The one where he Disnefies Customer Retention - Vance Morris E208

🎤🎞️“The one where he Disnefies Customer Retention” with Vance Morris in CX Passport Episode 208🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction: Welcoming Vance Morris

1:34 The power of Disney’s systems in customer experience

4:43 How systems create freedom for employees

7:07 Applying big business lessons to small businesses

10:16 Disnefying the mundane to create great experiences

12:41 Turning a carpet cleaning business into a CX powerhouse

13:39 Why Vance moved into coaching

14:43 The cost of new customers vs. retaining existing ones

17:25 College band life: Clamming to afford a hotel

18:37 Marketing lessons from the band experience

19:32 First Class Lounge

23:41 The return to simplicity: Vance’s flip phone

24:38 What price elasticity really means for CX

26:53 How small businesses can justify higher prices

29:19 Tactical steps to improve customer retention

32:36 The power of personality in customer retention

33:52 Where to connect with Vance

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I'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport

Episode resources:

Web: deliverservicenow.com

52 Ways To Wow Your Customers Without Breaking The Bank: wow52ways.com 

Transcript

Vance Morris: 0:00

It's not your customer's job to remember you. It's your job to remind your customers that you exist. Customer

Rick Denton: 0:06

Experience wisdom, a dash of travel talk. We've been cleared for takeoff. The best meals are served outside and require a passport. I want you to think of the happiest place on earth now think about the brand that comes to mind when I say the happiest place on earth, time for some of that good old CX magic today on CX passport, as our guest is Vance Morris, a 10 year Disney veteran who makes it his mission to bring just a little bit of that Disney level service excellence to businesses of all kinds. Vance is the founder of deliver service now, where he teaches service based businesses, how to transform ordinary interactions into these unforgettable customer experiences, drawing from his years at Walt Disney World, managing iconic locations like the contemporary resort and animal kingdom. Vance has a proven system, system, and you all know how much the word system matters to me for turning customer service into a profit driving engine. Now I'm not sure if Vance had anything to do with that really good glass of peanutage I had at Animal Kingdom resort a few years ago. I might have to ask about that as well. Beyond Disney, there are tails of playing in a band in college, working for Restaurant Brands like legal sea foods and Rainforest Cafe, and starting a carpet cleaning business. He's also a sought after speaker, coach and author who's passionate about helping businesses stand out and thrive by creating meaningful moments for their customers. Vance, welcome to CX passport.

Vance Morris: 1:34

I appreciate it. Rick, this is gonna be fun. Let's hop to it. Hey, I

Rick Denton: 1:39

love it. I'm already getting into Disney vibe already. So let's talk about that. So when people think of systems and processes, they often think about being trapped in the specific path this policy, Oh, I gotta follow the process today, right? Triplicate and bureaucracy and all that Disney taught you though the value process beyond what I just said there. Why are systems and processes so important to actually delivering those experiences that customers want. Yeah, I

Vance Morris: 2:03

mean, and that's the first thing I learned at Disney. I mean, you would think that it would have been customer service or picking up trash or whatever, but systems and process was the first thing. And what I learned about them was that they give you freedom, because once you had the system in process down. I was on the opening team of the Yat Beach Club resort back in the early 90s, and this was before computers and and the cell phones and stuff like that. And we walked into this room and it was just full of binders. I mean, just, I mean, binders everywhere. And I was like, What are these things? And my boss was like, well, these are, this is how you run a resort. And there was a binder for everything, you know, binder for the front desk, binder for the valet restaurants, you name it. And I said, Holy cow. And so I got my binder for, you know, managing a restaurant, and really big. And I said, this is all, all necessary. He goes, Well, let me tell you something. So we have a system that we've been doing this for years. We have a system for everything. You want to change your bus tire. We got a system. You want to wait tables in a restaurant, we got a system. And once you have the system down, that allows you then to do all of the nice things and all of the experiences that Disney is known for, because you're operating the system, it just becomes rote. It is your it just becomes second nature. And once you're nailed the system, now you're doing all that. Now we can take pictures for families. Now we can do all of the fun, exciting things that Disney is known for, that the guest members are known for. And I'm like, Well, geez, that makes sense, because if you're constantly thinking of trying, okay, well, I got to be nice to somebody. I got, oh, I should be taking pictures, but Wait, should I be doing this? Because I got to do over here. I got to do my job over here. Then it gets confused, and then the job doesn't get done, right? Or it doesn't get done at all. And then, well, we forget to take care of the guests, then it just becomes a big mess. Yeah? So yes. And I'll tell you even in, like, in my cracker cleaning business, I mean, I installed systems there, yeah, because, as a business owner, systems give you freedom. So I've got, I've had that business 17 years, and about six, seven years ago, I completely took myself out of the business, and I have a general manager that runs it, and all I gotta do is cash checks and kiss babies now, because I got systems and processes in place that allows me now to do what I love doing, which is that, talking about the customer experience, etc. Yeah,

