’re in contact with your organization.
Every Moment Matters: An Experience At Disney
Every opportunity you have to influence the customer experience is a moment you should have some kind of process developed. This includes prioritizing moments you’re not directly involved in. No one demonstrates this better than “the happiest place on earth,” Disney.
Recently, my family and I went on a Disney cruise over the Christmas holiday. Over the week, our assigned dinner time was 8:15 p.m. Our four kids usually have a bedtime of 7:45 p.m, so getting the chance to go to bed at 10 in the evening was awesome for them. Many people would think that means they would sleep in for the week, right?
No; because this was a vacation, their excitement had them waking up even earlier to take in every activity they could. No one took a nap for the entire week. When we arrived back in Florida on New Year’s Eve day, we were exhausted. That didn’t stop us from taking the opportunity to take a trip to Magic Kingdom before heading back home.
Throughout our morning at the park, our son Luca was exhausted to the point where he was physically ill. He would tell us he felt like he was going to vomit, we would take him to the bathroom, and nothing would happen. After our lunch, I told my wife to take our two older kids while I sat with Luca and our youngest son, Bennett, to let them nap for a bit.
My wife texted me soon after to let me know there was no line at The Country Bear Jamboree. It provided a dark, air-conditioned chance to escape the sunny, 90-degree weather. However, in the middle of the show, Luca told us once again he felt ill. I turned to my wife and said “You know, I’ve taken him to the bathroom 3 times, and nothing’s happening. I don’t know what’s going on.”
No sooner do I say we’re not taking him to the bathroom, he ends up projectile vomiting all over the auditorium. Taking him outside, I bumped into one of the maintenance people that was cleaning up the street. He was able to escort me through the crowd to the nearest bathroom. Magic Kingdom was so crowded, they had to close the gates at one point because they couldn’t let any more people into the park.
Once we made it to the bathroom, he radioed for another maintenance person, Marv, to come in. As I’m wiping down Luca and myself, Marv is cleaning up the mess that’s collecting around us. At one point, he looks at me and asks “Sir, can I go get him a change of clothes?” Being from the Midwest, I start to decline and tell him that we were fine.
“Sir, you’re not fine. Sit here and I’ll go down in the tunnels. It’ll take me about ten minutes, but I’ll come back with a change of clothes.” Marv leaves and returns in about ten minutes, like he said he would, with a set of Mickey Mouse pajamas for Luca. Which, by the way, Luca continued to wear for weeks after the encounter.
Making A Lasting Experience Part Of Your Job
In many places, maintenance people may not play a central part in the processes of their company. But at Disney, this was a part of who Marv was as an employee; there was an infrastructure developed that allowed him to do this. Disney has developed many employee policies that are put in place to enhance the customer experience and create an immersive experience that is applied to everyone from the leaders to the maintenance workers.
“Every moment matters” should be the mantra that reminds you to consider the experience of your customers even when you’re not directly interacting with them. It’s not often that we can be standing at a patient’s bedside or be at the elbow of a caregiver. We have a very incredible opportunity in front of us every single day to affect our customer experience. To deliver these Disney-level moments to our customers, we have to remember that every moment matters.