Do you want to create a magical customer service experience for your clients? In this episode, Vance Morris joins Matt to share his seven keys to turning your customer service into an amazing experience for your customers.

ABOUT VANCE

Vance Morris is the Service & Marketing Strategist at Deliver Service Now Institute. He is a former Birth Control Factory Security Guard turned Disney Leader, turned Bankrupt Out of Work Executive, turned Carpet Cleaner, turned Successful Entrepreneur.

Here’s a summary of the great stuff that we cover in this show:

• Deliver ServiceNow Institute is all about creating experiences for clients. They use the term “Disnify”, which is creating experiences out of the mundane. Every business has tons of things that are mundane that they need to do day in and day out to keep the business running. Disney has just created experiences out of each one of those touchpoints and so can you!
• Vance has come up with 7 Magic Keys to Disnifying your customer service. They are namely, creating the wow experience, focussing on the details, the employee experience, your service standards, the environment that you have your employees working in, the process and the magic of bringing it all together.
• Vance believes that with a little bit of care and thought, any business can create Wow experiences for their clients. Taking inspiration from some of the principles he learnt from his time at Disney, like anticipatory service, linertainment etc. he developed his 7 keys to Disnify your Customer Service. He says, if he can implement Disney style service in a carpet cleaning service, anyone can!

For complete show notes, transcript and links to our guest, check out our website: www.ecommerce-podcast.com.

Welcome to the eCommerce podcast with

me, your host, Matt Edmundson.

The eCommerce podcast is all about helping you deliver eCommerce wow.

And to help us do just that.

Today's guest is Vance Morris from Deliver Service Now Institute, which

just sounds amazing, doesn't it?

And we're gonna be talking about how to bring the magic of

Disney to your customer service.

Oh yes.

I'm a big Disney fan, I'm not gonna lie.

So I'm loving the sound effects.

Uh, before Vance and I jump into it.

Let me suggest a couple of more podcasts on this topic, although not

specifically about Disney, but certainly about the customer experience, uh,

that I think you'll enjoy listening to.

Check out how to improve your omnichannel customer service with Rytis Lauris, and

also personalize the customer journey to increase lifetime value with Matt Barnett.

You can find both of those.

In fact, you can find our entire archive of episodes.

On our website for free at ecommercepodcast.net.

Now, this show is brought to you by the eCommerce cohort, uh, which helps you

deliver eCommerce wow to your customers.

Vance, I'm sure, right?

You've come across a bunch of folks who get stuck and siloed

into working into just one or two areas of their business, right?

And miss the big picture, so I know I did this.

I almost lost my entire online business as a result, uh, by

not seeing the bigger picture.

Well, for those of you in eCommerce, we now have the eCommerce cohort

to solve this particular problem.

It's a lightweight membership group with guided monthly sprints that cycle

through all the key areas of eCommerce.

So you never get stuck, you never get siloed.

You always get to see the big picture, which let me tell you changes everything.

Look at that.

The music stopped at just the right time.

So whether you are starting out an eCommerce or if like me, you're

a well established eCommercer, I wanna encourage you, check it out.

You can reach, you can find out more information on the website

ecommercecohort.com, or email me directly at matt@commercepodcast.net

with any questions.

Because I think it's perfect for anyone.

Now it's worth saying, Vance, that we are connected, uh, because of the incredible

Brian Roisentul, uh, who connected us.

Uh, Brian is an expert in paid media.

He also has a podcast called Fit Growth Machine that I've been a guest on.

So do check out, Uh, Brian and his website are on his website,

bsrdigital.com, uh, which will also be linked in our show notes.

Vance, let's talk about you.

Uh, it says here you are a and I have to be honest with you, this is one

of the best bios I think we've ever read out, uh, on this show, right?

Uh, it says that you are a former birth control factory security guard

turned Disney leader turned bankrupt out of work, executive turned carpet

cleaner, turned successful entrepreneur.

Welcome to the show.

Uh, it's an amazing bio.

It sounds like my life right there.

It's so intriguing, uh, as a bio.

Uh, it's, um, I, I love the tongue and cheek nature of it.

I have to go onto you, but that bio, How long did it take you to write that?

Because it's not a typical bio, right?

Did it just flow or was it, was it well thought through?

Well, once I realized, I stopped taking myself so seriously.

Mm-hmm.

, it was easy to write.

Um, you know, some, I mean, small business, whether you're, you know,

eCommerce online or whether you have a bricks and mortar main street store.

We're, we're not the big giants.

And so the only thing that separates me from all of the other

consultants out there is my story.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and if you look deep enough into your story now, I, granted I was a security

guard, um, at a birth control factory, , this is, it's how I paid for college.

Uh, one of the ways working overnight.

And you know, it's just part of who I am and something like that

is either gonna say, you know, this guy's really interesting.

I want to hear more about him.

Or it's gonna be like, What a joke.

Let's move on.

And if you remember just the basics of marketing.

Your marketing is designed to do two things.

Attract the people you wanna do business with.

Mm-hmm.

and repel the people.

You don't mm-hmm.

. And so I feel that with just being announced that way or

introduced, we'll do exactly that.

So, yeah.

I don't know if you can see the number of people that have just already

dropped off of this podcast, but

let's, we, we'll have a look at the data.

I dunno what, what's the time spent?

We'll,

we'll just take it from here.

And, um,

We'll definitely check it out, right?

I think we're like five minutes into it.

So I'm just gonna check out the, uh, the stats.

So you started out, um, As a birth control security guard you're

doing through college, but the, the thing that you became known

for is working for Disney, right?

