S2E18 – The Lessons from Mickey Mouse Edition with Dennis Snow

James Nathan 0:54 Hello and welcome to The Only One Business Show and I have a really fun guest for you today and I’m gonna talk about a few of the things that really make me excited. This gentleman has a passion for service excellence and has consulted with organizations all around the world on the subject. His customer service abilities were born and developed over 20 years with Walt Disney World. And in his last year with that business, his leadership performance was ranked in the top 3% of the company’s leadership team. He’s now a full time speaker, trainer and consultant and is dedicated to helping organizations achieve their goals in the area of customer service, employee development and leadership. He is also the author of two best selling business books: ‘Lessons from the Mouse’ and ‘Unleashing Excellence’. Please welcome Dennis Snow. Dennis, how are you?

 

Dennis Snow 1:42 I am doing fantastic. Thank you so much for inviting me on the show.

 

James Nathan 1:46 Oh, it’s an absolute pleasure. Lessons from the Mouse is one of those books which I, you know, whenever I’m asked to, to put a list together, I’ve got to tell you, it’s always on there for people.

 

Dennis Snow 1:55  Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah, my retirement appreciates that as well.

 

James Nathan 2:02 You got a few years to go, haven’t you

 

Dennis Snow 2:05 Just a few. Yeah.

 

James Nathan 2:06 So when did you When did you start working full time for Disney?

 

Dennis Snow 2:10 Well, I left Disney in 1999. I was there for 20 years. I started in 1979 working on the rides as a attractions operator like most people do. I don’t know if you remember there was a ride there and attraction called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It’s not there anymore. But my that was my first job was driving the……. still the best job I’ve ever had, driving the submarines there. And I was 19 years old. And I say submarines, I should put submarines in quotes that never actually went underwater. But and then I managed different operating areas around the company. I worked at the Disney University, managing the Disney University where they do the internal training for the company. And then we spun off a division called the Disney Institute where companies would benchmark with Disney on best practices about service and leadership and so forth. And I did that for the last few years I was with Disney. I was with the Disney Institute, and then started up my own company in 1999. So, so I’ve been doing this now for 20 years.

 

James Nathan 3:16 Well, fantastic. I was just saying to you before we went on air if you know if you want to get me talking about any subject under the sun, you know, Disney would be one that you’d probably have a hard time shutting me up…. that, motorcycles and guitars and, you know, we’re done forever, but it’s a wonderful, wonderful organization, and it brings a lot of joy and a lot of happiness to people. It’s also one of those businesses when we mention customer service, then it’s pretty much one of the first mentioned and so it’s a bit of a cliche these days, isn’t it? Well, I guess I was also saying, you know, I’d love to be that big a cliche, but it’s a fantasy, isn’t it a theme park? What can we really learn from a business like Disney in the real world,

 

Dennis Snow 4:02

Yeah. And part of me struggles a little bit with this because I hate to peel the fantasy away. But I’m going to do it. I’m ready to do it. Yeah, it is it to the guests. It feels like a fantasy. But it has the same issues, the same challenges that every other organization does. And so when you look at Disney’s objective, Disney World’s objective and any of the Disney parks, it’s to create such a great experience that people can’t wait to go back. You know, bottom line. That’s what they’re doing. They’re trying to create that intense customer, they call their customers guests. They’re trying to create that intense guest loyalty, where after that first visit, you say, I can’t wait to go back and I’m going to tell everybody about it. Now think about every one of your listeners and the businesses that they either own or that they work in. They have the exact same objective. So it’s about looking at the overall experience that you’re trying to create for your customers, executing on that as flawlessly as you can. Nobody does it flawlessly but as flawlessly as you can, so that you become that, that cliche you know, that icon that you mentioned, that people say it’s……. a colleague that I know of his name is Nido Qubein. Wonderful, wonderful speaker. He says something that is just resonated with me. He said, we need to move from brand preference to brand insistence. And I love that that philosophy. So that’s what Disney is trying to do is when it’s time for vacation, where are we going? We’re going to Disney World. And I think that applies to every single company. And it’s not about throwing money at this. It’s just about the way you do things.

 

James Nathan 5:51 Well, it’s interesting you say that because there is huge choice. You know, even in Orlando, there’s massive choice and you know, there’s you Universal down the road fabulous rides different experience. I think they….

