Wow Customers with an Experience, Said PestWorld Speaker Dennis Snow

ORLANDO – “When companies take a task approach to customer service people feel processed. When companies care about the quality of the experience, [customers] feel valued.” That was the message PestWorld attendees heard from Dennis Snow, a customer service expert and consultant who spent 20 years with Walt Disney World. Snow spoke during a Thursday morning session sponsored by Syngenta.

Snow said that with daily job pressures it’s easy for employees (including managers) to take a “task mentality” to service when they should always be striving to “deliver an experience.”

Snow said three things are necessary to create an experience.
(1) Look at everything through the lens of the customer. Snow recommended that any business should take a step back and review all processes from the customer’s perspective. “You will find that you do some things well and other things not so well,” Snow said. An example Snow provided of an entity not viewing things from the customer perspective was a hospital he visited that had a colored and numbered directory sign that really only made sense to hospital employees — and not to visitors.

An example Snow provided of a company that does excel at delivering customer experience is Southwest Airlines. He recalled a recent flight in which a stewardess gave the routine and mundane speech about "checking the overhead bins for items that might have shifted" by adding the phrase “Shift happens.” It was a fun and easy way to enhance the customer experience. Reflecting on his time at Disney, Snow said bus drivers began doing trivia and singing after Disney recognized that it needed to do something to address the “end of the day blues” and stresses involved when exiting the parks.

(2) Pay attention to details. “Every detail from the quality of work you do, to the tone of voice you use either enhances or detracts” the experience, Snow said. For example, Snow once stayed at a hotel room with a sign that read “all towels will be inventoried.” Although not the intent, the message came across as accusatory. Snow said that the more people are held accountable for their actions, the more they become habits (e.g., at Disney, team members are always on the look out for trash that can be picked up).

(3) Create moments of wow. Don’t deliver one big wow moment; deliver many little wow moments.  Again, Snow reflected on his time at Disney for an example of company that strings together little wow moments. He said Disney team members are always on alert for families taking photos. If they see a mom or dad taking a photo, they will approach the photographer and volunteer to take a family picture.

Relating the customer experience back to the pest control industry, Snow suggested companies review all customer touch points (e.g., phone calls, initial and follow-up visits), identify if they are taking a task-based approach, or if they are delivering a wow experience.