And there's, Mickey Mouse is behind you.

There's, for people who are listening to the podcast, I can see Mickey Mouse

and all kinds of Disney memorabilia.

Uh, behind Brian.

Uh, behind Brian Brian's, okay.

Referred you behind Vance.

There.

Uh, now, , you, you obviously, you went from being a, a security guard.

You ended up at Disney, and now you run a company called

Deliver ServiceNow Institute.

So what is Deliver ServiceNow Institute?

Uh, what, what do you do there?

What's going on?

Sure.

Um, it's all about creating experiences for clients.

Um, I've, I, I use the term Disneyfy.

Mm-hmm.

. Which is creating experiences out of the mundane.

So every business has something.

It has tons of things that are mundane that they need to do day in and day

out to keep the business running.

Um, I just have followed what Disney did.

I mean, I was there for 10 years and really Disney has the same mundane things.

You do, that they do.

Okay.

Answer the telephone.

Yeah.

Welcome guests to a hotel, have a eCommerce platform.

Um, Disney has just created experiences out of each one of those touchpoints,

and that's where you know the, and, and if you really want know, it took me a

long time to come up with the company name because if you just take the

acronym of Deliver ServiceNow Institute, it spells out D S N I, which if you

wanna pronounce sounds like Disney.

Ah.

I see what you did there.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

I see what you did there.

Okay.

. Vance Morris: But you know,

I mean, you know, they are, you know, one of the gold standards in customer service.

Mm-hmm.

creating experiences, but there are so many others out there and

some that you haven't even heard.

I mean, you know, there's Ritz Carlton, there's Zappos, um, you know, there's a

number of really big well known companies out there that, that deliver the client

experience, but it's the small ones that just go through their life cycle, their

lifetime that you'll never hear about.

Um, now I'm wondering, and I'm probably guessing that nobody in

your audience has ever heard of the Eastern Shore carpet cleaning company.

I dunno.

Probably.

Yeah, probably not.

Let's assume not.

Yeah.

Right.

So my, that, that's the name of one of my bricks and mortar businesses.

Mm-hmm.

. So I think one of the things that separates me is that everything

that I teach, everything that I talk about, I have implemented

in my own main street businesses.

So I, I currently still own three, um, here in Maryland, in the US and

that is, Kind of my, my, my basis, um, it's my credibility because if I can

implement Disney style standards in a carpet cleaning business, There isn't

anybody on this planet that can't do it.

, Matt Edmundson: That's, that's

Does it?

Does it work?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, fair play.

Fair play.

So in your, uh, ds, uh, deliver dsni in, you know, that clever, um, with

the deliver service now, so you've been running that, you've got the carpet

cleaning businesses, but during these 10 years at.Disney, you learned these seven

magic keys to Disnify your business, which is what we're getting into mm-hmm.

today.

So these are the same principles that you've applied to your

carpet cleaning business.

These are the same principles that anyone can apply to their

business, uh, to deliver.

I like this phrase that you used experiences out of the mundane.

Uh, I, I, I think that was quite nice.

So what I wanna do, Vance, because knowing how much you and I like to talk, um,

let's when we get going, uh, let's have, um, a a just briefly run us through what

these seven magic keys are and then we'll deep dive into, uh, some or all of them.

Sure.

So, uh, the first one, which everybody thinks is the most sexy,

um, is creating the wow experience.

Uh, so that's where we literally do create the experiences out of the mundane mm-hmm.

. Um, and, and I've got a system for it.

And it's actually pretty simple, you know, And that's the other thing with

Disney is that all of the systems Disney uses are simple, because if you think

about who's working there, they've got 85,000, you know, 18 to 22 year olds.

Um, if they didn't have a simple system, everything would just crash and burn.

Mm-hmm.

, uh, magic key number two is all about the details.

Um, so what Disney focuses on, what I focus on and what your listeners should

be focusing on are those itty bitty little minute details in the business.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, and we can go into depth on that one because a lot of those, um, especially if

you run a, you know, a doctor's office, the last thing you wanna do is have, say,

dusty house plants in the waiting room.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, what does that say about the rest of the practice.

Yeah.

Um, I talk quite a bit about what I call, um, uh, the employee experience.

Um, so you know, I have a number of those, um, more than I want,

um, in most of my businesses.

It's the bane of all of our existence is employees.

Yeah.

Um, but.

If the employees don't have a great experience, they are not

going to deliver experiences for your customers and your clients.

Okay.

Um, We talk, uh, quite a bit.

Magic key number four is about your service standards.

What do you stand for?

What is your mission?

Um, you know, Disney, I'm sure has a mission statement.

Uh, it's probably in a leather binder somewhere in Burbank,

California up on a pedestal.

Um, and I challenge anyone to go ask any Disney employee, Hey, what's the

mission statement of the company?

Not a one, not even the CEO knows what it is.

But I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about your mission.

Mm-hmm.

. And this is what any minimum wage employee can wrap their brains around.

Um, talk extensively about magic key number five, which is the environment.

Uh, not so much global warming as the environment that you have your

customers or your employees working in.

Okay.

You know, is it a environment that is conducive to service, conducive to sales,

or is it a hostile selling environment?

Um, the next one is magic key number six is all about process.

Um, that one really is the crux that is the bedrock of how, um, myself and Disney,

consistently deliver experiences that just are over the top and blow people away.

Um, and it's Disney runs on three words.

Um, it's beautiful.

Like I said, if you know the minimum wage employees can't do it, then

the system will just fall apart.

Mm-hmm.

