Disney Survey - Not a fan of people on "vacation" forums...

[PhotoDave219]

For sure, because I have literally spent 10's of thousands of dollars over the years on WDW vacations and this is the second survey that has ended abruptly just this year. I think that all future ones will be relegated to the trash bin immediately. If they don't care about my thoughts, I don't care much about theirs either. That is the primary reason why statistics are very close to useless. One way or the other, the results will be tilted in a direction to reinforce what they are doing to so to stock holders or other VIP's. A total waste of anyone's time. At least this one got to 15% complete. The first one didn't make it past 8% complete before they stopped caring.

Well, if they listened to their hardcore customers, they couldnt skew the numbers the way they want to support whatever project they have going.

When you discount any potential naysayers, then sure the people want peak pricing.

 

[copcarguyp71]

My suggestion? Never admit to being a reader of these internet forums during a survey. Then they throw your answer out.

Ive said it many times as I was told it many times from company friends: Disney simply does not care what our opinion is, as long as we open our wallets.

And nothing...NOTHING will change until that happens. I have chosen the be part of the solution by taking my money elsewhere...as I suspect others have hence the deep discounts for foreign travelers and the incessant outbuild of DVC trying to lock in long term amortization of the american dream to reinforce their false profitability. While it may look good right now to shareholders at some point this balloon will inflate far too much to survive even a blunt object and *poof* the thin veil of profitability will be replaced by a very real reality that they can no longer pull the wool over vacationers or the shareholders eyes. Boy...do I hate feeling this way. I am not a doom and gloomer...but I find myself more and more disenchanted with the WDW that is versus what once was. I understand things (and times) change but for this guy I find it all too much to bear.

 

[ford91exploder]

They only want the opinions of specific people.

Its weird because when I was in research 11 years ago, they weren't like this. They pretty much wanted everyone's thoughts. (Hint to Corporate Lurkers, You should pay attention here)

Disney Research is no longer looking for opinions to identify trends, The are looking for data to back management's preconceived ideas. This is the time when companies take a dive when they think their customers impressions and ideas are irrelevant to the current business strategy.

 

[ford91exploder]

And nothing...NOTHING will change until that happens. I have chosen the be part of the solution by taking my money elsewhere...as I suspect others have hence the deep discounts for foreign travelers and the incessant outbuild of DVC trying to lock in long term amortization of the american dream to reinforce their false profitability. While it may look good right now to shareholders at some point this balloon will inflate far too much to survive even a blunt object and *poof* the thin veil of profitability will be replaced by a very real reality that they can no longer pull the wool over vacationers or the shareholders eyes. Boy...do I hate feeling this way. I am not a doom and gloomer...but I find myself more and more disenchanted with the WDW that is versus what once was. I understand things (and times) change but for this guy I find it all too much to bear.

I've felt this way longer than I care to admit with this kind of corporate hubris one wonders when the inevitable death spiral will ensue for TWDC. When companies think they are invincible they inevitably fail in a spectacular manner. I don't see the individual BUSINESSES going away but I think in the not too distant future TWDC will no longer exist as a corporate entity.

 

[Tom P.]

FWIW, we just returned from a Walt Disney World vacation on Sunday and I received a survey invitation on Monday. I don't believe it was this exact same survey, as it was more focused on the resort we stayed at (Art of Animation). But, still, I was asked a bunch of demographic questions, and I did answer one saying that I use third party web sites (the survey specifically mentioned disboards.com and mousesavers.com as examples) to find information, and it didn't disqualify me. So they're not automatically excluding everyone from all their surveys who visit sites like this.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Sounds like (at least to me) they are seeking skewed answers for imagined demographics. Basically seeking confirmation of their manifest destiny by manipulating the responses. "nothing to see here...move along folks". "Yes, we want your opinion...unless is differs from or casts a poor light on our brave new world in which case good day sir!"

Nothing really new or unheard of for Disney.

FWIW, we just returned from a Walt Disney World vacation on Sunday and I received a survey invitation on Monday. I don't believe it was this exact same survey, as it was more focused on the resort we stayed at (Art of Animation). But, still, I was asked a bunch of demographic questions, and I did answer one saying that I use third party web sites (the survey specifically mentioned disboards.com and mousesavers.com as examples) to find information, and it didn't disqualify me. So they're not automatically excluding everyone from all their surveys who visit sites like this.

Those are sites that keep in line.

 

[Tom P.]

Well, if they listened to their hardcore customers, they couldnt skew the numbers the way they want to support whatever project they have going.

When you discount any potential naysayers, then sure the people want peak pricing.

But here's the thing... why *should* they think they are doing the wrong things when these people who complain are also their most devoted customers, spending money on their parks again and again? Face it... those of us on boards like this tend to complain the loudest, but we also tend to visit Disney World the most of any group. And I venture to say that in spite of whatever complaints we may air on these boards and in spite of how many of these types of discussions we have, most of us will be back in the parks before too long.

