Is Your Company An E Ticket?

My favorite company is The Walt Disney Company. My affection for this company bloomed not when I was a child, but in adulthood. I grew up in Southern California, spending the first half of my impressionable years in a small suburb of Los Angeles called Westchester. My middle class family lived in a post World War II built house located across the street from the Centinela Adobe. The adobe was a historical home built in 1834 that had become a museum by the time my brothers and I came along to explore its mystere. For you historical buffs, it’s one of only 43 surviving adobes in Los Angeles County. Its acres of eucalyptus trees and lush groomed grounds provided countless hours of fun and make believe, a welcome escape from the symmetrical, single level, square, stucco homes that lined the streets of my childhood. As a kid, I vividly recall getting lost in what seemed to be a forest, although in hindsight, I know it was a scant vision of what it must have been in its once grand 25,000 acre setting. In my play dates with the Centinela Adobe it was still vast enough at one acre that I could get lost in its wilds and not give a second thought to the rush of traffic as it traversed the modern miracle of the 405 freeway that abutted the backside of the property.

When I was a young girl, my family of modest means visited Disneyland a handful of times. I recall early one morning we all piled into the family Ford Falcon station wagon and headed for Disneyland. My family and I were driving south bound on the 405 with my parents friends Ester and Knut, who were visiting from Canada. I recall Knut gushing over the sheer awesomeness of the freeway with its expanse of five lanes of traffic rushing in either direction, as if it was the eighth wonder of the world. I can not tell you much about what Disneyland was like on that day, except to say 1) It was more awesome than the Centinela Adobe, and 2) The E tickets were the ride tickets you coveted.

Back in those days your park admission came with a book of ride coupons with denominations of A through E, the higher the letter, the better the ride. B tickets, for example, earned you a ride on the Casey Junior Circus Train in Fantasyland. Which was alright I guess, if that was your thing. But an E ticket…well an E ticket got you into the Haunted Mansion, a ride on the Monorail, or better yet, the Matterhorn! As a kid you generally held onto E tickets as if they were gold, as you rushed from one glorious ride to the next, anticipating which rides would earn you the greatest thrill in exchange for those precious tickets. While Disneyland evolved and eventually discontinued use of ticket books, the E Ticket or an E Ticket ride still assimilates to an unusually interesting, thrilling or premium experience. Or, you could just say, it rocked.

My fascination with this goliath company occurred quite unexpectedly on one sweltering July afternoon in the early 90’s at Disney World’s Epcot Center. I was a young, naïve mother, naïve because I didn’t have the good sense to avoid Orlando, Florida in the month of July. After standing in line for what seemed like hours at the ice cream kiosk to score chocolate covered Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, my young daughters and I finally earned our well deserved place at the head of the line and collected our bounty. We paid far more than should have been legal and gradually made our way over to the cap stand of a concrete planter to sit and enjoy the fruits of our labor: we’d earned it!

Everything seemed absolutely right in the world, that is, until my 5-year old, as she was boosting herself up onto the planter, lost her death grip on the gold ba…I mean chocolate Mickey bar and it hit the pavement with a resounding splat! There was no five-second rule here because no sooner did it hit the sizzling ground, vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate melded together into a sticky symphony. For a moment it was like everything around us went eerily quiet as my daughter’s big brown eyes darted to the mess on the ground, to mine, to the mess on the ground, and back to mine. Just as the tears were pooling in her eyes and I was suddenly feeling like everything was absolutely NOT right in the world, a young man dressed in a pressed white shirt and slacks, adorned with a thin black belt and polished black shoes, leaned in, seemingly from out of nowhere, with a broom and trash pan to consume the mess. As he performed this task effortlessly, he smiled and inquired, “Ma’am, may I get you another?” I have to be completely frank, with the sweat dripping off my forehead, my permed hair getting bigger by the minute, and my ice cream beginning to drip down my forearm, my first thought was to scream, “What?! Another at five bucks?!” Uncertain of his intention, I decided a more cautious approach might be prudent. I quietly whispered, in the event he was about to commit a crime, “Can you…do that?” To which he confidently replied, “Ma’am, this is Disney, we can do anything.” And then this wonderful young man, who for some weird reason in my mind’s eye bears a striking resemblance to Bert, Dick Van Dyke’s character from Mary Poppins, in his perfect white shirt and pants, circled behind the counter of the ice cream kiosk, had a brief exchange with the cast member manning it, and returned with a new ice cream bar that he graciously bent down and presented to my daughter.

I knew immediately that something pretty incredible had just happened. And, I have never forgotten this defining moment because this was the instant I fell in love with The Walt Disney Company. Imagine a mammoth organization that empowers its employees, all the way down to the janitors, to ensure the customer experience is nothing short of amazing. It was on this day Disney had me at, “Ma’am, may I get you another?” It was the start of a beautiful love affair that has spanned two decades.

For years this relationship between Disney and I has flourished. Their commitment to the ultimate customer experience has been reaffirmed visit after visit over the years as I’ve interacted with Disney cast members at their parks, or resorts around the world. My kids, now nearly all grown, have inherited my love for the Disney experience and still enjoy going, so I continue to have a legitimate excuse for making the 500 mile pilgrimage from Reno, Nevada to Anaheim, California. But something seems amiss on recent visits. In the past couple of years I’ve noticed a subtle transition in the demeanor among many of the park cast members. Naturally, the thought of this is unsettling because I so covet the relationship I have with this company – I like them. They make me feel valued, and for this reason I don’t mind giving them my money. It’s as though I want to give them piles of, tons of, all of my money.