. And then magic key number seven is the magic of bringing it all together.

I've got a super duper top secret algebraic formula that.

Um, bring it all together for you.

Excellent.

And for those of you dunno what algebra means, join the club, right..

I dunno, I just threw that word in there.

It sounded good.

Yes.

Sound like you know what, uh, Vince, this is not relayed to anything but

my son, my eldest son currently is studying theoretical physics at St.

Andrews University and he came he was back at the house a couple of weeks

ago, um, and he was doing some work.

He had some, you know, uh, homework to do.

And I said, Josh, what are you doing?

And he said, Dad, unbelievably, this is literally rocket science . I was

like, What is going on in my life?

Anyway, it was way over my head.

I just wanna point out, I, yeah,

my son's the same quantitative marketing.

Quantitative.

So that's basically marketing with data, I would've thought.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

But still, I'm,

Yeah.

Put me in a room with the people where I can shake their hands.

No, I'll be alright.

, so you, you've got these seven magic keys, uh, you like to call them from Disney.

So this is from your time of, uh, working at Disney.

One of the things that maybe I should ask you that I haven't yet is,

what did you actually do at Disney?

. Vance Morris: Sure.

Um, that was a long and storied career.

Um, I opened up a number of their resorts, uh, which was a lot of fun.

Uh, great introduction to the company.

Mm-hmm.

, I learned how, and actually opening the first resort, I learned

how Disney handles mistakes.

Um, now, I mean, we all have mistakes in our business, but you know, when

Disney has a mistake, it's usually in the millions or billions of dollars as

opposed to our, you know $42 mistake that we may have had shipping an order.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, and you know how Disney recovers from those and how they recover

profitably it was just amazing.

Um, I worked at a little place called Pleasure Island.

Uh, okay.

This was Disney's, uh, failed attempt at booze, debauchery,

scantily clad women, um cetera.

Um, it was a, uh, a five acre.

Uh, island with seven nightclubs on it.

Oh, wow.

What could go wrong?

? Matt Edmundson: Everything.

I would've thought.

Yeah.

Um, I mean now it made a lot of money.

Mm-hmm.

, Um, again, that was a, wasn't a mistake because Disney allowed

it to go on for 15 or 17 years.

Um, but at the time the idea was sound in that they were missing a key demographic.

Mm.

Which was the ages of 18 to 35.

People that were too old to go on, it's a small world and enjoy

themselves, but yet they were too young to have a family of their own.

So instead, uh, and this is before streaming and Disney Plus and everything

else, um, but they thought it, you know, in order to attract that 18 to 30

Crowd, this is what they needed to do.

Financially it worked.

Um, you know, uh, for their brand, probably not the best thing because

yeah, this is the first Disney Park where there were, uh, police

officers permanently stationed on horseback, um, just outside the park.

Nightly occurrences of throwing many, many, many people out of the park.

Mm-hmm, because that's what happens at nightclubs, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

You drink too much, you get thrown out.

Yep.

Yeah.

Um, but my last position there was as the food and beverage manager

for the contemporary resort, uh, which is the resort that has the

monorail that goes through it.

I was on the design team of a little restaurant called Chef Mickey's.

Uh, it was 400 seats.

Uh, this is where, uh, the mouse comes to your table while you're dining.

You don't need to stand in line.

Um, and really this is, putting this restaurant together was, is really

the crux of all seven magic keys.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, our mission was to get the mouse through 400 seats in 43 minutes and make

it feel like it was a great experience.

Wow, .That's a really interesting task.

Uh, you know, really interesting project.

It, it was, you know, I mean everything, you know,

talk, we, we talk about, I mean, we completely go off the rails here

and talk about employee engagement.

You know, the only way to get employee, you never get employees

to have that ownership mentality.

Mm-hmm.

, uh, because.

, they're not owners.

And I think it's kind of a slap in the face to 'em, unless you're going to

give 'em a percentage of the company.

Yeah.

But you do want engaged employees.

Mm-hmm.

. And in order to do that, you have to get them involved in the

day to day, um, decision making.

Now, granted you're going to give parameters.

Um, and that's what we did with our mission.

So we went to every department and we said, Look, we got, you know, 400 seats.

We gotta get the mouse through in 43 minutes, and we have to

make it a great experience, okay.

To the bus boys.

We said, Mr.

Bus, boy, how can you help us?

These are the guys that clean the tables in between, uh, parties.

And they're like, well, Right now it takes us, you know, some extra

time we have to take, uh, the sugar, uh, boat off the table and there's a

salt paper, salt and pepper shakers.

And then we've got a little basket and it's got, you know, a card on it.

We got all this stuff.

We gotta move before we can actually clean the table.

If you just put it all in a little carrier, we could just move that carrier,

clean the table, put it back, bam.

28 seconds gained.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, so that, so every single department we did that with mm-hmm.

and everybody contributed.

Um, and it was amazing how vibrant and how just really, really excited

they were about being part of creating something instead of just

going through their jobs every day.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That sounds incredible.

And it's, it's one of those things, isn't it?

And again, we have found this, um, we had this thing, uh, in

our, in our eCommerce business.

I, I didn't call 'em Disney Magic or, or any of that.

I called them SMOCS.

Right.

Um, which stood for sexy moments of customer service.

Oh wow.

And yeah, yeah.

Smocs, that's what we call them.

And the, the only way that they worked was if all the staff were

engaged with them because it was, it was the guys in the warehouse,

It was the customer service staff, It was the Do, You know what I mean?

It was all these guys in the process who were involved.

And they had to, they had to own that.

