High-Touch Interview with Rick Allen: Uncovering the Magic Behind Personalized Meetings
When you think of high-touch service, which organizations spring to mind?
For many of us, one of the first names will be Disney, and if you’ve ever visited a Disney resort, you’ll know what truly high-touch service feels like.
High-touch service is personalized, attentive, and involves deep human interaction. It should leave customers feeling valued, and contribute to a strong working relationship over time. This is exactly what you can expect from a visit to a Disney resort… but also exactly what you’ll get from an AMI meeting.
At our recent ASPIRE event for the AMI team, we welcomed retired Disney executive and keynote speaker Rick Allen, who shared his fascinating insights from 43 years at Walt Disney World, who identified many of the parallels between the high-touch service clients can expect from Disney and AMI. We loved his session so much that we wanted to dig deeper into Rick’s take on high-touch service, and why it’s so important to the clients of both businesses.
The Different Levels of High-Touch Service
First up, Rick pointed out that there are different levels of high-touch service. Sometimes, high-touch service will be extremely obvious, but other times, it can be almost invisible, like a very subtle gesture or action that reminds the client you’re always thinking of their needs.
At one end of the spectrum, Rick told a story about a Walt Disney World guest who came back to his hotel room to discover that there had been a gas leak, and he would need to move rooms. The chief engineer met the guest at his door immediately to explain that everything would be handled by the executive housekeeper. The housekeeper took the guest to the lounge for a complimentary beverage while he waited for his new room to be ready. Once the room was ready, the guest opened the door to find all of his possessions in exactly the same place as in his original room the shirts were hung in the closet in exactly the same order, his shoes in the very same places, the AC set to the same temperature, even his devices all plugged into the same outlets! This attention to detail left the guest blown away by the level of service. He called the Resort GM that day and said he would never stay anywhere else when he traveled to Disney.
But those subtle examples of high touch service are just as powerful. It can be something as small as an event manager giving a keynote speaker a “knowing look” as they enter a room, letting them know that you’ve noticed them and are ready to attend to their needs.
Creating a memory that will last forever
Rick shared a story about his time at the Art of Animation resort, where his team worked with a military officer on organizing a surprise reunion for him and his family. His family did not know he had returned from overseas and had not seen him in almost a year. They were coming to the resort on a short vacation. The Disney team worked hard with him in secret to make sure the surprise would be just perfect.
On the day the family was checking in, the Art of Animation team hid the military officer backstage, with all the front desk cast members lined up to shield him from his family’s view. Then they played a special song that was meaningful to the family. His wife and two kids loved that, but didn’t quite know why this was happening. Just then, the cast members parted to reveal the officer for the big reunion. The kids screamed and the wife cried, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house! Rick said he was sure the family will remember it forever, but the Cast at Art of Animation are still telling the story to this day. The hospitality business gives you opportunities to create wonderful memories like this.
Going the extra inch
The small instances of high-touch service are what Rick calls “going the extra inch.” At Walt Disney World, going the extra inch meant doing the small things that weren’t necessarily in your job description, but that would make a huge difference to customers.
A Disney example might be having “cast members” (resort employees) kneeling down to speak to children. This small gesture helps make the cast member more relatable and accessible to children, and makes their experience more magical.
Rick identified a great example of going the extra inch from AMI’s own ASPIRE conference! Our AV expert, JP, was setting up “confidence monitors” with reminders and prompts for the event speakers, and he realized that Rick was struggling to see the text on the screens. Without being asked, JP spent some time tweaking the sizes and colors of the text to find the perfect setup for Rick, making it easier for Rick to deliver his keynote.
Another example of how we go the extra inch is by explaining client issues to other staff members on the client’s behalf. We never want our clients to have to explain their issue to more than one person. As Rick said, if you need to introduce your client to another staff member to help them with an issue, always make sure your associate understands the issue fully without having to ask the client to repeat themselves. As odd as it sounds, in these cases the phrase “How can I help you?” is NOT the best service – because your client already told you. High- touch service is saying, “Mr. Johnson, I understand you would like to make a menu change. I can absolutely help you with that…”, rather than implying they need to repeat their problem once again.