On a recent visit I struck up a conversation with a couple of cast members at the park. One of them, we’ll call him Samuel from San Dimas, California, was a friendly, young, energetic fellow and our dialogue was fun and natural. I teased him about his name plate and said something along the lines of, “So Samuel, if that’s actually your name? I’ve always wonder if you guys forget your name plate, do you have a box of random name plates in the back that you grab from for the day?” Laughing, Samuel shared with me that he actually did, on one occasion, forget his name plate and commandeered the name plate of another. He explained how awkward it is when your name plate reads Ernest, from Grinnell, Iowa and you run into a guest who happens to hail from Grinnell, who wants to know what street you lived on. It was an easy-going conversation so I pressed on, “Do you always work the same area or ride in the park?” It turns out each department is run like a business and you float within the business unit where you’re needed. After some more fun banter, I said to Samuel, “It must be really great to work here!” He leaned over to the cast member next to him, laughed and said to her, “I don’t know…is it?” We’ll call her Beth, from Temecula, California, a pleasant fifty-something year old woman. She wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic as my friend Samuel from San Dimas, as she mumbled some inside joke to him that I couldn’t quite make out.

As our conversation wound down, I asked Beth how long she’d worked there. She replied that she’d originally worked for Disney in 2001 and left the company for an office job. Then the economy failed, and layoffs followed claiming her as a casualty. So she returned to Disney in 2009. She was incredibly nice, but I was struck by how beat she looked. I didn’t need to ask more questions to reach the conclusion that Disney was like any other company struggling in the 21st Century melt down. Its people had to do more with less. They were expected to pick up the slack, and do it with the same level of energy and enthusiasm. This explained why the parks weren’t as spotless as they once were, why ride lines were longer because access points were limited to one, or why in general the cast members you encountered seemed to be dialed down a notch or two. It’s a business strategy that doesn’t net good results for any company, its people, or the customer. Still, this company was built on The Customer Experience – they personified it. They seemed to have it down to a science, yet I had just witnessed a little crack in the glass ceiling. I have faith in Disney. The accomplishments of this company are remarkable. I’m betting that they’re going to be okay. I suspect they’ll get some glass sealant and stop the crack from radiating in different directions and getting completely out of control. It’s been my observation that this is an organization with executives who are innately tuned into the importance of the customer experience and defending it.

I had an exchange a few years ago with a then colleague of mine. I was attempting to demonstrate the importance of the customer experience and how critical it was to our business model. I used my Disney ice cream experience as an example when explaining how emotional connections with customers are formed, and to be lasting customer relationships must be constantly nurtured and reaffirmed. I mentioned that during another trip to Florida, while staying at a Disney property that had recently opened, I walked into the lobby and there was Michael Eisner, standing with a man who I surmised was the hotel general manager. The two well-dressed men were engaged in an animated conversation which appeared to concern the draperies that ran ceiling to floor in this very grand lobby modeled after the turn of the century. Intrigued, I patiently took a seat and watched this exchange unfold until the two men eventually meandered off to another destination in the hotel, I assumed to critique some other element. Man, if I could have followed them to continue my business lesson I would have. Thinking it wouldn’t bode well with my family, and not wanting to get arrested for stalking Michael Eisner, instead I wandered off to locate my family.

I later read that Eisner was critical to evolving Walt Disney’s original vision for his company by creating the modern standard of excellence, with the emphasis on the customer experience that Disney is remembered for. He was so consumed by this that he often demanded to see the designs for bedding and window dressings for each of the resorts to ensure they met his standard for the guests. I was fascinated by what I had observed in the lobby that day, and the idea that the leader of a massive company like Disney, was so engrossed in the central nervous system of the organization. My colleague, however, seemed to miss my point entirely, preferring to point out that Eisner was a control freak that demanded perfection, and sometimes drove people out of the company. Was Eisner difficult? I wasn’t trying to debate that. Was talent sometimes driven out? Maybe, but who’s to say it wasn’t for the good of the company? I think Eisner had an uncanny ability to put himself in the shoes of the customer and that made him an exceptional authority. So it’s easy to see how that philosophy trickled down and blanketed an entire company the size of a small country. I guess what I’m really saying is, I think Eisner understood the true meaning of an E ticket and that’s what he aspired to be. He also made those expectations clear to all around him.

For a company to be exceptionally tuned into their customer experience, every person in the company must be fully engaged. They have a need-to-know, and must understand and embrace the core principals and philosophies of the organization. Your talent at every level within your organization must be empowered to act within their role – or take it to someone who can act beyond their authority. This is fundamental because every single person within your organization has the ability to impact how your company is perceived by your customers; they are all marketers and you should never lose sight of this. In this uncharted, new business climate, the ability of organizational leaders to make concise, strategic determinations, and achieve the task of successfully drilling it down within the organization, is critical to ensuring to your staff that not only your business, but they too, are sustainable.

You can be the B Ticket, but I say own it and Be The E Ticket!