And they, because it had to come from them, it couldn't come from me.

Uh, and so I'm really, It is really fascinating when you hear these stories.

You know, like Disney and stuff and how you engage employees because uh,

like you say, it was on your list.

You know, for me, one of those, one of those things to great customer

service was employee engagement.

Actually them saying, Doesn't matter what my job is, I'm responsible for customer

engagement, for customer service, uh, and I need to be able to do something.

I need to be empowered to make that better.

and that's where your mission comes in.

Um, you know, we talked a little bit about, you know, the mission

statement being up on a, on a pedestal.

I mean, Disney's mission, pure and simple is to create happiness, make people happy.

Mm-hmm, I mean, any minimum wage employee can wrap their head around that.

Mm-hmm.

, Um, they know.

And the thing is, is that your mission has to be bigger than your job.

So the mission is to make people happy.

Your job might be to sweep the streets or, you know, operate a

ride or something like that, but it always came down to the mission.

If people understand that mm-hmm.

, um, they are a lot more bought in.

That's why you have all of these, you know, crazy Disney employees, you know,

running up to you, Ah, how can I help you?

You know?

Mm-hmm.

, um, you know, Disney calls it being aggressively friendly.

That's such a great phrase.

I'm being aggressively friendly today, on a scale of one to 10,

how aggressively friendly are you?

Yeah.

And if you're not used to it, it will scare the living bejesus out of yourself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's especially being English.

Um, it's funny when you go to places like Disney World be in English because

there's, there's a level of service I think you, you get used to in America.

You know, I've been to the States a lot.

Um, and just simple things like when you go to a restaurant, the way, um, staff

are to you when they're in a restaurant.

It's not always been like that in England.

Let's just be clear.

Right.

And so, uh, the England and, and again in different nations, you know,

there's, I went into one restaurant the other day, which I won't tell you

what nationality the restaurant was, wasn't American, It wasn't English.

I almost felt like.

I was interrupting their day.

Do, you know what I mean?

When I sort of went in and slammed, really, I'm, I, I almost felt

like I needed to apologize for being there and ordering food.

Right?

Um, and, and so I appreciate different nations approach customer

service in very different ways.

And there is this reputation that certainly outside of America that

Americans have for customer service.

And then when you do go to Disney, it is like a whole other level.

I'm like, where do you find these people.

Right?

How do you ? Where do they come from?

I genuinely don't know.

And so it does fascinate me, uh, this whole aggressive friendliness thing,

you know, that Disney's got going on.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, it, it may be a little bit over the top, but you know,

it's all about Disney does something that's called anticipatory service.

Okay.

Um, where you anticipate what the guest or what the, uh, uh,

uh, customer is going to ask you.

Before they ask.

Mm-hmm.

. And a great example of that really quickly is, let's say it's a really hot day out.

You walk into a restaurant, you ask for a glass of water, and they say no.

Well, that's bad service.

We would all agree.

Okay?

Yep.

Then you walk into the same restaurant, same hot day, you ask for a glass

of water and they give it to you.

Well, that's what you would expect.

That's satisfactory service.

But if you wanna offer anticipatory service, I mean the over the

top stuff, you go to the same restaurant, same really hot day.

And when you walk in, there's a host of standing there with a little

silver tray on it, or two glasses of still two glasses of sparkling water.

And they announce, Wow, it's really hot outside.

May I offer you a glass of water?

Yep.

I mean, it's just with that example, you can see the difference between, I mean,

skip the bad service, but the difference between just what you would expect.

Mm-hmm.

and creating an experience or knowing that the customer is going to ask for a glass

of water and offering it before they.

Yeah, before they do that.

Yeah, no, Fascinating.

Absolutely.

So you said earlier that, um, when you're talking about, uh, magic key number

six, process continually deliver these experience or consistency, you said that

Disney runs on three words, and I assume the three words are make people happy.

No.

Okay.

That's the mission, interestingly enough.

No, I will like,

Okay, so what are the three words you'd, I'm

curious know, I'll tell you.

Yeah, yeah.

Dig in.

Let's go..

I have my pen ready?

Vance.

I'm good..

So, you know, as business owners or managers, you know, we are,

we fall, fall into the category of telling our employees what to do.

So that's the first word.

You gotta tell 'em what to.

The next thing that as managers and business owners we do,

is we tell them how to do it.

So that's word number two is how we got what and how 90% of companies around the

world that I've encountered stop there.

Mm-hmm.

and do not use the third word which Disney uses.

Which is why, okay, why do we do it the way we do it?

Um, so a great, um, you know, example, uh, would be answering the phone.

Uh, so I work with some very, what we would consider mundane businesses, um,

insurance accountants, things like that.

Um, no offense to insurance owners, accountants, but um, you know, they

answer the phone, you know, Thank you for calling Dave's Insurance.

How may I help you?

That's pretty much if you call any insurance company, you're gonna get that.

Um, again, going back to my roots of a uh, uh, birth control factory security guard.

I was working with a few insurance companies and one gentleman was

a giant rock and roll fanatic.

I mean, he was, uh, you know, he had pictures of the who led Zeppelin

autograph guitars, you know, gold records on the walls, et cetera, et cetera.

After some, some prompting and some work and some brainstorming, um,

they began answering the phone.

Thank you for calling Dave's Insurance, the agency that rocks.

Now.

Sounds a little corny, you know, and after you say it about 10 times, the

team really had no problem with it.

But that's that.

Why, how, what do we do?

Answer the phone.

How do we do it?

Thank you for calling Dave's Insurance the agency that rocks.