 

Dennis Snow 6:04 They do a great job. They do a great job.

 

James Nathan 6:07 I really love the place but they’re not Disney. And so when they do their parades and when they do their other stuff, it’s it feels like a bit of a second attempt.

 

Dennis Snow 6:18 Well, the way I think of it and I do love Universal and I enjoy going out there, Universal is selling attractions and shows, that’s really what their product is. Disney what Disney saying is they’re selling an experience. And so that impacts everything from the moment you start planning your trip there. to the moment you leave, all of those touch points. So that’s really what they focus in on that’s not to take away from Universal because again, I think they do a good job. But Disney really focuses on that fanatical loyalty that people have.

 

James Nathan 6:56 Well that’s a bit I was trying to kind of get to is what makes it so special in in its world?

 

Dennis Snow 7:03 Well, I think it’s because of their attention to detail is again, when you are from the moment you start planning the experience, it begins there. And then when you arrive at the Orlando airport and you take Disney’s Magical Express Bus where it starts and they’re showing Disney movies, and they’re taking you right in, so it’s all started there. The moment you arrive on the property, everything is pristine, it feels magical, to the check in of the hotel, the demeanour of every cast member of they call all of their employees, cast members, that all of that is so carefully crafted to be a part of the experience. And one of the things that I think Disney has done a marvellous job with is engaging their cast members in the fact that they are part of the experience. They’re not disconnected from it. So that when that person is checking you into the hotel, or they’re serving you a hamburger in one of the theme parks or they’re sweeping the streets, they understand and we can talk about how they do this. They understand that they’re part of that experience. And so they take that very seriously and making sure that that that they follow through on that.

 

James Nathan 8:21 Well that magic in the detail part I really love I tell a story in one of my keynotes about seeing someone dusting a plant at the yacht club there. And you know, and it’s the things you don’t see they produce the magic as well.

 

Dennis Snow 8:35 Yeah. What do you think about the theme parks for example, the how beautiful the flowers are all the time. Well, that’s because, you know, the evening and early morning before the park opens, there are landscapers in there freshening up all of those planters to make sure that every flower looks like it just bloomed and all they did was that’s all by design. They’re making the…. because again, they’re focused on those details.

 

James Nathan 9:02 So it can’t be perfect, can it? I mean, it feels it, but it can’t be?

 

Dennis Snow 9:07 Well, and it’s not it. Anybody who’s been to Disney multiple times, I’m sure has had examples of service that weren’t what you would say Disney service. The critical mass of the experiences are, so no, it is not perfect. And if you have you ever gone into any of the backstage areas taken any of the Disney tours that they sometimes offer?

 

James Nathan 9:29 No, it’s on my it’s on my bucket list,

 

Dennis Snow 9:32 Do it do it. And I’ll tell you what, I tell you why it’s valuable. When you go backstage, you see that it is not perfect that they have the same issues and challenges. You’ll overhear cast members complaining about the the shift that they have to work, their supervisors down on them for something. They had an argument with their significant other, people call in sick and the supervisor are scrambling to cover shifts. And so when you look in the backstage environments, it meant they they deal with the same things my restaurant deals, with my my boutique store deals with, they deal with exactly the same issues, right? So it is not perfect. However, the understanding is when you are on stage and they’re very careful about the designation of on stage and backstage, when you are on stage, the magic is on and none of those problems exist. Now again, it doesn’t work every single time but it works most of the time.

 

James Nathan 10:38 Well, it works pretty well.

 

Dennis Snow 10:42 And sometime and and that’s part of it, too, is that sometimes those little glitches you are willing to forgive, because the overall experience is typically so positive.

 

James Nathan 10:54 Yeah, we talk a lot about a particular on this show about businesses and how they deal with problems when they occur. Because invariably it will happen. What happens at Disney, something goes wrong, you know, you never wanted to but it does. How do I look after people and turn that around?

