Lane Merrifield, newly-named head of development for all of Walt Disney's family-oriented virtual worlds, repeated Walt Disney's mantra to listen and serve the customer base in order to build a successful business.

Merrifield, who co-founded Club Penguin, stressed, "If we can truly learn how to put the player first, we will build better games, build stronger teams, and thus build better businesses."

According to Merrifield, it's imperative that this customer service focus comes from the top. Just as Walt Disney built Disneyland in response to grungy carnivals so that his children would have a safe environment to play, the founders of Club Penguin wanted a safe online environment for their children to play. Merrifield compared the early days of the Internet to a busy intersection. Much attention was paid to the tools to keep children safe, the equivalent of crosswalks and lights, instead of regulating the environment itself.

Furthermore, the top leadership needs to serve as an example to the rest of the company. "If we want to create a warm, caring, respectful environment online," he said, "then we must reflect that in the office. Otherwise, we're just being hypocritical."

He also cautioned that service has to be genuine, not just well-intentioned: "Great service must come from the core of the person who truly wants the best for you." For this reason, Club Penguin hires people like assistant teachers and volunteers from the Girls and Boys club as customer support staff. These people have shown that they genuinely care about children.

Club Penguin's customer support staff typically responds to 5,000-7,000 e-mails a day and strives to have a personal connection with each child. While this will tend to generate more e-mails as kids write back and forth to these individuals, Merrifield said he was all for that because all those e-mails contained valuable feedback. Kids will say what they think would be cool and what they think would be lame, if something was too hard or frustrating, and what they enjoy.  Club Penguin listens to the customer and follows through because the company feels it's important to make the customer always feel that his or her voice is important.  They also rely on play-testing, forum and blog checking.

When asked how Club Penguin distinguished between the wants and needs of the kids audience, Merrifield said they acted as parents. Kids routinely ask for a bed for their igloo. Club Penguin answers that there are no beds because penguins sleep standing up but he acknowledged that there are no beds because beds could bring up inappropriate discussions. Club Penguin also has implemented a timer so that the game can be turned off. This addresses the concerns of parents.

Merrifield also shared the company mantra, "Crush the Joy."  This simply means that employees shouldn't let ego stand in the way of service. Often times, Merrifield said, ego takes center stage, removes the player, and game developers start serving their own desires instead of the players'.  For Club Penguin, it's simple -  "If it doesn't matter to a kid... it doesn't matter."