Yep.

The big thing that got the employees to buy in is, why do we do it that way?

Mm-hmm.

one obviously separates us from every other insurance company that that person

is ever gonna call the rest of the day.

Mm-hmm.

, Um, two, going back to what we said at the beginning of the um, uh, of the

interview is that your marketing is designed to do two things, attract people.

You want repel people, you don't.

Mm-hmm.

just by answering the phone.

That way they sift, sorted, and screened out people that would not

be a good match for their firm.

Mm-hmm..

So, you know, it, people would be like, Oh, I'm, I'm, you know, They're jokers,

we're not gonna do business with them.

Great.

Then there's others that'll be like, Wow, you know, these people

don't take themselves too seriously.

Sounds like some fun.

Uh, they've got great reviews online.

Let's see what it's all about.

Yeah.

That's really, So how would they, um, cuz I'm sitting here thinking,

well, okay, this is great.

You know, I mean, we, I have an e-commerce business and do people, you

know, I answer the phone, Hi, we're, you know, widget company and we're gonna

tightly rock your water, whatever it is.

Right.

How do, how do you.

And don't get me wrong, it's not just on when people phone, you can use

this all over the place, can't you?

Especially with e-commerce businesses.

How do you come up with that line?

Sure.

I mean, the honestly, even the owner didn't come up with this, and this

goes again back to the employee engagement is we just brainstormed.

You know, we looked around, we said, Okay, rock and roll.

We, we just wrote it down on a piece of paper.

Um, and we had, I mean, we had those big Post-it notes all over

the room of, you know, different words, different uh, things.

Um, you know, all right, what do people in the rock and roll roll world say?

Um, you know, We're gonna rock your world.

We're gonna, you know, we're gonna, you know, rock this house.

Um, so I mean, we had all permutation.

I mean, we didn't do it overnight.

Mm-hmm.

, um, I mean, this was probably a, you know, good solid.

10, 14 days of just batting stuff around until we landed on it.

And it was actually one of the employees that said, not only do we have to

use those particular words, but we need to use that voice inflection.

the agency that rocks, you know, So you sound like a DJ on the radio.

Yeah.

Um, and it was an employee that said, you know, we should really do that cuz

that's, you can't just say the words and not have the, the, um, the voice

inflection or the energy behind it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's really, that's awesome.

It's, um, this, for me, I've often found actually, when it

comes to things like this, it's.

What do we value?

What about what are, what are the values that we have as a company?

What do the values our customers hold?

And where can those two things collide?

And I tend to find fun, although certainly for me, I, I like businesses that don't

take themselves too seriously, that do have a bit of fun, and that tends to

come across in everything that we do.

So I quite like this.

So let's go back to the sexy one, as you like to call it.

Um, the creating wow experiences.

Uh, it was systematized and it was simple.

Um, mm-hmm.

. Now this intrigues me cuz one, you've used the word Wow.

Uh, and for regular listeners to the show, we like to use the word wow.

A lot.

In fact, not that you can see.

And we now, we all have t-shirts coming soon where they say, Wow.

On anyway, um, wow is a good word.

I like, Wow, Wow works for me.

Uh, so I'm intrigued by this create wow experiences.

What's.

How do we do that?

Let's dig into that one.

Well, the, the mission statement or the mission that I

give, you know, the clients that I work with or people that are, um,

in my audience, is at the end of any interaction with your business, you

want your clients going away, being your raving fans, being your microphone.

Like, Oh my God, you'll never guess what happened, insert your business here.

Mm-hmm.

. So you'll, Oh my God, you'll never guess what happened at the oil change today.

Mm-hmm.

now, unless it's a really great experience, that conversation

is never going to happen.

Yeah.

Right.

So, and it's again, creating those experiences out of the mundane, and

it's just looking for opportunities.

So, um, one of the, um, Examples I like to use.

Uh, we have an airline here in the States called Southwest Airlines.

Mm-hmm.

, Um, and they're, you know, budget carrier.

Nothing exciting about 'em.

Um, but they are, as their CEO called them.

Um, we are a customer service company.

We just happen to fly planes.

Mm-hmm.

And so they give their employees wide latitude on how to engage customers.

Um, or, or, uh, passengers while they're on the jet.

So in the states, and I'm sure this is probably worldwide, one of the things

that our FAA, um, uh, mandates is that the flight attendants have to say, uh,

be careful opening up the overhead bins.

Uh, items have a tendency to shift in flight.

Mm-hmm.

, we've all heard some version of that announcement.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, you know, the government mandates that the flight attendants say that.

Well, on this particular flight that I was.

You know, the, the flight attendant gets on and says, you know, uh, be

careful up, uh, opening up the overhead bins, um, after, after we land.

Um, you know, you know, items have a tendency to shift in flight,

and as you know, shift happens.

So, you know, so people are smiling, you know, I mean, when was the last time you

got off a flight and you were smiling?

Now they also take it to the pilot.

So the pilot got in on the action, same flight.

And you know how when the airplane hits the runway when they're landing

and they put those reverse thruster things on to slow the plane down.

So, you know, we're going, we're going, we hit the runway and over

the PA system comes the pilot.

Whoa, doggy.

Now, if you think about it, what this is, I can't make this up.

It's like being birth control factory guard.

This is real.

You now have 180 people getting off that plane.

A, they're smiling.

B, they might even be happy, but C, they are going to talk about that flight.

Yeah.

Oh my God, you'll never guess what happened on my flight over here today.

Yeah.

Which will then prompt a conversation.

Mm-hmm.