Why top-performing companies should prioritize high-touch customer service
Rick believes that the public is hungry for high-touch service today, following several years of low-touch self-service in the aftermath of the pandemic. Everyone got used to slow service from overworked employees, long wait times, and complex phone trees, which brought with it all number of frustrations and feeling undervalued by businesses and vendors.
In many ways, people show loyalty to businesses as part of their “personal brands.” All of us do this! Are you a Marriott person or a Hilton person? Are you a Delta person or a Southwest person? And people will passionately brag about “their” brand. We all know someone who will say, “I will fly through 3 hubs and for 2 more hours, just so I can fly on Delta!”. In this example, Delta worked hard for that trust. AMI works hard for that trust as well. People expect more from their favorite brands, including high-touch service, and if you meet (or exceed) those expectations, you will be rewarded with loyalty.
Rick experienced these high expectations at Disney, and much of that trust came from the feelings guests had about Walt Disney himself. Walt appeared on everyone’s TV screens every Sunday night, and he was like everyone’s favorite uncle. So, when the Disney team made mistakes, their guests were not only inconvenienced by the issue, but the team broke their trust with Walt! That trust is why it’s so important for Disney to keep its commitment to high-touch service and make every interaction memorable and magical.
Similarly, we understand how crucial it is that our clients’ events run smoothly. That’s why high-touch service is one of our four pillars – it’s integral to the AMI way of doing things. Much of this happens behind the scenes – we work hard to perfect the little touches, such as a comfortable room temperature, the right lighting, and a clean, pleasant-smelling environment, alongside the big, showstopping pieces that grab everyone’s attention.
The role of curiosity in high-touch service
Rick is a strong believer in the value of curiosity, and he used it every single day at Disney. No operations leader at Disney will be successful if they spend all day sitting in an office – instead, the best leaders are out walking the resorts and getting to know every last detail.
“If you never peek around the corner, you’ll never discover something that could be really important!”
But true curiosity takes practice. You can’t just spend one day looking for the details in your resort, hotel, or meeting venue – it needs to be something you practice all the time. The more you look, the more you see, and the better-equipped you are to handle those tiny details that most people would miss.
A big part of that means becoming an exceptional listener. The more you listen, the more likely your team will be to come back to you with more suggestions, ideas, and better ways of doing things, which will only improve the service for every single client. At AMI, that means asking the right questions and not assuming there’s only one right way to do everything. This allows us to be curious and innovative, and truly deliver the high-touch service our clients want.
Teamwork makes the dream work
Rick also shared a story about his time working on the Test Track attraction at the Epcot park. His team was asked to find ways to make its operations more efficient, which required cutting some labor lines. So, Rick studied the labor schedules and cut out a position that looked to be superfluous.
A couple of weeks later, Rick was holding a Cast (employee) forum where he shared information and answered questions. Some cast members from the Test Track attraction questioned why “X position” had been cut. In some cases, some of the cast members cut from the attraction added a huge amount of additional value that the operations team didn’t know about, so the Test Track team was able to suggest cutting alternative labor lines that would result in even greater efficiency.
Rick found that after this experience, the Test Track cast members were much more forthcoming with their own ideas, because they knew that they would be listened to and their expertise could have an impact on key decisions.
Why clients come back time and time again
Think about the lasting appeal of Disney. People come for the magic, and come back for the great service.
We find the same here at AMI, with our highly specialized, attentive service. Our team is 100% dedicated to perfecting your meeting experience, and this guaranteed peace of mind is why our clients return time and time again.
“Look, we know in the hospitality business, things will go wrong. We don’t like to see that happen of course. But that is also a huge opportunity to create magic! The difference between “good” and “the very best” could very well be how you handle situations where something goes wrong. That’s where you really see high-touch service making a difference.”
