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You are here: Home / In the Media / Focus on the Customer Experience and Profit Will Follow

April 16, 2016 by Ava Lucanus

Focus on the Customer Experience and Profit Will Follow

What area of your business is most important to you? Many will say profit and growth without thinking about the driving force behind it; the customer experience.

In 2007, I was lucky enough to live every parent’s dream and take my daughter to Disneyland. Previously, as a young adult in the mid 80s, I had taken myself to Disneyland and had been overwhelmed by the spectacular service and smooth operation of the theme park.  But this time, everything had changed. The customer service was inconsistent and the staff attitudes seemed indifferent. The magic was gone.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one who had felt this change. As Fast Company magazine reported in their May 2015 edition, in the mid-2000s Disney executives were worried. Disney World was losing popularity. Guests’ intent to return was decreasing and around half of first-time attendees indicated they likely would not come back because of long lines, high ticket costs, and other park pain points which didn’t provide the wondrous experience they were promised. This was hugely affecting profit and growth.

At the same time, the increasing use of social media and smartphones threatened the relevance of the theme parks. People had different tastes and no longer needed to travel hundreds of miles to be entertained. If Disney wanted these more tech-orientated generations to love it as much as their parents, who had grown up with fewer entertainment alternatives had, it would have to embrace change now.  They identified that they were failing to recognize key consumer trends that influencing how people interacted with brands.

As a solution, Disney created the MagicBand, an electronic band that can digitally carry everything a guest might need, from park tickets, photos, coupons, keys to their room, even money.

The benefits of this investment proved to vastly outweighed the cost. One of the most important features of this band is not one which is even advertised to its guests. By wearing the band, guests are tracked as they navigate the park. By monitoring where crowds are forming, the company can better optimize crowd flow. For example, if the sensors noted that one section of Magic Kingdom was is becoming overwhelmed with guests, operators can immediately respond with a character parade around the corner, to disperse traffic and ease stress on their employees. And if they notice a long queue is forming at a particular ride, they can send a character to entertain the crowd, easing frustration and making for a better customer experience while they wait.

Disneyland

But this kind of traffic management is so much more than just a service to customers—it has helped Disney fit more guests inside its parks. As a result there is hardly ever a line at the main entrance to the park and it takes just seconds to stream through with a MagicBand. The turnstile transaction time has been cut by 30%, resulting in many more people entering the gates, which has generated greater profit.

The MagicBand also collects valuable consumer data that allowed Disney to understand their customers so they could better serve them, and stop delivering the one-size-fits-all experience.

This genius invention has saved Disney’s future, whilst improving their company culture. Simply put, it brought the magic back to Disneyland.

While it doesn’t need to be a high-tech or expensive, maybe it’s time to look inwards and think ‘what could you do to create a better experience for your customers, whilst easing employee stress and increasing profit?’

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Filed Under: In the Media

About Ava Lucanus

Ava Lucanus takes a proven, practical and refreshing approach to helping organisations create exceptional customer experiences that align with their brand promise. Drawing upon four decades of knowledge and experience, Ava works with companies Australia wide and is recognized as an authority in her field. Through her company Edge Communication she provides consulting, training and coaching programs for every level within business to fully optimise their relationships.
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Ava is a very natural and engaging speaker, who I noticed a few years ago and have experienced many times in different settings since. Her language is very clear and pragmatic and she communicates on the level of her audience, to make it most relevant to them. We have engaged Ava as a communication expert twice in the past 2 years to train our staff in communication skills and we have always been impressed with her abilities as a speaker and trainer. I highly recommend her.

Doris Dengel Managing Director, Executive Staff Services

Ava Lucanus from Edge Communication has been engaged by our firm to conduct communication workshops on numerous occasions. As a successful and local IT business, Leap Consulting has found her wealth of knowledge and training invaluable. Her professional manner and proven techniques have enabled our staff to not only manage all types of customers but provide confidence in dealing with them. Her highly skilled qualifications help to deliver information in an interesting, relevant and easy to understand manner. She has a very likeable and trustworthy nature and her interactional workshop ideas have been implemented within our organisation with great success”.

Zaun Bhana Managing Director, Leap Consulting

Ava presented two professional development workshops, the aim being to create an awareness of the importance of aligning customer experience with our brand promise. Ava did a wonderful job of achieving this aim and enabling our professional staff to identify how they can ensure their service delivery aligns our client’s experience with our firms values and our promise of “great people, great results.” Her seminar was engaging and captivated the attendees to understand better the customer journey, the use of different types of “language” and the importance of a customer service system. We all thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from her knowledge and have taken on board many of her ideas to improve our client service approach. Ava is an extremely professional and experienced communications consultant. She uses humour, interactive techniques and factual information to ensure she gets her message across to a diverse group of people. I would not hesitate to recommend Ava.

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Ava recently presented a workshop for our organisation in Dealing with Difficult Customers, using the Click Colours tool. The training was well attended by our staff who commented that Ava presented in a very professional, engaging manner. They all felt they walked away with new skills and took suggested ideas back into the workplace. I would definitely recommend Ava for any future workshops.”

V. Small Customer Service Manager, Shire of Augusta Margaret River

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