 

Dennis Snow 11:12 There’s a few things when but I think the most powerful thing is that they really empower their people to take care of problems. So if there’s a problem, and I’m a frontline cast member, and you bring that problem to me, I am empowered to help you out. So you had a negative experience. And I say, you know, I really want to take care of this. I noticed that your child is a big Mickey Mouse fan. Let’s go into one of the shops and get a Mickey Mouse t shirt for your child just as an apology for what happened. No questions asked. There’s no there’s no I’ve got to run it up the flagpole to get managers involved in all of that. So the front line is very empowered to manage those problems. Sometimes though things are escalated where a guest is so upset that they say, we want to talk to a manager, we want to talk, we want to, we want to talk to Walt Disney!

 

James Nathan 12:12 They bring out a couple of candles in a crystal ball…….

 

Dennis Snow 12:19 That would be funny actually, that would be very funny. So then when that happens, the idea is that, let’s say I’m a manager now, and I’m dealing with this disgruntled guest who’s legitimately disgruntled about something is just, we first of all, we pull them into a private area so that they can vent and not feel embarrassed about what’s going on. And just listen to what the problem is and do everything that we can to solve the issue. Now, there’s some issues you’re not going to be able to solve. There’s some time there. There’s some things that…. it was raining all day and they came all the way from the UK. And it was raining during their day at Disney World. Well, I can’t solve that. I can’t solve that. But what I can do is make sure that that guest feels that they were listened to, that I empathize with them and that I wasn’t just blowing them off and say, Well, look, it’s raining and what can I do about the rain? And perhaps are some suggestions, you know, what attractions haven’t you been on yet that you’d like to go on? We’d really love to go on the Haunted Mansion. We haven’t been on it yet. And well, let’s go over there. And we’ll get you right on the attraction. So if there are little touches that we can add to those unsolvable issues, we’ll do it. So the first thing is frontline, very empowered to handle issues, escalated issues, make sure the guest feels respected even if there’s nothing that we’re going to be able to do make sure that they feel respected and listen to. And then the third thing if there’s a little something that we can do to at least bridge these the frustration gap, and we’ll do it.

 

James Nathan 14:05 Fabulous. And you talk there about empowering employees and I love to hear that with businesses. But empowering employees, well it means you’ve got the right people in place in the first place. Right back at the beginning during the hiring process…. What is it that Disney looks for? What’s the special, the special sauce they’re trying to find in those people.

 

Dennis Snow 14:28 They’re looking for those people who are naturally engaging and truly care about what they do. And it’s not about being a bubbly cheerleader type of person. Some people are that comes natural to them. Wonderful, great cast members. Other people, they’re a little bit more reserved. They’re a little bit toned down. But you can tell from your interactions with them that they truly care, but they’re very authentic. So I guess that’s probably the best word is that they look for people who are authentically passionate about serving people. We’ve all dealt with people who they really are almost resentful about serving people. And they look for people who are passionate about serving people. So what they’ve done is they’ve looked at the various roles within the company. They’ve defined what the superstar differentiators are, the people who really excel at the job, and they build the interview process around those qualities so that they’re bringing in people who are who are likely to be highly engaged. Okay, they don’t get it right, again, they don’t get it right every time. But because they put so much focus on it even they even call it the casting centre. You go into the casting centre. Yeah, because they want you to know this is show business. You’re being you’re not being hired for a job. You’re being cast for a role in the show. It’s a very different mindset. Though that process reinforces that, and again, while it doesn’t work every time it works most of the time, and so when you get people who truly are passionate about taking care of people and serving people, they will typically do the right thing.

 

James Nathan 16:16 So for people listening, because obviously people listening from all different sizes of businesses, when they’re looking at their business, and they’re thinking, right, like, I want to take some lessons in hiring from Disney, what do I do in my own business? How can I work out the right kind of people for us? And then how do we test that while we’re meeting them?

 