To Disney, that may legitimately equate in their minds to "these people look for things to complain about, but they obviously are actually happy with what we provide, because they keep coming back." And in that case, why shouldn't they discount our complaints?

As @copcarguyp71 said, nothing will change until people start taking their money elsewhere. And I see no sign of that. Park attendance is hitting new records year after year after year. And I'll be honest. Even though there are things I'd personally like to see changed, my family will be going back again, because we still love Walt Disney World.

 

[Tom P.]

Those are sites that keep in line.

In addition to these boards and wdwmagic.com, I am a regular reader of disboards.com and follower of the DIS Unplugged podcast. I don't know if you regularly read disboards.com or listen to their podcast, but I don't find them to "keep in line" any more than we do here. There are just as many complaints, rants, etc. about Disney there as there are here.

 

[NelsonRD]

I like giving feedback. I like to think that things could change for the better if companies know what the public's perception is. (But I don't complain about corporate greed.)

And that is the problem. People that are willing to participate on their own time without any compensation are a little biased, and typically do not provide any more information that what they already know. I remember overhearing a survey a guest was taking while my wife was in the restroom once. If I can remember correctly, the questions were "How many times have you visited Walt Disney World", and "Are you staying on property?". Not really game changing questions there.

If they were to add some sort of compensation for my time, I would think they are taking the results of the survey a little more serious, then I might participate. But I highly doubt getting more accurate guest feedback is high on their to-do list.

 

[jakeman]

In clinical research when you are testing a drug you have to set endpoints to prove/disprove before you start. Based off those endpoint you set inclusion and exclusion criteria that you feel will best reduce outliers to the data.

If you are testing an asthma medication on the severely asthmatic, you exclude the mild and moderate. Is that because you don't think that the mildly asthmatic deserve your product? Absolutely not, but it's data that you aren't looking for and then you have to do the work to exclude it at the end. Chances are you have another study either ongoing and waiting in the wings for those other populations. You could do one big trial, but then you have a morass of data to wade through with several muddled endpoints.

There could be dozens of endpoints that they are looking at that would involve excluding a subset of sites, or even online planning beyond the main Disney sites.

 

[sshindel]

Targeted surveys are typically being used to prove or disprove something for a very specific set of people. There are many reasons that this can and is done, and none of them evil.
They could be removing bias, people who frequent vacation forums may have already formed an opinion on something and they are looking to gauge the response of a concept on an audience that is not pre-biased to their questions.
They could have many versions of this survey being sent out, with different wordings being used for different target demographics to test the validity of their survey (is one method of asking a question actually introducing bias into the results?). A/B testing is used quite often for things like this, to either test for effectiveness, or test for bias.
They could have other methods of gauging the opinions of people who frequent fan forums, since their opinion is already quite available for them to reach (could be web scraping and data mining this very thread for all we know), and the survey is targeted at gaining information for those that they cannot reach through these methods.

I've heard the statements previously and agree that statistics can be twisted to prove any point. Just look at politics for any one of a million examples of this happening.

People who collect and analyze data though tend to be very set on letting the data itself tell the story, not using the data to prove a pre-set story. Maybe some upper management types might like them to do that, but a good data person does not let bias of any kind enter into the results of their data, bias from external sources or internal. This of course cannot always stop someone from telling their own story with the data once the analysis is complete, cherry picking pieces that fit their own narrative, using methods to obscure results that do not work favorably for them, etc. Again, this happens all the time.

But, I'd say that the people setting up the surveys themselves, and running them, are trying to avoid bias, not create it. What management does after that depends on how unscrupulous they are. Hopefully very unscrupulous people are found out quickly and removed, because a person who goes against the data is typically one making poor decisions that lead to poor business results.

 

[PhotoDave219]

But here's the thing... why *should* they think they are doing the wrong things when these people who complain are also their most devoted customers, spending money on their parks again and again? Face it... those of us on boards like this tend to complain the loudest, but we also tend to visit Disney World the most of any group. And I venture to say that in spite of whatever complaints we may air on these boards and in spite of how many of these types of discussions we have, most of us will be back in the parks before too long.

To Disney, that may legitimately equate in their minds to "these people look for things to complain about, but they obviously are actually happy with what we provide, because they keep coming back." And in that case, why shouldn't they discount our complaints?

As @copcarguyp71 said, nothing will change until people start taking their money elsewhere. And I see no sign of that. Park attendance is hitting new records year after year after year. And I'll be honest. Even though there are things I'd personally like to see changed, my family will be going back again, because we still love Walt Disney World.

Because the people who are being critical can point out the small problems that are easy to fix today, before they become million dollar problems five years from now.