, you know, most people when they go, Oh man, you'll never guess

what happened on that flight today.

You know, the, there was no service.

The toilet was stopped up, you know, the, the flight was bumpy.

It's usually complaints, but just by allowing the employees a little bit

of latitude following the federal guidelines, but a little latitude.

They've now endeared themselves to, like I said, and I, you know, I

mean, that happened a long time ago.

I'm still talking about it.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

And I've seen Virgin do that, for example, in the UK, you know,

sort of similar sorts of things.

Mm-hmm.

, um, how do you see that working online?

So how do we, uh, have you seen any examples of online companies

doing stuff like that, for example?

Well, sure.

So, I mean, you know, I think that, how.

one, I look at what are called points of, uh, or being in the department

of, uh, service or sales prevention.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, so going through your, your, your entire sales cycle, uh, you know, going

through as a, uh, as a customer through, you know, your entire web process

will give you opportunities, one, to eliminate things that are barriers

to the service, barriers to the sale.

Um, but you identify each of those key points.

Um, and one of the things that, especially if you have to wait for something to

happen, um, like you place an order now, you've gotta wait for the order to arrive.

Mm-hmm.

, there's a waiting period.

What do.

You do during that time of order to the time of product arriving at your home.

Um, Disney calls it linertainment.

They entertain you while you're in line.

So the key thing is, is how do you make it feel like there is not a lot of time

in between the order and the delivery?

And a lot of companies will just say all right, Thanks for your order

and, you just wait for it to show up.

Mm-hmm.

, Uh, there are a number of companies here, uh, in the states, um, and I'm sure

you have them, uh, in the UK as well, where, uh, oh, for instance, um, I have

a, uh, lawn service, uh, that comes, uh, once a month and they, you know,

kill the weeds and everything like that.

They actually have an app that will show where the technician is, and

I get alerts either through email or text will show me where the

technician is in relation to my home.

Mm-hmm.

. And so I can follow him, his van on a map.

As he is making his way to my house and I'll get alerts, it says, Hey, you know,

uh, uh, Steve is wrapping up his last job.

He's getting ready to get in the van and come see you.

Um, and then et cetera, cetera, etcetera.

Um, there are some eCommerce companies that I've seen, uh, that do that as well.

Hey, the, the, uh, the elves are packaging up your, uh, your product.

Mm-hmm.

, um, Okay.

The, the, the postal service has picked up your product and you can

actually like track this on a map.

So having engagement with, um, the person who's made the purchase, um, I mean,

there's all sorts of ways that you can do, uh, you know, do something like that.

That's really interesting, isn't it?

And it's, um, so you map out your touch points, um, and you look at

those and you kind of go, Well, how can we make this better?

And I what, One of the conversations I've never had on this podcast, uh,

Vance, is the, is the, what do you do from between this line, linertainment,

you called it, uh, this sort of your customers placed the order you've

shown them, the thank you page.

And there's gonna be a period where they're waiting and they're anticipating.

That's really clever.

So I guess, how would I brainstorm that if I'm, if I'm listening to

the podcast here and I'm thinking that's, that's actually clever cuz

I, no one's ever thought of this.

Uh, you know what, how would I brainstorm around that?

How would I think, um, or how would I start to discover some of the things maybe

that I could do, which would really help?

Yeah.

You know, definitely.

I mean, and, and I, I don't wanna gloss over linertainment because when

you go to Disney, that's what you do.

You wait.

Mm-hmm.

, you wait for a hamburger, you wait in line for a ride.

Um, you know, they can't make the line any shorter, so you have to wait.

It's the same thing with, with us, you know?

Mm-hmm.

, you can't make the FedEx driver or the postal service go any faster That's just.

It is what it is.

But what you do between getting in line and getting on the ride, um, or

placing the order and getting the order is really how you wanna look at it.

So Disney, uh, they entertain you.

So you could be, uh, something as simple as, uh, if you walk through the

haunted, if you're getting on the haunted mansion ride, uh, there's tombstones

that have funny sayings on them.

There's a old organ that the kids can play.

There's characters walking through the lines.

They make it feel like it's not such a wait.

Mm-hmm.

now it's still the same period of time, but it doesn't feel like that.

So for us, what can we do?

Um, you know, I, one of the things that I've seen successful companies

do and some that I've worked with is, The behind the scenes stuff.

Mm-hmm.

people love to know how stuff works.

I mean, Disney's got a whole industry of, you know, doing behind the scenes tours.

Uh, we all love watching those mo uh, videos or shows of how do they

build it, You know, they build the big, you know, ships that are,

you know, 20 football fields long.

Um, Oh my God.

How do they do it?

So taking people behind the scenes is, um, is one way and doing little videos,

you know, and, and you can do it as the entire journey of your package.

Um, we've got a, uh, something is mundane as, uh, a razors.

Um, there's a company here called Dollar Shave Club.

Yeah, yeah.

And they literally have videos of here's how your razor blade is

made here, but they personalize it.

And here's Marie who is carefully packaging your, your razors into your box.

And here's Dave taking the box and placing the, the mailing label on it.

And here, and it's just, they do it tongue in cheek.

They do it with some fun.

It.

They entertain you while you're waiting for your razors to show up.

So, you know, just look at.

I think the behind the scenes thing is really applicable to

just about every business, cuz people want, they wanna know.

And if you do it in an entertaining way, um, I mean, not stodgy,

I mean please don't do it.

Like, well, we take tab A and we slide it into slot B and no, please don't do that.

, please don't do that.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, but yeah, just finding those things.

Um, certainly, you know, uh, if you have.

