Dennis Snow: Lessons from the Mouse

[00:00:03] Jason S. Bradshaw: You don't need pixie dust to create magic. You need a mindset, a mission, and a system that never forgets the human.

[00:00:23] ​

[00:00:32] Jason S. Bradshaw: From decades at Disney to advising global brands, Dennis Snow knows what it takes to turn ordinary moments into magical ones. But this conversation isn't about fairytales. It's about real strategies, deep mindset shifts, and the power of human connection.

[00:01:00] Jason S. Bradshaw: Hit subscribe. Share this with a fellow colleague or a change maker, and let's dive into a conversation that might just reshape the way you show up for your customers, your team, and yourself.

[00:01:14] Dennis Snow: Alright. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be included in the show.

[00:01:21] Jason S. Bradshaw: Now, Dennis, take us way back to the beginning. What was that single moment at Disney that woke you up to the power of experience?

[00:01:53] Dennis Snow: They brought it back to Walt Disney, who, I remembered from watching on television, but really brought it to what he was trying to create... this experience he was trying to create for people. And as a 19-year-old, this was a revelation for me, and that I was going to be part of this show instead of just working a job. So I became pretty enamored with the company right off the bat. And then as I was working there, there was a ride called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was a great ride and I was just fascinated by this. The impact that you could have on people just by the way you did things. And so it was really at the very beginning and that continued on during my 20 year career.

[00:02:59] Dennis Snow: It absolutely is key. One of the, and this goes back to the very beginning, you do not start your job without going through the new hire orientation. Disney Traditions is what they call it, and it doesn't matter if you're hired to work on the rides or you're the new vice president of marketing, you go through this onboarding experience. And it's not about signing paperwork and all the rules and regulations, it's about who we are as a company and what we're trying to create. And so if you ask anybody who has worked at Disney or still works there about new hire orientation, they can tell you pretty, to the greatest detail of what it included, and they will say it was a really important part of our career.

[00:04:15] Dennis Snow: Now you can't just leave it at that. Then there's the on the job training and the ongoing reinforcement, but it all needs to be connected back to this is what we're all about. This is what we believe in as an organization. This is the experience we're trying to create.

[00:04:51] Dennis Snow: Right.

[00:05:10] Jason S. Bradshaw: Why are companies not investing in what you and I know, and I'm sure the listeners know, is such a crucial part of getting that employee to be bought into the vision?

[00:06:15] Dennis Snow: And that the money is worth it. To invest the money into a good quality onboarding process that isn't just as you said, here's all the rules and regulations. Here's your desk. No, here's what we're all about as a company.

[00:06:35] Dennis Snow: And like I said earlier, people remember it. That's the great part about it. People will remember how they felt those first one or two days of their employment with you. And you want them to feel that closeness, that enthusiasm for the company versus, I'm terrified. I don't even know where the bathroom is.

[00:07:49] Jason S. Bradshaw: So let's shift gears a little bit, Dennis. If you was sitting down with a curious 7-year-old and they asked, what do you do and what is this thing called customer experience?

[00:08:03] Dennis Snow: It's funny that you asked that because that actually happened with my granddaughter. She asked my son. She calls me Papa.

[00:08:11] Dennis Snow: She asked my son what does Papa do for work? And she was probably around, maybe around seven when she asked that. What does Papa do for work? And I teach customer service and speak on customer service.

[00:08:41] Dennis Snow: If I were to explain it to Trinity, my granddaughter, if I were to sit down and explain it to her, I would've said, you know how you want to make friends and you want them to be friends forever? That's what I help customers to learn, my clients to learn how to do. How to make customers, friends, that they stay loyal to them forever. And when you think about the customer experience, that's really what we're all trying to do, is to build that loyalty. And it all comes down to what we put them through, and how we treat them.

[00:09:18] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. I also love Trinity's response that shouldn't people already know how to be nice to each other.

[00:09:29] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah.

[00:09:47] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, absolutely. And organizations can do it in different ways. I was challenged recently actually about speakers, thought leaders who rely on examples like Disney and Ritz Carlton when they're talking about what great looks like from a customer experience point of view. And this person said, people talk about it. They take them to these experiences and then they think they have to imitate what they're doing. And they get confused because they're not in the entertainment business, or they're not in the hospitality business. But really what you are saying, so far, so early into the show is, it's about a mindset. It's about being intentional about how you show up and serve your employees because as a leader, they're your internal customers and your external customers as well.