Rick Denton: 4:43

I like that. Now, I don't know, I don't know about the kissing babies part, but I do like the cashing checks part. And I think a lot of business like that, cashing checks, let me, let me ask you, there's a, there's almost a personality difference, though, between what you're describing there, and that is someone that can really live and thrive inside of a. Process environment, you know, check, check, check, check, check, then also have that creativity to interact with the guests in the way that they do. I'm sure you saw it at Disney. You're taking it into your current business. How do you how do you coach hire, find that kind of talent that can live and thrive inside a check box? Land and live and thrive in creative guest relationship land. Well,

Vance Morris: 5:22

they understand. I mean, well, one, you got to find somebody who follows directions, okay, all right, check, not always the easiest, especially for small business owners, right? But you have to have a script that people follow. And it's not so much process. It's all in how you frame it. And when we're doing an interview process in our small businesses, we tell, look, we've got a script for this, and this is how we do it, and this is how we expect you to do it. If you want to embellish a little fantastic, let your personality shine through. Great. That's fine, but you got to do it our way, right, otherwise this relationship won't work. And I think a lot of times, bosses owners feel like they are being held over a barrel, being held hostage by their employees, because they don't they think that, oh my god, if I tell my employee what to do, he's going to quit. Well, that's not a good position to be

Rick Denton: 6:29

Hey there, CX Passport travelers. I want to in. let you know about CX Passport Live. CX Passport Live helps brands amplify their event's impact with the power of live in-person, podcasting. Brands partner with CX Passport Live at their on-site event to help excite attendees, reward high value customers and convert potential customers. Bring a new level of energy and excitement to your event and amplify your brand's impact with CX Passport Live. Learn more at cxpassportlive.com Now back to the show. You know what it's I think I'm fascinated by the way you answered that in the sense of, it's both that we need, but it's almost the assumption that as humans, we'll find our own path to be that sort of independent side of things. But you're starting with the check, the check box, the list, the process, the structure. And I think from what I've known from Disney, I think that's something that is, it's known, right? You know, these are systems, just like you described that. I think what's fascinating to me is, as a guest of Disney, I don't know that I necessarily have noticed the process. I notice what the freedom that that process has provided gives me as that guest experience. How have you because I mentioned Disney, obviously, but you you're way more than Disney. You've got these large restaurant and iconic Restaurant Brands, and then you mentioned the carpet cleaning and small business in general. How do you take those lessons that you learned at the big companies? Because there's scale there, there's resources there, how do you take that into then creating your own small business?