Um, a lot of, uh, companies that I work with have to deliver a proposal or a

quote, um, and most of the people that I ask before they work with me, I say, How

do you deliver this quote or proposal?

And it could be for 10,000, 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars.

Oh, we email it.

You email it.

The case is a $50,000 project, $50,000, whatever.

Are you gonna use email?

All right.

How do we make this better?

Mm-hmm..

Oh, Oh.

Why don't we overnight it to them, cost you $9, put it in a FedEx envelope

and overnight the thing to them.

I mean, what happens when you get a FedEx envelope in your office?

I mean, you're like, Oh.

I mean, that gets to the top of the mail pile because, Oh, it must be important.

I should pen it.

So why wouldn't you take the time to do that?

Oh, wait, the proposal's going in a, in a FedEx.

Well, FedEx I can ship up the two pounds.

What else can I shove in the envelope or in the box that could make this fun?

So we call it, in the industry we call it a shock and Awe Box.

Mm-hmm.

. So in the box, you know, could be anything.

I mean, have you written a book?

Put the book in there.

You know, you know, put some, if it's something people have to watch

or read, put some popcorn in there.

Um, you, you can have a lot of fun with these things, but you're still,

you're still delivering the proposal.

You're still delivering the thing.

, but how do you make it an experience when they actually get it?

I mean, eCommerce, I mean, I get stuff all the time and it's, you

know, it's a brown cardboard box.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, with some of those, those styrofoam doohickeys in there.

Mm-hmm.

and that's it.

I mean, I just spent $300 and all you could give me was styrofoam doohickeys?

It's interesting you say that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I, I think it's interesting because I get asked a lot about our business, you

know, what are some of the things that you did, which had the biggest impact and one

of them, the story that I often tell is we ship stuff out in a brown boring box.

We didn't use the styrofoam doohickeys.

I like that phrase.

Uh, we used, you know, the sort of the plastic pillows, um, the

air plastic pillow type things.

And we realized actually our customers, they were spending on average, say

a hundred dollars, uh, on skincare.

That's a lot of money to spend on moisturizer.

Right.

And so it be, It was obvious when we thought about it that people

were buying a treat for themselves.

They were buying a gift.

They were pampering.

It was luxury.

This is, this is something that they're investing in.

And so we stopped shipping in a brown.

Well, no, no, actually we didn't.

We added, we added longer flats on the brown box, so it took longer to open

to create a bit more of an experience.

We printed a lovely message on the box.

we wrapped the inside of the box with tissue paper, so it feels

like you're opening something.

We took out the plastic pillows, uh, and your comment about

popcorn reminded me of this.

We put in popcorn, so we used popcorn as a packaging filler, and

we, and we just had popcorn machines in the warehouse just going 24/7.

Just popcorn.

Popcorn everywhere.

Smell like, the whole factory smelt like popcorn.

It's great if you wanted a low calorie snack.

Um, But here's the interesting thing, Vance, right before that moment,

nobody had ever posted a picture of our packaging online saying, This

is a great company, buy from them.

We had an occasional photo when we'd shipped a really tiny product in

a massive box For whatever reason, it kind of got through the system.

Soon as we started shipping everything in popcorn, everyone was like, this is

just, And they were taking photographs of that because no one else was

using popcorn to ship their products.

Right.

And so totally get what you're saying about that.

I think it's such a big opportunity.

it is, you know, and I mean, I, I give you a quick example.

Um, you know, so I have a book called Systematic Magic, and if

you, you can order it on Amazon and you'll get it in the brown box.

Um, if you order it for me, you get a complete, very similar

to you, very complete package.

But I used to ship it in a brown box mm-hmm.

. And then I thought to myself, Well, this isn't much of an experience.

I should probably have my own box.

So I created a box.

But it's all about iterations.

And Walt Disney actually called this plusing Constant process improvement.

Constant improvement in what you're delivering.

Mm-hmm.

. So I got the box and my book is kind of a workbook, so I said, Well,

I should probably include a pen.

Great.

So now I got a pen in the box.

Oh wait, it's a book.

I should have a bookmark.

Great.

So then I created a bookmark.

Oh wait, I'm sending them something that they've purchased.

I should probably put a thank you letter in there.

Great.

Now I got a thank you letter in there.

Oh wait, I still got room in the box.

I, they've already bought something from me.

I thanked them.

Maybe I should try and sell them something.

So I put a sales letter in there.

Now this happened over the course of 18 months, so I didn't like

come up with this overnight.

But when your brainstorming, creating experiences, you know, it's just

one iteration after the next, get one thing done, create the box.

Great.

Create the, uh, the bookmark.

Couple of months later.

Oh, so it doesn't, people always say, Oh my God, how did you do that?

How'd you come up with the idea of using popcorn, you know, et

cetera, et cetera, etcetera.

Well, if, if you're like me, it, it may have happened over a period

of time before you realized, Oh, oh, we need to do something.

So, you know, for the listeners, I don't want people think, Oh,

you know, Vance and Matt, they got this, you know, great thing.

Well, we didn't used to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I like that.

It's all about inspiration.

So you've mentioned your book, right?

Um, and I'm aware of time and I'm aware that we as as totally predicted.

Uh, Vance, we, we we did not deep dive on the seven, uh, Keys,

we, which is why we were keen to give an overview at the start.

But in this book, um, it is fair to say that you do deep dive into

these seven, uh, magic keys,right?

. Vance Morris: Yes.

Uh, each one of them.

Um, and the way I've got it set up is that you can, you can, I, I like

to use stories if you couldn't tell.