[00:10:44] Dennis Snow: I think they make the mistake of that the thing is the product. The widget is the product, or the hotel room or, whatever it may be, that's what they're selling.

[00:11:07] Dennis Snow: I think that a lot of companies, they don't tell themselves the right story. They create a great widget, which is important, but they don't take it that next step of how do we make sure people want our widget? And the only way to do that is to create loyalty, to create an experience where they like doing business with you. I always say there's three things that customers want and it really doesn't matter if it's a theme park or it's what business it is. We want you to do the job. We want you to be easy to do business with. And we want you to be nice to us. If you do those three things, I'm gonna be loyal to you.

[00:12:05] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. And I think that's true whether you're staying at a Motel 6 or staying at a Ritz Carlton, right? You still want a consistent experience, an experience you can trust. You still want for them to be nice to you. You want the product to do what it says it's gonna do on the label, so to speak.

[00:12:31] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah.

[00:12:39] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. Yeah. And of course you still want the product to be to the standard you're paying for. You want a room to be clean, you want there to be a bed, hopefully a door that locks.

[00:12:52] Jason S. Bradshaw: There's lots of myths around customer experience. Some of them true, some of them not so true.

[00:13:04] Dennis Snow: I think that a myth would be that it's hard to do. It isn't hard to do, but what you do, you have to do consistently. So sometimes a company will look at starting a customer service initiative and they look at everything all at once, and they think, oh my, that's gonna take a long time to do. And it may a long time to do, but if you take it step by step, it isn't that hard. It's defining what you want the customer experience to be. What you want your customers to say about your organization? What needs to happen in order for them to say those things? How do we get our people to do those things that will get the customers to say those things? And how do we keep getting better at what we do?

[00:14:05] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. Couldn't agree more.

[00:14:11] Dennis Snow: One piece at a time. Yeah.

[00:14:31] Jason S. Bradshaw: What do you think the first non-negotiable move a leader would or should make if they really truly wanna live a customer first mindset?

[00:14:49] Dennis Snow: One of my favorite photos- and you probably, I mean you may have seen this photo- it was a photo of Walt Disney. It was probably around 1959 and Disneyland, and he is picking up trash and that speaks volumes to me. I like to imagine a cast member at Disneyland going through training and being told, we need to keep the park clean. And then they turn around and there's Walt Disney picking up trash off the ground. It doesn't get better than that. So I think just walking the talk.

[00:16:21] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. And I love that you shared the story of Walt picking up trash. I remember, I think it was my first time I was doing a tour of The Boardwalk property at Walt Disney World with a sales associate. Wonderful person. She's now retired and I just wish that we had managed to stay in connection, but she retired during the pandemic.

[00:17:04] Jason S. Bradshaw: That became a story that I've told a million times to people around why I've done so much work with the Disney Institute, because Disney has found a way to systematize a way of operating, creating a culture for their people that says your job description might not say pick up trash, but if you see trash, you know it impacts the guest experience.

[00:17:46] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah. It's phenomenal to see it in action. And it's why the parks always look pristine.

[00:17:59] Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, I've probably taken 500 to 600 people through various Disney programs and one of the questions I used to get quite a lot was I never see the janitorial staff, the custodians... how's everything so clean? And I'm like you'll learn over the next few days.

[00:18:25] Dennis Snow: Oh, that's a good question.

[00:18:33] Dennis Snow: And keep in mind the lines absorb some of the people that are in the park. So there's a business reason for people waiting in line. That's part of the business model. So there's a process like that. But how do you Disneyfy it? And that's why they have entertainment and things to watch while you're in line. The cast members are interacting with you. And I think they've gotten better at this over the years too. The newer rides, if you don't wait in line, at least for a little while, you've missed a big part of the experience. So I think that the weaving of process, like waiting in line and that personal touch, it takes some of the sting out of processes.

[00:19:26] Dennis Snow: And you go up to the room. And part of the process while you're off in the park is the housekeepers are cleaning up your room. But the personal touches, they've taken some of the stuffed Disney characters that the kids might have purchased and tucked them into the bed or position them playing with playing cards. So, it's taking those processes that have to be in place, but Disneyfying them.

[00:20:12] Jason S. Bradshaw: So if I'm hearing you correctly, you believe that businesses don't need Disney level budgets to deliver a magical experience.