Vance Morris: 8:06

That's a great question. And, you know, I get that a lot, especially when people are resisting change, they say, Well, I don't own a roller coaster. I don't own a castle. You know? Why should I try and copy what Disney does? You know? Who do you think you are? I don't have an elephant. Why should I try and copy what you know Rainforest Cafe does? And that's the wrong question. You don't we're not trying to copy, we're trying to adapt what those companies are doing into our own businesses. I mean, think back to, like, the 1950s there was a McDonald's executive probably sitting in his car with a bank deposit, sitting at the bank in line, and he goes, he goes up, and he puts his money in the little tube, and it goes up the little chute. And he's probably sitting there thinking to himself, how do I put a milkshake in that thing, you know, he's, he's thinking, Okay, well, how do I take that technology, how do I take that idea and put it in a completely different industry, right? And that's what we've got to do as business owners. We look at, you know, okay, what is Disney doing? What is Apple doing? What is Chick fil A doing? And how do we adapt those strategies to what we do? You know, I mean one of, one of the things that you know, one of the where I, I'd like to think I came up with this word, but I probably didn't disify, okay? And my definition of disneyfying is creating experiences out of the mundane. So we all have boring, mundane things we have to do day in and day out to keep the business up and running. Disney Company, Harley Davidson, Apple, etc. They have all just figured out ways to create experiences out of answering the telephone or, you know, getting people into the store or. Whatever. And so we just have to figure out, okay, well, what is the best way to answer the telephone? How do we do it so that it is engaging, so it's an experience and it's so that it separates us from everybody else you know on the planet? I wouldn't

Rick Denton: 10:16

think about that in carpet cleaning, though. So I'm curious how, specifically, how have you done that in the carpet cleaning world? Because you're describing, you know, answering the phone in a certain way, or to me, without talking to you first, I would think that carpet cleaning is pretty functional, pretty commoditized. So how does one create a great experience when it comes to carpet cleaning? Oh,

Vance Morris: 10:36

man, I'm so glad you asked that, because it is and thing is, Rick, we're all in highly commoditized businesses. I mean, it doesn't matter what, you know, a dentist is a dentist. As a dentist, so many ways to clean teeth, you know? I think there's two, right? You know, the thing with the brush in there, and then they squirt the water, and that's it better. No offense to dentists out there, but, but, yeah. So when? So real quick before I answer the question, you have to have a mission in your in your company, or in your business. I'm not saying a mission statement, but a mission that all of your employees can wrap their brains around. So Disney's mission. And again, not mission statement, but mission is to make people happy. That's their mission. Okay? So any employee on the planet at the Disney World can wrap their brain around that mission, right? And your mission has to be bigger than your job. So if you're sweeping the streets, great, that's your job, but the mission is to make people happy. So in my carpet cleaning business, yes, cleaning carpet is the job or upholstery or tile or whatever else we do, but our mission is to create healthy homes. So all of my employees can wrap their brain around that, and when we answer the telephone, you know, we'll say, Thank you for calling Eastern Shore carpet cleaning, where we make your make you a healthy home, or, excuse me, create your healthy home. People are like, what create my healthy home? What do you I wouldn't think that, right? And they'll ask the question, What do you mean? Create a healthy home, you know? And we'll then we can go into because we want them to ask the question, right? And we're like, Well, you know, you you dust has this effect. And then there's these micro toxins and the stuff that you brought in from the gas station park a lot on your shoes because you didn't change your shoe, you know, and on and on. Now we're in a conversation, and it's no longer just a commodity conversation. Now it's a conversation with a company that is viewed as an expert in healthy homes.

Rick Denton: 12:41

What a pivot. Okay, that does make sense, and I can see how that then would drive kind of the it's not just a I have dirty carpet, you clean dirty carpet. Let's make deal. It's this conversation, it's relationship. It's, as we've been saying, an experience you've taken, speaking of experience, you've taken all these experiences that we're describing, including that aforementioned carpet cleaning business and have moved into coaching. What? Why coaching? What drew you there, as opposed to, I mean, you could have gone into any sort of career path with what you're describing as an experience. Why coaching? Well,

Vance Morris: 13:13

between you, me and all of the listeners and the fence post, customer service, customer experience in the US and pretty much around the world. It sucks, but it sucks, yeah, and I'm just on a one man mission to eradicate this suckiness of customer experience. Okay, so I coach businesses on how to do that. I

Rick Denton: 13:40

like you. What were we talking about earlier? Mission? Well, there's a pretty good mission, right, to make customer service suck less. Suck less. Yes, that's awesome. How have you found that that pivot where it's it's no longer kind of your business? And I mean, I know coaching itself is a business, but as far as you're helping others grow their business, is that something do you ever find yourself, sort of, let me not ask it that way. How do you find that experience when you're helping someone else? You've got this wisdom, you know, what they should do? Have you found that experience to be in the coaching world, you know, it's,

Vance Morris: 14:12

it's eye opening when they get it. You can, like, all of a sudden, you can, literally, you see the light bulb throwing, you know, goes off in their head. You know, unfortunately, no business owner wakes up in the morning and says, You know what? That customer service really sucks. I should call Vance. Nobody wakes up with that conversation in their head, right and and that's a shame, not only for them, but for me.