Dennis Snow 16:35 Yeah, well, step one is and I think everybody could do this within minutes, is to sit down with a piece of paper and identify the people in your business you would most love to clone, right? If I could just clone these folks in my life would be so easy. We would just go into the stratosphere with service and my guess is everybody could do that pretty quickly. And then start defining what is it about those folks that make them…. that made them come to mind for me what are the things that they do? Well, they don’t wait for the customer to come to them, they go to the customer, they greet the customer with a genuine and I’m making this up because it’ll be different depending on the business, but they greet the customer with a genuine greeting that’s not canned. They look for opportunities to find out about the customer so that they can tailor their delivery to them. So there’s certain qualities that will come out from the superstars in your in your business. And then you start defining your interview questions, your opening interview, open ended interview questions, to either bring those things out naturally from the applicant or not. So you say for example, you say, you look at your server superstars and they’re great team players, they really engage. They’re…. it’s not about the equipment, it’s about their team. They’re very focused on the team. So when you’re designing your interview questions, one of them should be around something that would either naturally bring out a focus on team, if they have that in them or not. You know, tell me about the best tools that you found in delivering great service. And somebody naturally says something well, I really look to my team, my fellow team members and get them involved too, introduce some of them to the customer, you know, those kinds of things that they naturally bring in those qualities to the discussion, but the starting point is what are you looking for? And I think the the place to start that is well who were my superstars?

 

James Nathan 18:51 Right. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense when you put it so simply. I was having a conversation this morning about this actually, about scale. Now, Disney is obviously a monstrous business with, you know, arms around the world. When it started, obviously it wasn’t it’s grown out of sight. How do you maintain that quality when you scale? Famously, when Disney opened in Paris, there was some teething troubles there. So, a kind of parts to question really. So how do you scale and maintain that quality? And then when it doesn’t go quite right, like it didn’t go quite right in Paris, what do you do to fix it?

 

Dennis Snow 19:33 Yeah. So in terms of scale, in terms of scaling it, it again goes back to identifying what makes you successful. So when you look at the Disney theme parks, it goes back to it’s about the experience and what are the elements of the experience, they made us feel special, it was magical. They paid attention to every detail. There are certain qualities that define the Disney park experience, right? So now in terms of scaling is you take those core things, those core elements, and you adapt them to wherever in the world, you are putting something or wherever in the city, you’re putting it, wherever it is as you’re scaling it. But the earlier you can capture what makes…. what your secret sauce is, the better because then you can start to, I use the word inculturate, you can start to inculturate into the the organization from the hiring process to the training process, the communication processes, the accountability processes, so the sooner you can start doing that. So now when you start scaling and growing as an organization, those things go with you. Now where it becomes a challenge, and this was the challenge with Paris is thinking you can just plug and play. You do have to adapt it for where you are. And that was the the issue there is that they went in thinking, okay, we’ll just you know, we’ll just plug it in. And they really struggled, they learned a very valuable lesson from that experience,

 

James Nathan 21:24 But managed…. I know, sort of looking at other Disney parks around the world. They’ve seemed to have taken those challenges and accepted how to get on with it.

 

Dennis Snow 21:34 Yeah, exactly. If you go to any of the Disney parks, it has a Disney feel to it, but they’ve adapted it to that area, whether it’s in China, whether it’s in Tokyo, wherever it may be, Paris. I’ve been to the one in Paris and I think they’ve, it’s one of the most beautiful parks they have. And again, they’ve had to adapt to the environment. But it is a Disney experience.

 

James Nathan 22:03 That’s the thing. People will go and say, you know, at the weekend one of my client’s staff was going to Disney I said ‘Oh fantastic, when you get over there have a look at this’ and she said ‘Oh no, I’m going to Paris.” I just heard Disney and thought Orlando.

 

Dennis Snow 22:20 Right. That’s kind of what people do they think of Disneyland and Disney World.

 

James Nathan 22:25 Is it the same without it being America?

 

Dennis Snow 22:30 No, it’s but it’s not, but that’s not a problem. I don’t think I think the the idea is to connect that Disney brand wherever you are in the world, that people have access to the Disney experience, whether it’s a theme park, whether it’s a product, a movie. I think where it can be a challenge… now again, they’re not asking me for my opinion on any of this…. How far can you go but without diluting the special factor, you know how you can almost some you can almost make it too accessible and where it’s not as special anymore. So that’s a decision that I think they’ll constantly have to be looking at is how do we make sure we don’t dilute the magic by making it so accessible?

 

James Nathan 23:31 Well, you want people to come away thinking, you know, I just had the time of my life…..

 

Dennis Snow 23:38 And can’t wait to come back.

 

James Nathan 23:39 Yeah, but they’re paying a lot of money for it, I mean, tickets to Disney these days are not cheap.

