German automaker Porsche AG has won acclaims for its high-performing sports cars, but when it comes to high-performing customer service – not so much. The manufacturer now wants to shift its customer relations into high gear, and who better to turn to for help in making happy customers than the owners of the self-proclaimed happiest place on earth, Walt Disney Co.? Porsche has hired Disney’s customer service, leadership and corporate culture consulting arm, Disney Institute in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., to train management at dealerships under its subsidiary Porsche Cars North America Inc. in Atlanta, as well as at the European headquarters. Taking a starring role in the initiative, called Excite!, is local dealership Rusnak/Westlake Porsche in Westlake Village. The business is one of 15 dealerships in the Rusnak Auto Group franchise, headquartered in Pasadena. It was chosen for the role because it’s one of the automaker’s top U.S. dealerships. Porsche selected it and 14 other dealerships out of 188 nationwide to work with the Disney Institute as a benchmark of best practices. Taking on Disney Institute is part of a broader strategy relating to the brand’s future and development, said Keith Goldberg, general manager of Rusnak/Westlake Porsche. “Porsche wanted to take things to the next level,” Goldberg said. “They want to, from the top down, enhance the guest experience. We wanted Disney to study Porsche from the client experience and employees – since happy employees make happy customers – and the processes, or lack of them, at the dealer level, corporate level and back in Stuttgart.” Elevating the experience In the most recent ranking by Costa Mesa-headquartered J.D. Power of top automobiles in terms of dependability, Porsche tied for the No. 1 spot with Lexus. And this year was Porsche’s 13th consecutive year as the most appealing brand, according to J.D. Power. But Porsche has ranked poorly in four of the past five years in customer performance rankings – until this year, when the automaker roared into fourth from ninth place and on par with brands such as Lexus and Audi that have long held the top positions. Automotive dealership consultants Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller, founders of Rich Dealers in Orlando, Fla., said customer service challenges facing dealerships, aside from the industry stigma, are rooted in their processes and people. Auto dealerships are large-sized small businesses run by those who started there as entry-level staff and worked their way up, or by children of the owners, or those who are both. The result is owners and operators who are inexperienced at running a business, much less one as large and complex as an auto dealership with numerous departments and heavy cash flows. “In inexperienced hands, systems and processes often fall by the wayside, and the business suffers,” Miller and Vee explained. “With a lack of structure and leadership, the employees are left to make things up as they go. This ‘inmates running the asylum’ phenomena often results in customer service issues, among other things. The lack of structure and experience also leads to culture issues, which always trickle down and directly impact customer experience.” Porsche N.A. declined to comment for the story on the broader purposes of hiring Disney. According to Goldberg, Porsche corporate is covering the full cost of Disney’s consulting fee. Disney Institute also wouldn’t comment for the story, but according to its website, it provides “cultural transformation” using the same techniques that have made its entertainment and resort businesses a success. It shares its best practices on leadership, service and employee engagement with companies looking to elevate their customer services, and will help them form a customized program. “The goal is to sustain your transformation for the long-term,” the institute’s website says. By choosing the Disney Institute, Porsche is in good company. In business for 20-plus years, the Disney Institute has been hired by the National Football League to elevate the Super Bowl customer experience and fan engagement; it’s been contracted by sports teams, university athletic departments, sports and events facilities, Hdip Inc.’s Haagen-Dazs ice cream brand, health care insurer and health services provider Humana Inc., numerous hospitals and product manufacturers. In the auto industry, automaker Volvo Car Group hired Disney to help it through its identity crisis after it was acquired by Ford Motor Co. and Best Chevrolet, a dealership in Hingham, Mass., consulted Disney when it needed help with unhappy employees and customers. Rich Dealers in Florida went backstage at the Walt Disney World resort with five auto dealers and Disney Institute personnel in 2012. The pair noted Disney customer-facing and support employees equally showed they understood and could demonstrate Disney values, and that both management and employees expressed them evenly. Miller and Vee felt dealerships could create a similar congruency of values and behaviors as well as benefit from learning the fundamentals of leadership, employee engagement and service skills – Disney’s core competencies. “These are the building blocks of every organization,” the pair said. Disney expertise At Rusnak/Westlake Porsche, everyone from upper managers to customers were interviewed by a Disney representative who spent a full day at the dealership in July. He was incognito, Goldberg said, although management was told someone would be there asking them questions. “I wanted him to come out with a true read and a true impression of the dealership. If not, how are we going to improve?” Goldberg asked. The Disney Institute’s representative zeroed in on the dealership’s processes for responding to different situations, handling conflict resolutions between staff, determining who gets involved and who has the authority to get involved with clients and to what extent, and whether staff feels the processes are fair. The representative asked employees how they feel about working for the dealership, if they like their jobs, if they feel there are opportunities for advancement, if they feel valued, and if upper management communicates to them clearly about directions, expectations, goals and responsibilities. “He was trying to get mindset between corporate and the dealer body and how they engage with one another,” Goldberg said. That’s because automakers have to maintain a delicate balance between their dealerships and automobile buyers, Miller and Vee said. Automakers want the best representation of their brands – which has to happen through the dealerships – but they can only go so far in how they require the dealerships to do that, since dealerships are franchises. That’s where the Disney Institute comes in. “The Disney Institute provides a framework for extreme customer service – or really, delightedness and fanaticism – that most dealership owners and managers would gladly buy into and can easily follow,” the pair explained. “This is a powerful way to indoctrinate the front line without resorting to the typical carrot and stick approach of quantitative customer satisfaction analysis.” Best practices The mantra that “happy employees make happy customers” is one that Rusnak/Westlake Porsche says it has followed for years. The secret, says Goldberg, is in Rusnak’s best practices – which he said is a main reason Porsche N.A. asked Disney to study it as one of its high-level dealerships. One example of best practices is that employees must be 100 percent certified by Porsche – something not required by the automaker. He instituted that because knowledge is power, Goldberg said. “We deal with a very intelligent, knowledgeable and affluent (customer) base,” he explained. “(Being certified) helps us interact and be able to answer people’s questions and concerns better than the next dealership.” Also, employees – not just top management – are awarded with trips to a Porsche driving school or even a visit to Porsche’s plant in Germany. Employees get full benefits, and the company promotes from within. The results are high employee retention, Goldberg said, which customers prefer because they like working with the same sales person and staff. And the dealership’s sales volume of more than 1,000 new and used vehicles a year puts the business into the highest volume category, with customer referrals and repeat business accounting for 70-plus percent of those sales. Those practices and its clear and present culture impressed the Disney Institute representative – to the point he asked Goldberg if the dealership would take a more active role in the next stages of the program, but that has to be decided by Porsche corporate, he added. In the next steps, Disney Institute will meet with Porsche AG, and then share its information with Porsche executives. Eventually, Disney will help Porsche form its own solutions to the issues the institute found, which it will disseminate in workshops to U.S. and German dealerships and corporate employees. Despite Disney Institute’s positive remarks and its own awards, Rusnak/Westlake Porsche can improve on service because no one really has to buy a Porsche, Goldberg noted. “Buying a Porsche is not a necessity-based vehicle; it’s a want – a reward after years of hard work and accomplishment,” he explained. “So it has to be a phenomenal experience.”
Disney Helps Dealers