Rick Denton: 14:40

On, hey, let's be honest. I have to approach it

Vance Morris: 14:43

from a different angle, right? So what I really focus on for them is customer retention and one so I don't do anything with SEO or lead generation or any I leave that up to those guys, those marketing guys, and I'm. Really focus on customer retention, because one getting a new customer is very expensive. I mean, like, ridiculously expensive. Keeping a customer, once you have them, is very cheap. So I give you a quick example. So I just got my numbers for January for my home service businesses, and it would cost me $136 to get a new customer in the front door for my cleaning business. So like Google Pay Per Click and everything rolled together, right? 36 bucks. Now if my my minimum to go out to clean is 199 Okay, so if I just did the minimum job, that leaves me like 60 bucks to pay the tech, put gas in the tank, rent, insurance, all that stuff doesn't leave much for me. But last year, on average, it cost me only $22 to keep a customer for the year. Now I'm talking now I got 170 but I'm $100 richer, right? I continually just marketing to my existing customers who already know like and trust me, there's no barrier, there's no resistance to a sale. They already know our product. They appreciate us, and it's just so much easier. So that's the angle I look at and say, look, here's Yes, I agree you need new customers to grow, but if you want to grow profitably, you need to focus on your existing and that's where I really look at so the customer experience, once you've got a customer in the front door, we do focus on the customer experience because that sets the stage for retaining customers, because if you if you suck here, and you know, either your product is deficient, your service is deficient, you're certainly not going to retain customers, right? So we got to fix that. First and foremost, I

Rick Denton: 16:53

want to come back to actually the tactics of that, like the idea of retention, because there's a ton of folks say, You know what? You said, it's expensive to get a new customer. It's cheaper to retain one. But tactically, and I imagine that you've got some tips there, but I want to make a complete like our tires are screeching here. I'm going to make a turn. I want to talk about that playing in a band. I don't get to talk to folks that have played in a band that much before. What are some favorite tales of yours from that time? And I mean, are there any lessons that you remember from back then that you applied?

Vance Morris: 17:25

Yeah, it ain't all cracked up to be, but it beat. It beat being a cook in a kitchen or delivering pizza. We made enough money that that's how I paid for college. Oh, really. Okay, that's kind of and, yeah, we we did a mini tour in the Northeast, and I remember when we were first started out on the tour, we had no money, and we couldn't afford the hotel the first night we were playing a gig that night, but we couldn't check into the hotel because we didn't have any cash. So we went clamming, and we clammed. Yeah, we were in Massachusetts, and so we went clamming that afternoon before sound check, and we sold the clams, and we had enough cash to get the hotel room, and then we went and unloaded. But, yeah, it's glamorous, glamorous lifestyle. Boy. Talk about, I love how

Rick Denton: 18:18

you said we were in Massachusetts. I'm like, Well, it definitely had to be the northeast, because if you're clamming and northeast, because if you're clamming in Iowa, you're probably not going to do really well as far as the gig in Des Moines. So no, no, not at all. So the glamor is not there. What about the lessons? What from that? That band lifestyle? How are you taking into today? Yeah, you

Vance Morris: 18:37

got to keep your foot on the pedal, the gas pedal. You got to keep it floored. In marketing yourself, in hunting and gathering of what we would call a gig or a customer in today's language, you can't let go, because if you do, it's not your customer's job to remember you. It's your job to remind your customers that you exist. And I found that so true as a band, if we were not in front of a bar manager, in front of a promoter constantly sending out demos, we're easily forgotten because there's, you know, another 20 bands to fill our spot.