 

Dennis Snow 23:44 They’re not cheap yet. Nobody would ever accuse Disney of being a nonprofit organization. So it is very expensive to go and people save up for a long time. A lot of families, they save up for a long time and this may be a one time experience for them, this may be it. So that’s another thing that I think is important that any business can learn from Disney is you need to make sure your people know that while they may be serving 100 or 200 hamburgers a day, or whatever the job is, for this person, this is it. This is their moment with your company. And it’s on the line, everything is on the line. And so Disney is very good about the training process and reinforcing that. That, yeah, this is an expensive experience. This may be a one shot deal. You’ve been asked 100 times today where the restroom is, all of those types of things. But it’s a moment for this guest and they would teach little things like when you know, looking at somebody’s t shirt that they’re wearing and seeing what’s on it and it might be their favourite sports team or something like that and just making a little comment… Yeah I love that team or how’s your team doing or whatever it may be, doesn’t take any time, doesn’t cost a dime but it makes that moment of connection, that relationship that I know you’re very focused on that and will relationship mentality. So anytime you can do things like that….. I hear an accent…. and I say so where are you folks visiting from? Yeah, again, it’s a moment didn’t cost a dime. It’s a but it’s a moment and the point that I make is, while the big wows are great when we can do them, the little wows are where the magic lies, because little wows add up those little moments, those little touches of wow add up. So when you look at the overall expensive experience, the where I think the success comes from, is as long as the guest feels like they got more value than the money they spent. You’ve done dramatically increased the likelihood that they’re coming back and they’re going to tell other people about it. So yeah, they raise prices, but they always are very, very careful in saying but are we providing value that exceeds the price?

 

James Nathan 26:14 And it’s it’s quite a subjective thing in a world like Disney because in other parts you know, you know, when you look at value, you see how much you actually have in your hands where, you know, value in experience is a very difficult thing.

 

Dennis Snow 26:27 But you know, when you get it and you know, when you don’t get you know, if you go into a restaurant or a store or any business, you…. there’s while you might not be able to measure it, you have a feeling of this was a value added experience. And I’m going to come back, I’ll likely come back versus the ones you go into, and it was a transaction, it was mediocre. I might come back I might not. So while we can’t necessarily put a number on that decision. There is that quantity….. There’s that qualitative feel of value versus price.

 

James Nathan 27:11 Well, there’s a very interesting sort of piece to that as well in that I think we remember the price of….. if we’re comparing two expensive things. We remember the one that was…. we remember what we paid for the one that wasn’t great. The one that was great. I can’t actually tell you if you said to me right now, how much were the tickets that Disney you bought this year with the family? I don’t know. I could give you a rough idea. I can’t remember exactly. But I could tell you when we took my Mum out to a triple Michelin star restaurant for her 70th birthday, and I didn’t enjoy it, I’ll tell you exactly how much I spent.

 

Dennis Snow 27:45 Yeah. Great point.

 

James Nathan 27:47 So we do we do really…. I think that don’t people understand that. It’s expensive, but you don’t mind if it’s great. You mind when it’s not.

 

Dennis Snow 27:59 And, we’re out there not too long ago with the family, I’ve got two grandkids. And so we spend a lot of time at Disney World. And I saw a guy with a T shirt, and I had to take a picture of it. I said, oh please let me take a picture of it. And it was in that Disney script. The wording on his t shirt was in that Disney script. You see so many of the shirts that say most magical day ever, that’s a very popular shirt. His said most expensive day ever. I just I loved it. And the reason I loved it is he had the biggest smile on his face. He was having a fantastic time. And I guarantee you he will go back. But I loved that T shirt because of the smile on his face.

 

James Nathan 28:46 Fabulous. Disney’s awesome. But there are lots of other great businesses. Who would you point to if we were going to say right, let’s pick one. Let’s pick something they do. That’s really very special. Who would you think of him? What would you pick?

