Page 91 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

72 The Disney Way

Staff members coached her on using the unfamiliar machine and then
enlisted other employees to listen to the guest rehearse her speech. In a final
gesture of superior service, they all showed up for the big event, where she
was enthusiastically received by her audience.
Innovative problem solving has given rise to centuries’ worth of inventions
and products, most of which we take for granted and many of which we would
be hard-pressed to do without. Consider the ubiquitous Post-it notes, those
sticky little squares of paper that decorate every imaginable surface in homes
and offices across the land.
No wild-eyed inventor came up with the notion in a dingy little base-
ment workshop. Rather, the product came about as the result of a problem
that a 3M employee recognized and solved.
This particular employee, who happened to be a member of his church
choir, was annoyed that he often lost his place in the hymnal. One day at
work, a solution dawned on him. He experimented with some glue that had
been shelved because of its inferior bonding qualities. Not strong enough
to serve its intended purpose, it turned out to be just right for holding little
yellow squares in place on a hymnal page.
What began as the solution to an individual problem turned into a
wildly successful and profitable product line.
Customer problems are sometimes difficult to discern because they surface
only under certain conditions or situations. Nevertheless, problems are certainly
there for the finding. And while your customers’ problems may not open the
door to a Post-it note gold mine, they can offer you the chance to provide the
kind of customer service that will set your organization apart from the crowd.

Superior Process Equals Superior Service

We continually stress that innovation is needed in every process, not just in
products and services. Nowhere is the acceptance of that idea more urgent than
at the many companies that deal directly with the consumer market. How many
of them have an adequate—not extraordinary, mind you, just adequate—pro-
cess in place for providing customer service? Few, indeed, if we are to judge by
the inordinate amounts of time that most of us waste on the phone waiting for
a human voice to respond to a need, or, for that matter, to rescue us from the
annoying music we are forced to listen to.
In an effort to help the Mead Johnson Nutritional division of Bristol-Myers
Squibb improve its customer service, we facilitated a complaint analysis team.