Rick Denton: 19:32

Vance, I have to imagine that during that time you would have loved the chance to take a little break from some of that travel. I don't think you probably stumbled in any first class lounges during then, but you get the chance to stumble into the first class lounge today here on CX passport. So hopefully we'll have a little fun while we sit here in the lounge. What is a dream travel location from your past? Dream

Vance Morris: 19:55

travel location is any place without people? Okay, of course, but it is honestly. It is just being alone, no, no, no people around. Honestly, it would be on a beach with a, you know, with the birds, the sun setting, sailboats going by, birds chirping, nice, you know, on a blanket. I know exactly. I mean, it doesn't matter where I like it. It's got to be warm.

Rick Denton: 20:32

Definitely agree, there will

Vance Morris: 20:34

I could have a basket of cold fried chicken. I don't care. Yeah, just something

Rick Denton: 20:38

peaceful. I love it. Well, what about going forward? Is there a dream travel location, specifically, a place in the world, or even close by that you've not been to yet?

Vance Morris: 20:47

Yeah, we are looking at, we're definitely going to Spain, probably next year, nice, which we're Barcelona. We're looking forward to, and my middle son is getting married, I think next year, so we'll be taking a trip to Germany for that nice and then I definitely want to go back to Costa Rica. We had a great time there, but we had kids with us, and so

Rick Denton: 21:19

boy, Costa Rica is beautiful, and all the places you're describing are wonderful, too. You mentioned that bucket of cold fried chicken. I'm sure that's yummy. Probably not your favorite. What's a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Vance Morris: 21:31

Well, top of the list, and I'd be a poor Marylander if I didn't say it would be steam crabs. There

Rick Denton: 21:37

it is. It's like, Is this part of your citizenship of being in Maryland, you have to add those. And

Vance Morris: 21:43

then, honestly, there was, they don't have this restaurant anymore. There's a restaurant in Orlando called pebbles, I think it's gone now, and they had this escargot dish with they it was garlic butter, and per no that, they made the little sauce with and let me ask gargo was okay, but, boy, I take a loaf of bread and just start. Boy, that sounds really

Rick Denton: 22:09

good. Well, let's go the other direction. What's something growing up you were forced to eat, but you hated as a kid, lima

Vance Morris: 22:15

beans. There it is, like,

Rick Denton: 22:17

the fastest answer I've ever

Vance Morris: 22:18

gotten. You don't have to ask me twice, lima beans.

Rick Denton: 22:22

Yeah, I don't understand lima beans. Never been a fan, still not a fan. It's not something I grow into. So I'm with absolutely with you there. Vance. Vance, it's time for us to leave the first class lounge. What is one travel item not including your phone, not including your passport that you will not leave home without?

Vance Morris: 22:37

Oh, wow, that's a great question. You know, I think You've stumped me. There is nothing I need to bring. I mean, if I'm allowed to bring a book, I'd bring a good book. But other than that, clean pair of underwear.

Rick Denton: 22:56

Vance, I have to agree with you on the clean pair of underwear there, but what I love about the simplicity of your answer is, I don't need anything. Remember, I just need to be on a beach. Rick, so I, as long as I'm there, life is good. So I appreciate that.

Vance Morris: 23:10

That aspect, I think I told you this. Rick, I got it. Well, I don't know if we're going to be video or not on this podcast, but this is my phone. Oh, we

Rick Denton: 23:19

are on video. So folks, if you're listening, it's time to stop and go over to YouTube and listen to this. This is the real deal. That is a flip is that Nokia? This is a Samsung, Samsung flip phone. Folks, this is brilliant. I don't get any

Vance Morris: 23:35

doodads. There's no ringy dinghies. I can't text nothing. It's a phone. It's all what I

Rick Denton: 23:41

you want to talk the return to simplicity. You are. You are both significantly kind of behind technology, but actually kind of ahead of a curve that I've seen some adoption of, this de smartification of the phone that folks are carrying. And so I think you're ahead of a bit of a trend here that I've started to see out there, so folks definitely go check that out. This is pretty interesting to see what Vance just showed me on the screen. Vance, I want to get back into kind of that idea of experience, and the business wisdom is that you have offered others from your experience. There's a term price elasticity. It's a term that gets thrown around a lot in this consultant deck or this white paper, you have said to me that you see experience driving success in price elasticity. First, I'd love for you just to define it and then share more about why does customer experience matter when it comes to price elasticity? Sure.