Um, but, uh, so I use stories to illustrate.

And then it's a, it's kind, it is kind of a workbook at the end of each chapter.

Um, you know, there are questions for you to answer, for you to begin

to brainstorm about how you're going to create experiences, uh, for your

clients, for your employees, et cetera.

So by all means, use the pen that comes in the box and.

Mark, Mark that thing up.

So ladies and gentlemen, I would suggest that you, um, get

a hold of Vance's book and order it from Vance rather than Amazon, just

to see how he does ship it, cuz I think it's always quite interesting,

um, and, um, work through it.

Uh, I think it's gonna be really interesting.

Vance.

Listen, let me ask you, um, one last question, if I may.

Right.

And it's, it's simply this.

Your Stu, this show is sponsored by the eCommerce cohort.

Um, I mentioned the start of the show, right?

So imagine you are, you are there, you're in front of the cohort,

you're in the hotel, you've just delivered your keynote speech.

You've gone through the seven magic keys of how to Disnify your business.

The Crowd is going nuts.

It is going wild.

Uh, you take your bow.

And you say, Right, you know what, uh, I just want to thank such and such because

if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here.

Who would you thank, You know, would it be family members?

Would it be a mentor?

Would it be an author, Maybe a podcast?

Who's on your list?

I'm really curious.

Sure.

Um, well, while I never met him, um, I would thank Walt Disney.

Obviously without him, none of this would have been possible.

Um, and then yeah, I do, I have a great mentor here in the States.

His name is Dan Kennedy, uh, marketing extraordinaire.

Yeah.

Uh, most brilliant man.

Um, In business that I've ever come across because he speaks the people's language.

Mm-hmm.

, he's not like the oh, the, you know, using all the affluent words that are just,

you know, nobody understands except for the person writing the, the, the paper.

Yeah.

Um, he's the no BS guy.

He is, he's old school, but he's still really relevant, isn't he?

And I, I'm really, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally.

Yeah.

I just saw him last week.

He was just incredible.

He, And it was for a electric, He, he, he's famous for not

having internet in his home.

Never used email in his entire life.

Never been online.

Um, and he was a keynote speaker at an online event,

So it was a live event.

There were people in the audience, but he was on stage talking about

everything's applicable, you know?

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

Super great.

So, Walt Disney, Dan Kennedy, anybody else?

Uh, well, I would, uh, thank, uh, my, uh, my lovely

family for, uh, tolerating somebody like me in the house.

I know exactly what you.

I know exactly what you mean.

So, uh, Vance, how do people find the book?

Where do they go to, how do they connect with you if they want to get hold of you?

Sure.

Best place is the website deliverservicenow.com.

Mm-hmm.

Um, there's a place for where you can, uh, if you just wanna

put your toe in the water.

Um, I'll send you kind of the cliff note versions of the book.

Um, if you enjoy that and you really wanna take a bigger step, then you

can click and get the free book.

Just pay shipping and handling.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, and I will send it to you in the box that, uh, Matt and I described.

So deliverservicenow.com is the best place to get started.

Fantastic.

Deliverservicenow.com.

We will of course link to, uh, everything to do with Vance in the show notes

as well, which you can get for free, uh, with the transcripts as usual.

Um, Vance, thank you so much for being with us by talking about Disney.

It is fair to say, I do wanna mention this actually, in passing, we've had a separate

conversation about something that you do, which I'm really intrigued by and I.

I'm not gonna make it this October, but I'm definitely up for doing it

at some point, which is where you take people around Disney, uh, for

like three or four days, don't you?

You have this sort of whole experience where you get to do

all the behind the scenes stuff.

You get to talk to all the Disney execs and you point all kinds of

weird and wonderful things out.

Uh, so if you're serious about growing the experience in your business,

um, And you want to come along with me, uh, come with me and join me

on one of the trips with Vance.

Uh, it'd be great.

I'm, I'm, I'm super looking forward to it.

Yeah, it would be great.

We do, uh, it's a three day deep dive into creating experiences.

Uh, it's half classroom, uh, half what I call a walking classroom, where we go,

what we saw in the classroom, we go and we find in the parks, um, or in the resorts.

Mm-hmm.

and see it live in action.

So, um, yeah, I'm doing one in a couple of weeks and, um, if you've

never been to a nine, uh, course, wine pairing dinner, um, Well, that's

what we use to kick off the event.

It is, uh, it takes about three hours to get through it,

so, but it is an experience.

Yeah, absolutely.

No, it's one I'm looking forward to having.

So Brilliant.

Thanks.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Really been really great.

And again, big shout out to this week's show sponsor.

Uh, let me start playing the music.

There we go.

Uh, big shout out to today's show sponsor.

Do head over to ecommercecohort.com for more information about how

you can join, uh, this new type of eCommerce community and make a

big difference to your business.

Uh, be sure to follow the e-commerce podcast wherever you get your podcast

from, uh, because we've got some more great conversations lined up and we don't

want to miss any of them and into, in case it's already come up on the screen.

But in case no one's told you today you my friend are awesome, utterly awesome.

It's just a burden we all have to bear.

Maybe that should be my little tagline, Vance when people call up . Love it.

The eCommerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media.

You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.

The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Josh Catchpole,

Estella Robin and Tim Johnson.

Our theme song has been written by Josh Edmundson, and my good self.

And as mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show

notes, head over to the website www.ecommercepodcast.net, where you

can also sign up for our newsletter.

So that's it from me.

That's it from Vance.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a fantastic week.

I'll see you next time.