If you can dream it, you can do it – Lessons from Disney

I recently returned from a fantastic holiday in Florida. I knew I was going to have a great time, everyone does, no one who has been to Disney comes back saying they had a bad time. but I have to confess I did go with an expectation of the sickly sweet ‘have a nice day’ patter rolling off the tongue of everyone I met with about as much believable sincerity as a politician hugging a baby on a campaign trail. However during my time there I experienced the opposite, finding great hospitality from people who wanted you to enjoy your stay and make the best of every moment. I was asked on several occasions not just how my day was going, but what I thought of Disney, how I was finding things or if I needed anything. Not because they were told to do that, but I felt it was genuinely because they cared and wanted to make your day special, and for you to have the most enjoyable experience.

I also met Eleyna, an ex-Disney employee. She had worked at Epcot for over 12 years as a dancer. Now aged 66 (you wouldn’t believe that to look at her) Eleyna has retired and works at a spa in Orlando. She spoke very highly of her time at Epcot and her love of Disney, how highly she regards Disney, and had she have been able she would happily have taken us on a personal tour of Epcot, making us honorary family members for the day (as an ex employee she still gets free access to the Disney parks for her and her family).

Not just inside Disney but outside in restaurants, bars and shopping malls, the culture spreads and everyone has the same attitude towards customer experience and customer excellence.

So how do they achieve this?

Cast Members

Disney does this by recruiting the right people and for these people to understand and ‘get’ the culture and ethos of the company is imperative. Anyone working at Disney is not just an employee, they are members of the cast, they are all part of the ‘show’ that is Disney. It does not matter whether you work in refreshments, security, on the turnstiles, or are part of a Disney parade, ‘showtime’ applies to everyone for each minute of the working day. That’s why they call them Cast Members. Everything the Cast Members do, every day is in the name of family, joy and of course, magic.

Communication and Feedback

Everyone at Disney knows what is expected of them and understands why. Right from the interview through to the job the company’s culture and expectations are explained. So like the lettering in Blackpool Rock, the message and expectation runs through everyone.

Disney’s focus is on effective communication to all, and this communication is not just 2 way but all ways, from management, leaders, teams, colleagues, customers and so on. Everyone’s opinion is important so customer feedback and employee satisfaction and highly regarded and taken seriously. Disney carries out a Cast Excellence survey every 1-2 years to understand what is working and what is not working, because to them if the employees are upset it comes across to the customers.

Customer feedback is vital too because everything a customer sees, hears or touches has an impact on their experience. For Disney it’s all about ‘wowing’ the customer, and you don’t get to understand how to ‘wow’ them without listening them. Customer service is all part of the marketing mix, if you ‘wow’ the customer, they become your best ambassadors. Think about it, how many people do you know come back from Disney without raving about it?

Based on customer feedback Disney introduced Passes and Swaps.

• Imagine the disappointment of having queued with a small child only to find they can’t go on the ride, to overcome this Cast Members can give out special passes in these circumstances to allow the child to skip to the front of the queue on their next ride
• Special assistance passes are also provided for disabled guests. Through training cast members are able to identify and fulfil these needs without the asking invasive questions
• There are also child swap areas, where parents are able to wait with a child unable to go on a ride, whilst the other parent goes on, the parents then swap over and the other rides without having to queue again.

 

Attention to detail

A lot of what Disney do isn’t the big things, it’s the small stuff…the cleanliness of the parks, the polite and friendly staff, the ‘side shows’ keeping you entertained whilst queuing, the quality of the merchandise, the fans and cool jets of air on a hot humid day (believe me I appreciated those), the sound systems, the images, posters, signs, litter bins, water fountains, the gardens, the park guides in different languages and the maps. I could go on and on but you get the idea, all of these small details add up.

There is also an air of constant change, so even if you go back again there is something new to experience.

 

So what can we learn from Disney?

1. Know what you stand for and hold true to those beliefs
2. Recruit the right people and make sure they understand and buy into your beliefs
3. Listen and pay attention to both colleagues and customers
4. The small stuff matters as much as the big stuff
5. Wow the customer

 

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality” Walt Disney

The organisational body……

Imagine your organisation was more like a living being, a human body, what would it look like?  How would the parts of this body be made up?  Well this is the question I asked myself, and this is what I came up with about Bromford…..

I started thinking about my own team – Finance, and if it represented any part of the body, what would that be?  My conclusion: The Skeletal Structure, the bones, helping the body stand upright and strong, represented by the finances, the assets, the cashflow and the surplus of the organisation. But this is no good on its own, there is no life in a skeleton, it needs more than that to make a living, breathing organism.  So what other main body parts are needed? 

The Heart – the vital organ, every cell depends on its beat and its flow, for Bromford this would be the Living teams.   This involves neighbourhood management, home ownership, community safety, home income, lettings and customer contact teams.  These colleagues provide the vital interactions with communities and customers each and every day.

The Soul is a living thing that needs nurture, care and attention.  This sums up Bromford Support, our housing care, support, insight and innovation teams.  Giving the body and our customers a chance to transform and realise true potential.

For the body to grow it needs fuel, its digestive system, processing the food and nutrients into energy, as our sales and development teams do in helping Bromford to grow.  Building new homes for rent, part rent part buy, or outright sale, benefitting both new and existing customers.

The largest of the internal organs is the liver.  It gets rid of toxins and regulates blood sugar, acting like a big blood vessel. This would represent the asset management team, planning, delivery, repairs, empty homes.  Regulating the properties, the assets, replenishing and refreshing to maintain and ensure everything is in good condition. Alongside the liver would be the Spleen: cleaning the blood, fighting infection in the same way that the portfolio team are filtering the housing and land assets.

The skin covers the surface of the body, providing a protective layer.  In Bromford this is provided by health and safety, as well as community safety and governance teams, along with our policies and procedures, ensuring that the right level of protection is in place for all concerned.

The lungs – providing breath and life into the organisation, the same way that Human Resources and colleague development do for Bromford, bringing new colleagues into the business as well as developing and supporting existing colleagues to be the best that they can be.

The Brain – ICT for left brain logic, maintaining our systems in logical and structured ways, to process and report all that we do in a streamlined and efficient way.  The right brain, the more feeling and caring nature of colleague development and Bromford support.  This right brain thinking goes throughout Bromford with its family feel.

The voice box is the communications and the customer contact teams making sure that we can keep in touch with the customers, our peers and our stakeholders.   Communication is a two way street, therefore the ears are just as invaluable to us listening to our customers and we continue to provide the correct service.  Which is where the continuous improvement team come into play.

The eyes of the organisation, like the visionary Executive and the Board providing direction and strategy for the future. 

The hands are always practical, useful and functional. In that way they are like the repairs team, landscapers and the caretakers.  Not forgetting the landscapers also providing their valuable service – a haircut -ensuring things look their neat and tidy best for our customers. 

The legs enable the body and the organisation to set off on its journey into the future and realise its goals.

Every body needs a shelter, facilities team provide the shelter for this body in the form of the offices that the business operates from. 

This is just an indication based on a few functions of the body and some of the teams and services provided by Bromford, but it’s not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination.  The body is complex with many parts, the same as any organisation.  You couldn’t possibly fit all that we do into a reasonable sized blog.

What do you think, if you and your team are a part of the body, which one are you?