You’ve probably heard stories about Walt Disney and how he approached customer experience. What most people don’t realize is that he didn’t just build theme parks and make cartoons. He engineered delight. And one of the core principles behind that was what he and his teams came to call “plussing”. They were always finding small, meaningful ways to make a good experience even better.
At its heart, plussing is the idea that doing something small and thoughtful can completely change how someone feels about an experience. You look for opportunities to surprise, to ease a frustration, to leave a person feeling genuinely cared about.
Those small gestures compound into loyalty, trust, and long-term relationships that your competitors can’t buy.
Walt Disney didn’t just talk about delivering a magical moment. He insisted on it. Stories from designers and experienced thinkers describe how Walt would walk through ideas with his teams and say, “Yes, and how can we take this another step further?”
One of the clearest examples of this mindset is how every cast member (Disney’s word for employees) is empowered. If they see a family whose child has dropped an ice cream cone, they’re encouraged to walk them back to the stand and get a replacement — no questions asked. It costs the company pennies. But it saves a family from frustration, disappointment, and stress, and it creates a moment of gratitude that plants a seed for future loyalty.
First and foremost, you do it because it’s the right thing to do. Caring can’t be faked. But as a business, that experience might cause that family to buy an extra souvenir, recommend the park to friends, or decide to plan a return visit in the future. That one small gesture could literally be the difference between someone looking back and feeling like it was a bad experience, or the most elevated, amazing experience ever.
What Plussing Means for Sanctuary
At our company, we’ve taken that spirit and translated it into something that fits our business and values.
For us, plussing is simply doing infrequent, small things that don’t cost a lot of time or money, but return a lot of value. We do these things without hesitation, conditions, or billing.
Our actions align directly with our #1 value, and that is striving to actually be a Sanctuary for our clients. We’re not running theme parks, but we are serving people. More than anything, we want clients to feel seen, supported, and confident that we’re in this together.
What Plussing Looks Like in Action
Here are real examples of how you might be able to put this into practice:
- Doing work that’s needed, but not billing for five minutes of effort. If someone calls and needs a few minutes of your time to do anything, handle it without billing them. That extra support matters more than a few dollars on an invoice.
- Responding quickly, especially when it’s not expected. Nothing says “you matter” like hearing back promptly.
- Sending a thoughtful note for no reason at all. A little personal message, whether it’s congratulating someone on a milestone or acknowledging something meaningful to them, strengthens the relationship.
- Checking in without an agenda. Consider sending an email just to ask how someone is doing or if they need anything. That’s not transactional. That’s relational.
- Referring someone to a trusted resource. Sometimes the best answer isn’t something you can provide. Taking the time to connect someone to the right solution earns trust.
What Plussing Isn’t
Let’s be clear, plussing can get out of control quickly. Not only can it create scope creep and lost revenue, but it could also create friction, disappointment, or loss of revenue when you have to draw the line.
Here are just a few rules to consider.
- Plussing is not doing significant work for free. If something requires meaningful time and expertise, it should be billed. Customers should respect your craft, your time, and the value you bring to the table.
- Plussing is not a way to compensate for poor processes or unclear agreements. Small gestures should enhance a strong partnership, not patch over recurring issues or misaligned expectations.
- Plussing is not about small freebies that clients start to expect. Generosity isn’t generosity if it becomes entitlement.
The little things matter
I always say that the little things matter, and I truly believe they do. When you make that small extra effort, it’s never about the moment alone. It’s about the impression left behind. People remember how they were treated. They remember that human interaction and what you did for them with no strings attached. Over time, those little things paint a big picture: a picture of an organization that gets it and cares.
Outside of delivering on what you promised and what the customer is purchasing, this is how long-term relationships get built. Not through a single massive gesture, but through consistent micro-moments of care and thoughtfulness.
Plussing the experience isn’t just about being nice or helpful. It’s strategic. It’s a competitive advantage that’s hard to replicate unless you make it a core part of your culture.