Vance Morris: 24:39

So to me, price is is elastic based on who you are selling to, so you have to identify who your target market is to begin with. And I always use the example of, you know, amusement parks and Disney. So let's say you. It to your local county fair is 20 bucks ride all the rides you want, all night long. You know, you use, you probably get food poisoning from, you know, the trucks. You know, it's a bunch of ex cons and current cons that are running it. And you know, half the fun is whether the ride is going to survive or collapse throughout the night, right? That's 20 bucks. The next level up is like your great adventure, Six Flags. Kind of place still thrill rides probably don't have any cons working there. The food will probably suffice, won't kill you, and it's probably about 60 bucks. So it's worth 3x the county fair. Then you get to Disney, it's $180 to get in for the day at Disney, right? That's 9x the county fair is. It's a small world, really, nine times better than the Ferris wheel at the county fair, I would argue that it's not, if you took away all of the the dancing dolls and the music and everything, it's a really boring ride. It just goes, yeah, so that experience that Disney provides, which is all the other stuff, which is, you know, the cleanliness, the the, you know, the food quality, the niceness of the cast members, the the overall entertainment. That's where that price has now gone from 20 bucks to 180 bucks. Okay, so that's kind of the example I like to use. But let's bring it down to a small business.

Rick Denton: 26:44

Yeah, because Disney is a great like, it's almost like your ivory tower version. But in carpet cleaning, in dentistry, in in Ma and Pa, how does this apply?

Vance Morris: 26:53

I like to offer my customers, you look at the stereotypes of your industry, okay? And you break those stereotypes in order to gain price elasticity. So carpet cleaning, they're known for, you know, three rooms for $37 you get the sticker on the back of the stop sign at the traffic light. So, you know, you're just going to get, you know, a guy with a shop vac and a garden hose, and he's going to call himself a carpet cleaner. So we look at, okay, well, what can we do to counteract that? So we add in guarantees and warranties. Now these don't cost me anything, but they do ensure to our customers that, oh, we stand behind the product. So like, we have a warranty that says we have a 14 day whoopsie warranty, which says from the time we clean and you got 14 days if your husband, you know, knocks over his beer on the clean carpet, don't worry. Call us. We'll come back out. We'll clean that spot up. No charge. I like that. No problem. And then we have a and then we also have a guarantee, if we reapply the stain resistance, we'll guarantee your carpet no permanent stains for one year. So if again, you're close, you know, it's not always blame the husband, although it's usually his fault. You know, you get, you know, your kid decides to play tic tac toe, you know, with a sharpie and you can't get the spot out. With our spot remover, give us a call. We'll come back out and we'll touch that spot up, no charge, and reapply the stain resistance to that. So there's no cost to me, except if I have to go out and actually do the service right, and even then, it's not that much, but I can charge extra because I have added that. So my price is now more elastic than anybody else's because I have these warranties and guarantees. Does that make sense?

Rick Denton: 28:45

It absolutely makes sense. And I see how you're describing experience, and even, even just the the the intrigue that you offer when someone calls and it's about the health of the home. Well, now I'm not talking about just whether my carpet looks good or not. I'm talking about my my health and my family's health and that I can see that you I mentioned that I did want to get tactical about customer retention. Like theory is good, but now, if you're focused on customer retention, what are some actions of brand like right now? What should they be doing right now, tactically to improve that customer retention 100%

