Maritz Helps Disney Pass on its Customer Magic
June 29 2007
The educational arm of The Walt Disney Company, The Disney Institute, is to work with MR firm Maritz to launch 'CustomerExperienceAdvantage Plus', designed to help organisations learn about and replicate Disney's customer service practices.
The new service will illustrate proven Disney tactics to help transform a client's approach to customer service, while providing staff with the tools, processes and support needed to adapt existing practices.
The firm says participating organisations will follow four steps:
- Understanding Through Consumer Market Research – high-value customer experience will be identified through customer and employee engagement research
- Inspiring to Innovate – interactive sessions will be run at Disney theme parks and resorts to see how the firm delivers service at the front line and behind the scenes
- Enabling Employees to Take Action – each client will be provided with the tools, training and support needed – based on Disney's best practices – to help employees improve the customer experience
- Motivating Employees to Make Habits of Desired Behaviours – employees will participate in incentive reward schemes to ensure customer service improvements are met.
The impetus for the Maritz/Disney alliance has been driven by the results of a recent Maritz telephone study of more than 1,000 US adults which highlighted that two out of three consumers (68%) have defected or considered defecting from a company they had frequently used, and of those consumers who left, 43% cited service experience as the main reason.
Brian Carlin, President, Maritz Learning commented: 'Maritz believes focusing on employees is an integral part of the solution, and there's no better example of that than Disney. This approach with Disney Institute will help companies create and deliver on a strategy to consistently exceed customer expectations through their people.'
St. Louis-based Maritz has 3,665 employees worldwide, a presence in 28 countries and had revenues for 2006 of $1.27 billion. The Disney Institute was created to specifically showcase 'the business behind the magic' – best practices in leadership, service, loyalty, people management and organisational creativity from Disney theme parks that can be adapted to any other organisation. The partner firms are online at
www.maritzlearning.com and
www.disneyinstitute.com .
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
