Despite using a fictional narrative and conjecture, I am going to continue on with "Trudy" and her family's vacation week in Orlando. I will try to keep this short of Homer, but it will still look like my 2 previous "wall of text" posts. In this installment we will fast forward to day 2 of the stay and look at the 2nd layer of "enhanced guest" features. If you are new to this thread or skimmed past my previous posts, the are on pages 207 and 208 or post #4133 and post #4150.
If we recall, "Trudy" scheduled her vacation several months ago. She indicated what days they would visit what park or other Disney venue. She scheduled all her FPPs. So, today was supposed to be Blizzard Beach and the family woke up to severe thunderstorms though out the day. No water park today.
Luckily for "Trudy's" family, they have a car. They also have an open day and a little girl that loves Harry Potter. So the family piles into the car whisks down the I-4 to UO. Disney "sees" the family leave their resort and before NGE would have no idea where they went. With NGE, Disney knows they left property because they left the "net" area. Redundancy systems, (such as a data point MAC ID from "Trudy's" phone) confirm this. There is no entry at Blizzard Beach. We lost a guest (or guests looking at this from large groups of data perspective). This is layer 2 "guest retention".
Thunderstorms on a water park day seem predictable on my vacations. In this way I can relate to "Trudy's" family looking for an alternative. NGE can be applied proactively here, Disney can send an automated message to the hundreds of families like "Trudy's" that planned a Water Park today. "Oh boy, it sure looks like it is going to be a blustery day but.... we have good news for you. To help rise above the gloom, here are 3 unrestricted FPPs for you to collect instantly at EPCOT."
Unfortunately, "Trudy's" phone was on vibrate so she missed this important message. NGE, which is linked into everything in the resorts and parks identifies those families that are redirected to EPCOT. It also identifies the families that it lost for the day. Whole groups of families. However, when "Trudy" returns to her resort after a fun filled day at UO, a friendly, unobtrusive survey person is waiting at the front entrance. The survey CM approaches and asks, "Would you like to take a quick survey today?". "Trudy", being an amiable person, (like me) says sure. The CM hands the "Frankensteined" iPad to her.
The survey asks if they spent their day on the resort property.(Of course, they already know this answer.) "Trudy" answers honestly (data point) that they did not. The survey asks did they visit other area attractions. "Yes". The survey then asks the competition question," Of the Orlando area attractions listed here please select all that apply.". "Trudy" selects only UO. The survey concludes by asking if they would be willing to answer additional survey questions at a later date."Yes". "Thank you for participating in our survey. As a courtesy for giving us your time, here are special viewing area tickets for tomorrow night's performance of Illuminations."
So far we have identified why "Trudy's" family and a few hundred more, left resort property. We further refined where they went. This competition question is important. NGE will help all the current surveys be more relevant and identify groups more likely to give honest answers.They already apply survey results they collect now. NGE will make it better and more targeted. For guest retention, how can we keep them from leaving the resort?
Later that evening, "Trudy" is checking her e-mail. She sees a message from
invitation@disneysurveys.com and opens it. There is a link to a brief survey about their UO experience. She may or may not feel a sense of obligation to do it based on the freebie she received earlier or just likes participating. After loading the first survey page she answers yes or no to attractions her family "tried". The next page is of those "tried", what attractions would you try again and what was the favorite. On the third page, there are selections for what about <blank> made it their favorite.
Market surveys are done all the time. They include questions only relevant to the company conducting, the competitions' offerings, or a mix of both. Disney has been doing it for a very long time. As I mentioned before, NGE will make it more reliable.
This second layer of "guest retention" will work to keep guests on property. If there is rain, offer an alternative on property. If there are rides at UO that are pulling traffic, trump that type of experience with something better. If SeaWorld pulls your sea lovers to something, re-purpose area around "The Seas" (there is some room back there). Every competitor can be trumped on Disney property. Plus this will give all of us here something to cheer about, NEW ATTRACTIONS.
Clearly, Disney isn't adverse to spending money. The "guest retention" layer will help them choose what attractions to build, enhance, or replace.( I hear booing again.) All of these layers work together and I have more. Since "Trudy's" family went off their script, there are a lot of things that happened.
Additionally, I didn't mark all the (data points) in this post or many on the last one. There are dozens everyday that I would be interested in if I ran Disney Parks. If fact, from a business point of view, the more information I have that is boiled down for different divisional or departmental use, the better.
*1023*
P.S. I intentionally tried to write in broader group themes here using "Trudy" as a 1 of hundreds in a group. I hope that makes some of the readers more comfortable.