High-touch service can often be the difference between client success or failure. AMI’s clients are striving to achieve some amazing and complex things and their meetings are complex as well, with a LOT riding on them. Without high-touch service, they may not achieve the results they absolutely need.
Because of this, Rick points out, the difference between a high-touch provider such as AMI or a low-touch provider can actually be… relief! Choosing a high-touch vendor takes the stress of event organizing off your shoulders. We’ll take care of everything, and that often includes the things you haven’t even thought about. We can save you from sleepless nights, months of worry, and unnecessary stress – and that really is priceless.
Rick told a story of where he realized “relief” can be a result of high-touch service. He was the Operations Manager at Walt Disney World’s Grand Floridian Beach Resort. On the day of a Disney/MGM Studios Grand Opening, a car pulled up with an obviously panicked driver. It was pouring rain. Rick was outside helping to manage the traffic, and asked the driver how he could help. The driver blurted out, “I do Jane Fonda’s hair and makeup… I am late… she is here somewhere…”. Rick immediately told the driver to park under a “No Parking” sign and radioed through to the hotel team to find Jane’s room. Rick then told the driver where to find Jane, took the driver’s car keys, grabbed the makeup artist’s luggage, and sprinted to the right room. Several weeks later, Rick received a letter from the makeup artist, saying: “Thank you so much for your help. I have told 100 people about you rescuing me, and the relief I felt.”
“I learned then that a magical guest experience can include all kinds of feelings, and relief can be one of them. Organizing events and operations management is complex and stressful, but if we do our jobs right, we can take that weight off our clients’ shoulders. By applying our experience and expertise, our clients know we’ve got them covered, and we’re helping to improve their quality of life.”
What high-touch customer service really looks like
When we talk about high-touch service, we tend to think primarily about the “front-office” roles and operations. That might be the event managers who are available on-site to bring clients their favorite drinks, or the waiter who remembers a regular client’s birthday and gives them a free slice of cake. There are thousands of these little ways for customer-facing employees to show up for their clients, all of which make a difference to the way clients feel about us as a vendor.
What we don’t tend to think about is the equal importance of non-customer-facing roles. It’s a bigger challenge to make a memorable impact when you’re not face-to-face with clients every day, but it’s not impossible.
Getting back-office staff involved in high-touch service
Rick remembers seeing a finance employee from Walt Disney World’s Caribbean Beach Resort with a stack of envelopes on his desk. Rick was curious, and asked what the envelopes were for. The finance employee was reluctant, but eventually told Rick that he always sends handwritten notes to the rooms of guests he is dealing with behind the scenes to wish them a good meeting. This finance employee’s only standard interaction was sending an invoice at the end of each guest’s stay, but this small touch was his own way of “going the extra inch” to make guests feel special.
High-touch service is “just what we do”
Rick shared a story about his time at the Art of Animation Disney park. He was walking past the pool, and spotted a custodial host playing jacks with a little girl. Rick checked back a few times, and the Cast Member had been there for over an hour. Rick radioed the Cast Member’s leader and they spoke off to the side. The leader said: “Maria was really bonding and laughing with this little girl and I felt it was important to just let this play out.” Rick finally walked over to what looked like the little girl’s mom and said, “Hi, I’m Rick, just checking if everything is OK?”. The mom gave Rick a big hug and said, “You can’t know… how wonderful… this is,” and started crying. It was obviously a very impactful gesture. After a while, the parents and the little girl stood up and left. Rick never found out the full story. Later that day, he thanked the Cast Member for spending so much time with the little girl. She replied with, “Not at all Rick. That’s just what we do!”.
At AMI, high-touch service is baked into every single client interaction. Any client of ours knows that they will get high-touch service from every member of our team, whether that’s a simple email confirmation or walking you from room to room at your event. We do what we say we’ll do, with a can-do attitude, and we will do everything in our power to give you the best possible meeting experience. That’s just what we do.
To find out more information about Rick, please visit: Home – Rick Allen Consulting Group
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