Customer Experience Matters When You’re Nurturing Customers For Life.

I remember it vividly, even though it is nearly 18 years ago. As my bride and I planned out our last honeymoon day at Disney, we decided the final event should be the Saturday night parade at Magic Kingdom. This would cap off an amazing week. So we get to the park (albeit a few minutes late, it was our honeymoon, geez!) to find it had reached max capacity. We couldn’t enter. So much for a great customer experience!

No Mickey.

No Minnie.

Honeymoon over.

You’ve seen the movies or read the books where the 5-year old girls fantasize about their wedding day and honeymoon. Well, I experienced the disappointment through my wife. She wasn’t having the fairy tale ending she expected. Disappointed, we walked around aimlessly at Downtown Disney. We saw a customer service desk and decided to approach and ask about the park capacity. “It only happens once or twice a year,” the agent told us. She took down some information and we left a little more satisfied since we could at least express our disappointment to someone official.

We returned to our time share — a wedding gift from my wife’s father. We started packing for our flight the next morning. We weren’t talking much, as we were both bummed that the honeymoon was over — especially how it ended. At about 11:30pm we heard a knock at the door. I opened the door and the agent we met at Downtown Disney was standing in the doorway. She asked if she could come in.

She apologized again for the experience we had and said she wanted to make us feel a little better. She had gone to the local Publix grocery store and bought a cake and some balloons. She gave us a card and a photo of Mickey and Minnie which was autographed. Not wanting to intrude, she was quick to bid us adieu.

“Wait a minute!” I said. I was baffled by the entire situation. Here was a college-aged young lady who took her own time, at 11 o’clock at night, to do something nice for us. She acknowledged it wouldn’t replace our disappointment, but maybe lessen it a bit. I asked her if she would be reimbursed for it, as I was now starting to feel bad. She said, “Oh yes. Disney has a policy where I can spend up to $75 to improve a customer experience. No questions asked.”

We were so overwhelmed by the gesture and by the fact that Disney made enhancing our experience — and potentially your experience — a practiced policy. We couldn’t have cared less if Mickey and Minnie “autographed” a picture and we weren’t about to eat the cake at midnight. But that picture as well as photos of the cake and balloons are in our scrapbook for sure. And I’ve told this story a hundred times.

So for an investment of $75, Disney received:

1. 100 stories told to potential customers of how amazingly they treated us.
2. Revenue from those potential customers and residual brand recognition from retold stories.
3. $20,000+ in travel and merchandise we have purchased during return trips since our honeymoon, usually staying onsite so we get that same experience at the Disney-owned resorts.

With a return like that, you can see why customer experience is part of the Disney brand. Your customers want the same special treatment and it’s usually not hard to do.

Click here to start a conversation about how your company can increase customer loyalty through exceptional customer contact service and an amazing unboxing experience.

-Jay Stamerro
General Manager
USA Fulfillment