Vance Morris: 29:20

so I said earlier, it's not the customer's job to remember you. It's your job to remind the customer that you exist. Yeah, and there's nothing worse than losing a customer because you ignored them. And that's truly what it is you ignoring the customers. I mean, there's all sorts of reasons customers leave you, you know, 1% die. Well, there's not much we can do about that, you know. Well, there isn't, you know, two or 3% move. Well, okay, you know, we could say there's probably not what you can do about that. But almost 68% leave a company because they feel neglected. They feel forgotten. You. So what can we do to keep that, keep put a titanium fence around them, to keep them in and keep our competitors out? Well, I am a firm believer in the US Postal Service. They have a better deliverability rate than any email service out there. It's still like 99% okay, um, so I am a so I look at this as a three or four prong approach multimedia. I'm not against online, but so for creating an engagement, creating a connection with your customer, I suggest you do a newsletter, a paper, real paper newsletter, and I shamelessly use my children in my marketing. So my daughter Emma, used to do ballet, and I always took the obligatory picture of her at the recital and her and her tutu, and would put it in the newsletter from ages like five until, I don't know, nine or 10. And we were in the grocery store one day, and this lady ran up to my daughter and said, Oh my god, Emma, how was your recital? And Emma's looking at me like, should we go hide in the frozen food section? And I had to remember, she's got to be one of my clients. So this lady has grown up with my daughter. How my kids now have 1000s of aunts and uncles. I've created an emotional connection with this person, right? She's never leaving me because of that connection. I mean, I'd have to royally screw up for her to leave, right? So you use a newsletter to create that connection. It's kind of like Reader's Digest light and I highly suggest you use your personality, use you know, use who you are in the newsletter, and then you send them a monthly postcard, and the postcard is designed for your promotion, because, use newsletter. Because what would it feel like if the only time you ever heard from a company is when they wanted your money? Yeah, just selling today. Yeah, that kind of stocks so, so then we send the postcard, you know, like two weeks later, it's got a nice promotion on it, preferably that, you know, resounds with, you know, okay, you know, we just had the Super Bowl. So maybe you have a football, kind of, right promotion, or Valentines, or whatever. And then you send a weekly email, which is kind of a combination of the two. So you've got maybe some kind of light story in there, and then your PS is the offer, right, right? There is a customer retention system that cannot fail. You

Rick Denton: 32:36

know what? I think I want to end there, because there's probably a dozen other ones that you have Vance. What I like about that, though, is a couple things that are coming to mind. This is very off the cuff. But one is, it's intentional, right? This isn't happening automatically. Customer retention doesn't happen just, Oh, I hope, I hope, that we deliver a great enough experience that they stick around. That wasn't enough. That's important, but that was the baseline. Then you have this intentional and I'm going to use a kind of surround sound approach of I've got a newsletter that comes to them, paper newsletter. I've got the email postcard, and I've got the electronic approach of the email that's coming to them. And then lastly, the personality of it. That it is a lot easier for me to stay loyal to a personality of a brand. I think that a lot of times that there's a particular Dallas airline that I have some loyalty towards, because there's a personality associated with that brand which is starting to fade with some activist investor involvement. And so it'll be interesting to see if the loyalty there breaks down. But that personality component that you're describing seems so valuable. Vance, if folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about you, your approach to customer elast, price elasticity, customer retention and just simply the coaching, or, heck, if they need their carpets cleaned, where can they find out more about you? Yeah,

Vance Morris: 33:52

best place is my website, which is deliver service now.com and actually I just created some people call them down of white papers or whatever, free reports. I'm actually just created a hot sheet called 50 weight, 52 ways to wow your customers without breaking the bank. Nice. So it's one wow a week. And you can find that at Wow. 52 ways.com. Cool. I'll get both of

Rick Denton: 34:19

those in the show notes. Everybody scroll down there, and you can get to Vance's website and learn how to wow a customer one time a week for an entire year. I love that Vance, this has been an enjoyable ride for me. It's certainly the Disney Experience. But again, because that's so great and it's so Ivory Tower, I love how you've taken us into that tangible, that tactical, that small business approach that I think can be used. Whether I'm a small business owner or I'm someone working inside a team at a larger company, a lot of those ideas apply Vance. It's been a treat for me today. Thank you for being on CX passport.

Vance Morris: 34:51

Thanks for having me, Rick. I appreciate it.

Rick Denton: 34:58

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.