The Experience: The 5 Principles of Disney Service and Relationship Excellence

Chapter SevenPrinciple 4: Response

Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

—Viktor E. Frankl

The Response is the point at which we find the hallmark of customer service and the Exceptional Experience. If your employees' reaction time, tone, and talent do not match up with every other aspect of an excellent Experience, everything is rendered useless. It can take vast amounts of effort to build up a relationship with a consumer, but only one negative Response to destroy it.

The previous chapters have laid the groundwork for excellence in the Experience. Responding to your clients' or customers' needs is all about delivering excellence in everything you do. You know all too well that your customers have choices about where to shop and with whom to do business. Until the past 15 years, customers would often only choose which big box store they would patronize. Nowadays, the power of the Internet and an increase in online purchasing opportunities (often at a reduced price) have made it necessary for our in-person service to be much more effective than any service over the Internet.

Lands' End and Zappos are fantastic examples of brands that have captured hearts around the world. When customers can purchase great clothes and shoes at the same (or lower) prices as they can in the ...