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How to replicate Disney's first-class customer experience

September 30, 2013 by Gary Edwards — Chief Customer Officer, Emathica

The Walt Disney Company has been pleasing audiences with its multi-faceted approach to entertainment since 1923. The envy of marketing executives around the world, the Disney brand has become a global household name with legions of dedicated followers across all age groups 

How did they do it? Put simply, they have relentlessly focused on the customer. For decades, Disney has worked to deeply understand its customers and to develop a company culture that is centered on the creation of truly exceptional customer experiences. Big things done well are the results of many, many small moments of dedication and attention to detail.

In today’s competitive business environment, great customer experiences drive brand advocacy as well as revenue improvements and other business outcomes.

By following Disney’s example, paying attention to the many little details that matter, retailers can develop customer experiences that wow consumers and differentiate their brands in an increasingly crowded retail marketplace.

Delivering Disney-esque Customer Experiences

While it’s true that some dimensions of the Disney brand reflect the company’s unique business model, the Disney customer experience can be replicated across a wide range of retail sectors, enabling retailers to leverage customer experiences as catalysts for improved advocacy and market share.

In many ways, the key to replicating Disney’s customer experience is to place the customer at the center of brand culture. By reorienting the brand around customers’ needs, preferences and emotions, and infusing every decision no matter how small, how it will help to meet these needs, cater to these preferences, and ignite positive emotional bonding, retailers can move toward achieving outcomes similar to those achieved by Disney’s world-class customer experience.

• Clarify the experience. Many retailers mistakenly try to create a first-rate customer experience according to their pre-conceived notions rather than truly gathering feedback from a customer perspective. For all brands, the creation of the customer experience must begin by asking the right questions and identifying key elements that hit home with consumers. Equipped with these insights, you can use customer intelligence to design a customer experience strategy that reinforces your brand’s most appealing qualities.
• Amplify your strengths. After you have determined how the customer experience should look and feel to customers, the next step is to amplify the volume of your brand’s most desirable characteristics. By identifying and magnifying the traits that make your customers feel good about buying your products or using your service, you can more accurately align the customer experience with customers’ needs and differentiate your brand in the marketplace.
• Engage your employees.Employees play a central role in the creation and execution of exceptional customer experiences. Like Disney, it’s important to empower your workforce to forge connections with customers around targeted dimensions of the customer experience, equipping them with training opportunities and insights about the qualities that draw consumers to your brand.
• Consistently outperform expectations. Great brands go above and beyond for their customers. They deliver more than is expected and are rewarded with goodwill in the marketplace. In many cases, value-added products or services enhance the customer experience and play a critical role in differentiating the brand experience from the competition.
• Create personal connections. Disney is extremely adept at building long-term, personal relationships with customers. By understanding customers on a personal level, the brand has successfully converted scores of satisfied customers into passionate brand advocates. To achieve similar outcomes in your operation, it’s important to follow through on brand promises, building trust one customer at a time.

Disney’s success is rooted in its ability to create customer experiences that reflect the actual needs and preferences of target audiences. By developing a deeper understanding of your customers through feedback mechanisms and other tactics, you can dramatically improve the impact of your customer experience management strategy and begin to leverage the customer experience as a driver of brand advocacy.

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