Our friends at Auxano are redefining the Guest Experience for the Church.
Reflections from Immersive Training at Walt Disney World
by Bob Adams
“Be Our Guest” has been the invitation for people coming to a Disney theme park long before the song from “Beauty and the Beast” became a box office hit. As noted below, it underscores an important element in the Disney vocabulary, that customers are not referred to as such, but rather as Guests. In the Disney nomenclature, the word “Guest” is capitalized and treated as a formal noun. Everyone coming to a Disney Park is welcomed as a Guest for the first time.
As former Disney Cast Member Jody Jean Dreyer writes:
“Leave it to a Disney candelabra to speak the truth that we find our purpose in living for something greater than ourselves. Lumière knew too well the sorry life of a servant who’s not serving.
Certainly Disney found its purpose and the secret of its success in providing excellent service to customers, visitors, and tourists. But because words have power to shape our attitudes and actions, those terms – customer, visitors, and tourists – were never used to describe Disney’s target audience. Instead, our Guests were invited, wanted, and welcome.”
That one simple vocabulary change, changes everything.
What’s the difference between treating someone like a visitor, and treating someone like a Guest?
The obvious analogy is that we do things differently when we bring Guests into our home. We clean up the house. We dress up. We prepare something special to eat. We host them. We take care of their real needs.
Here’s a few articles based on the nuggets learned during our time at Walt Disney World:
Disney Expects Guests
This principle has to be the starting point, the foundation on which all else is built. Everything – and I mean everything – is done with the Guest in mind. At Walt Disney World, exceeding Guest expectations is the standard call to duty for all cast members, both those “onstage” and “backstage.”
Read the rest of the article here…
Guest Engagement Starts with Team Engagement
Are you happy to have “satisfied” Guests? The better question should be, “Are your Guests ‘engaged?” Guest engagement may be a goal of your hospitality ministry, but there’s another type of engagement you must first address: team engagement. Disney Cast Members know about engagement.
Read the rest of the article here…
Overcoming the Enemy of Your Guest Experience
Providing the Happiest Place on Earth means that Cast Members must manage a delicate balance of priorities; without clarity, the task becomes overwhelming. The recipe for creating the magical environment at Disney parks involves boiling down park operations into four priorities that represent the values driving every decision made by front-line Cast Members.
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