 

Dennis Snow 29:02 Well, there’s a…… and I like to use examples of small organizations for these things because there’s the big icon ones, Nordstrom department store, Emirates Airlines, you know, there’s the big ones, the Disney’s of the world. But I like to use some of the smaller organizations. There’s a restaurant here in Orlando. They’re a chain now but that started here in Orlando called Seasons 52. Marvellous restaurant. Excellent food, but a lot of restaurants have excellent food. What makes them so good is and it’s just it’s a restaurant like any other, is as good as the food is the services even better. They’ve trained their people to make you feel welcome the moment you park your car, if you use the valet, the valet parkers do it. But the moment you walk into the restaurant, it’s not, do you have a reservation? It’s welcome, welcome to Seasons 52, glad you’re here, have you been here before? It all begins with that as they’re escorting you to the table. It’s not just a task, they’re having the conversation with you that they then relate to the server, that’s going to be taken care of you. So if there’s a special event happening, you know, you’re having a business meeting, you know, they’ll tell the server, they’re having a business meeting, which means not a lot of interruptions. So they orchestrated each moment to add to the experience. It’s a restaurant like any other service, very good food, very, very good food, but it’s a restaurant like any other. But they, they and I don’t know if it’s a conscious thing that they said we’re not selling food, we’re selling an experience. But that’s definitely the way they’ve built it. And it’s for my wife and I it’s our favourite restaurant in Orlando. We go all the time. It’s our favourite restaurant here. And we recommend it all the time.

 

James Nathan 30:59 I bet you do. I bet you tell everyone and you know…. I was interviewing some guys which I haven’t haven’t had the podcast yet but I’m hoping to run a pub restaurant here called the Bottle and Glass. It’s only a little place but it’s quite well known. And we went there for….. well me and my wife both work for ourselves. So instead of having Christmas party with staff, we don’t have any, we take each other out for Christmas and we have a Christmas Lunch.

 

Dennis Snow 31:25 So you have a little business meeting first right….

 

James Nathan 31:28 We sit down and we have a glass of champagne and toast the year and I put a little thing on social media, I took a photo on Instagram with a picture of Mandy holding a glass of champagne and said are the James Nathan Experience and Dr. Mandy and Associates Christmas party. Within about a minute they picked up on that they brought some crackers to our table and said we just saw that and we thought we’d make your day a bit better. And so perfect. So we had a little chat with them and I’ve interviewed them and one of the things they said which I really loved was in certainly in restaurants is good service can make up for bad food but great food can’t make up for bad service. It’s absolutely absolutely true.

 

Dennis Snow 32:09 So when you look at the world class organizations, going back to what you talked about earlier, it’s a matter of scale. So the principles are the same for one restaurant versus a chain of restaurants. And now this season’s 52. They’ve grown they’ve got I can’t remember how many they have now around the US. But it’s taking those same principles. So, I think the first part of the learning for me is identifying those differentiating qualities as soon as you can. So that as you’re scaling, you can build those into the expansion.

 

James Nathan 32:53 I’m really conscious of time Dennis, and I could chat to you all day. I really could. So let me ask you one question, let me ask you the big question, what one thing, what golden nugget, what gem of wisdom would you like to leave our listeners with that they could use in their businesses today to make them better for today and better for the years to come?

 

Dennis Snow 33:17 Okay, what I would say is this and it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the business itself or if you’re managing a department, same principle. Is to sit down with your team in a team meeting or a series of team meetings and have this discussion. What are three things we would want our customers to say about their experience with us? Three things because that really makes you focus in on the differentiator, what’s really important to the loyalty, what are the three things we would want our customers to say like they paid attention to every detail they made us feel important, whatever it may be, have that discussion, captured on a flip chart or on a whiteboard. Then once you have that, because that’s your brand now that that’s your brand, whether it’s your company or department, then have the discussion. So what has to happen in order for those for our customers to say those three things, and it gets your people thinking about behaviours, what do I need to do to make people say, they made me feel like a VIP, you know, whatever my role is made me feel like a very important person. So the first part, step one is what do we want our customers to say about their experience, and then Okay, what has to happen in order for them to say that. Then you just keep reinforcing that over and over and talking about it and training about it and all of those things. And when I work with clients and my consulting work, that’s usually where we start.

 

James Nathan 34:49 You know, it is just a fantastic piece of advice and I hope people go and do that right away. Dennis, it has been awesome chatting with you. Thank you so much for taking the time out.

 

Dennis Snow 34:59 My pleasure. My pleasure. Again, I really enjoyed this, this conversation.

 

James Nathan 35:05 Great. Thanks so much and I look forward to chatting to you again.

 

Dennis Snow 35:08 Hope so.