Proactive companies that give weight to Criticism end up being able to navigate the ups and downs of their business much easier.

 

[mystical magic]

Over the weekend I received an email from Disney asking me to complete a survey about my July, 2014 trip. I started to take the survey, and they went through their normal questions to establish my demographics and such. Then it came to a page that asked me if I participated in social media (i.e., facebook, twitter), and I said yes that I read and posted on facebook. It also asked me if I blogged, and I said I read blogs but didn't blog myself. But, then it asked if I participated in forums specifically about vacationing or vacation destinations, to which I replied that I both read them and posted on them. After that...it said I was no longer eligible for the survey.

Hmm....makes me wonder what they are surveying that they don't want the likes of me responding to??

Anyone else had a similar experience?

Yup. Same thing yesterday.

 

[matt9112]

i just asked the Disney facebook when they are going to announce tiered pricing with the #stockprice

 

[Lucky]

I've taken surveys before. I've said that I'm a forums poster. Not once has it booted me off.

Maybe they have different screening criteria for adults and kids.

 

[ford91exploder]

Targeted surveys are typically being used to prove or disprove something for a very specific set of people. There are many reasons that this can and is done, and none of them evil.
They could be removing bias, people who frequent vacation forums may have already formed an opinion on something and they are looking to gauge the response of a concept on an audience that is not pre-biased to their questions.
They could have many versions of this survey being sent out, with different wordings being used for different target demographics to test the validity of their survey (is one method of asking a question actually introducing bias into the results?). A/B testing is used quite often for things like this, to either test for effectiveness, or test for bias.
They could have other methods of gauging the opinions of people who frequent fan forums, since their opinion is already quite available for them to reach (could be web scraping and data mining this very thread for all we know), and the survey is targeted at gaining information for those that they cannot reach through these methods.

I've heard the statements previously and agree that statistics can be twisted to prove any point. Just look at politics for any one of a million examples of this happening.

People who collect and analyze data though tend to be very set on letting the data itself tell the story, not using the data to prove a pre-set story. Maybe some upper management types might like them to do that, but a good data person does not let bias of any kind enter into the results of their data, bias from external sources or internal. This of course cannot always stop someone from telling their own story with the data once the analysis is complete, cherry picking pieces that fit their own narrative, using methods to obscure results that do not work favorably for them, etc. Again, this happens all the time.

But, I'd say that the people setting up the surveys themselves, and running them, are trying to avoid bias, not create it. What management does after that depends on how unscrupulous they are. Hopefully very unscrupulous people are found out quickly and removed, because a person who goes against the data is typically one making poor decisions that lead to poor business results.

@sshindel all your points are valid however I've seen more times than I care to mention the 'data' people getting overriden in academia and business and surveys used more to backfill preconceived ideas with 'data'. It's just how modern day America works sadly.

The other tendency is to discard the 'raw' data and only keep the datasets which support your point of view this is a crime against data science because it prevents the data set from being reanalyzed and or used to research alternate subjects.

 

[ford91exploder]

i just asked the Disney facebook when they are going to announce tiered pricing with the #stockprice

ie price goes up when the stock goes down so they can repurchase more shares so the #stockprice goes back up...

 

[sshindel]

@sshindel all your points are valid however I've seen more times than I care to mention the 'data' people getting overriden in academia and business and surveys used more to backfill preconceived ideas with 'data'. It's just how modern day America works sadly.

The other tendency is to discard the 'raw' data and only keep the datasets which support your point of view this is a crime against data science because it prevents the data set from being reanalyzed and or used to research alternate subjects.

Agreed. Management can and does use data to tell the story they want told. Hopefully those are self-weeded out eventually by making ill informed decisions, but we know that quite a few likely slip through the cracks as well.

 

[copcarguyp71]

Did it ever occur to anyone that to have a true and honest survey a third party would need to utilized? There really is no way that a company that does not want bad news would ever allow a survey to come back to them showing poor decisions on their part and unhappy revenue regurgitating cattle.

I realize there is really no way in which this could happen but in my Utopian minds-eye I wonder sometimes what WDW would be like (assuming they had the funding on their own) if they were a privately owned company and not beholding to share prices, stockholders and dividends where they could re-invest a bulk of the profits back into the parks. No, not MM+, DVC or resort expansion or any other such "improvement" but the things that really do matter to guest satisfaction and suspension of disbelief while in the parks....and IF this were possible would they have the vision that Walt had to stay the course. Ahh well, I guess that is a dream forever to remain inside my head...

 

[jakeman]

Did it ever occur to anyone that to have a true and honest survey a third party would need to utilized?

That's not really true. Again, going back to medical research, patient reported outcomes are used as endpoint all the time. They are gather by the same people taking care of the patient. As long as the survey is administered correctly the data should be sound.