Page 80 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

Chapter 4

Never a Customer,

Always a Guest

You don’t build the product for yourself.
You need to know what the people want and build it for them.
Walt Disney

n an age when consumers all across the country bemoan the state of
customer service, The Walt Disney Company is repeatedly hailed as
Ia superior service provider, perhaps the best in the world. On the day
Disneyland opened, Walt himself announced the theme park’s motto: “At
Disneyland, the visitors are our guests.” Since then, the bar has continually
been raised to new heights in the company’s desire to delight its guests.
That visitors should be treated as guests is also a theme that emerges in
nearly every movie Walt Disney made. The dwarfs welcome Snow White
into their cottage; forest animals care for Bambi after his mother dies; the
Banks family invite Mary Poppins into their home; and, of course, “Be Our
Guest” is the title of one of the best-known songs from the 1991 film Beauty
and the Beast. The guest motif is present in every corner of Disney, from the
Magic Kingdom to Animal Kingdom.
Walt Disney knew instinctively what his visitors wanted. He didn’t need
to do expensive research into customer tastes because, as he once put it, his
audience was “made up of my neighbors, people I know and meet everyday:
folks I trade with, go to church with, vote with, compete in business with,
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help build and preserve a nation with.” Disney’s understanding of his cus-
tomer base coupled with his innate drive for perfection meant that audiences

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