[00:20:34] Dennis Snow: Well, and I touched on this earlier when I mentioned what do we want customers to say about their experience? And I always say, come up with three things, because that helps you zero in on what you want your differentiator to be.

[00:21:16] Dennis Snow: And then the next step of that is, what do we have to do to get people to say those things? And now you start thinking about like at Disney, if they say we want guests to say they paid attention to every detail. One of the behaviors then would be if you see a piece of trash on the ground, you go over and pick it up and throw it away. So the park is always clean. It all meshes together.

[00:21:47] Jason S. Bradshaw: So that feels like something that a business should have to do if they were on this 90 day mission to radically transform the way that they operated.

[00:22:13] Dennis Snow: I think one of the top things that we can all do in our businesses is ask our front lines, our frontline employees, what's keeping us from doing some of these things? What are some of the roadblocks that are in place? And our people know. I think our employees even know better than our customers do what the frustrations are because they deal with the same frustrations over and over again.

[00:22:48] Dennis Snow: A favorite example of mine, and keep in mind what I'm about to talk about is a piece of paper, alright? Balloons are not allowed in Disney's Animal Kingdom. They're in all the other parks but you can't bring a balloon into Disney's Animal Kingdom because if it pops, it can scare the animals, and if an animal gets a hold of a pop balloon, it can literally kill the animal. So the rule is no balloons. Oh, we have to tell these kids they can't bring their balloon in. And we would hold on to it for them. But you know, I've gotta give up my balloon. So one of the things they did to alleviate and actually turn it into kind of a wow, was when you get your balloon back from what they call "balloon daycare". When you get your balloon back, there's a report card that comes with your balloon that says your balloon ate lunch with the other balloons. It played well with the other balloons. It watched Frozen with Elsa, and it's a little report card that now the child has a smile, the parents have a smile. They've got this little report card. And that came from asking cast members what frustrates people? And what can we do to turn those frustrations around? Because our people know.

[00:24:12] Jason S. Bradshaw: Talking of memory, we remember we've talked about today how that people remember how we make them feel. What's the most powerful service story you've personally witnessed?

[00:24:28] Dennis Snow: I was a supervisor in the Magic Kingdom and I was the supervisor of Fantasy Land. That's the greatest title I've ever had. I was the Supervisor of Fantasy Land, which I'd saved one of the business cards. But I was on my way back to our offices and I was walking through Fantasy Land and Snow White was doing one of her greetings, was out doing one of her greetings. And this child came up and I was just watching for a few minutes. 'cause that's always a magical time. I don't care how bad of a day you're having, when you watch Snow White interacting with kids, it's a great thing. This child came up and Snow White was talking to her. And I could tell just from where I was that the parents were telling Snow White that the child was deaf and couldn't hear what she was saying. And Snow White started doing sign language with the child, and the child's face just lit up, and was signing back. And the parents, you could tell, were just melting into a puddle. And that for me was just a powerful moment of- when we show compassion and care, the impact that we can have. Now we don't always know it, right? We don't know what people are going through when they're in our business. We don't know what their challenges are. In this case, you know she did, and so that's why I think going back to when we were talking about respect of always having that "I'm gonna make a difference" perspective. Because you just don't know. You just don't know what you're dealing with. And I'm sure you've got stories of exactly those kinds of things. The impact that a little gesture had. That wasn't a big deal to us, but it made a huge difference to somebody else.

[00:26:31] Dennis Snow: Oh yeah, and it's a memory for life.

[00:26:36] Jason S. Bradshaw: Dennis, it's been great having you on the show, sharing your wisdom with us.

[00:26:44] Jason S. Bradshaw: Dennis, can you finish this sentence for me?

[00:26:47] Jason S. Bradshaw: Replace the blank word.

[00:27:00] Dennis Snow: Because the experience is what can make us unique. And when we create unique experiences, we can make a difference in the world.

[00:27:20] Dennis Snow: I know restaurants. I know stores where I literally feel good walking into them because of how they make me feel. And I know restaurants and stores where I never want to go in them again.

[00:27:38] Jason S. Bradshaw: Customer experience is what can make us unique.

[00:27:46] Jason S. Bradshaw: Thank you for your time.

[00:27:49] Dennis Snow: Now, what if the secret to lasting success wasn't your next marketing campaign, but the way you make people feel?

[00:28:16] Dennis Snow: Until next time, I'm Jason S. Bradshaw reminding you when you transform the experience, you transform your business and the world around you.