My Take On Guest Experience Design

Lately I have been reading a lot on-line about customer service, particularly about social media and customer service. You may have followed a few news stories that covered how someone's tweets very quickly managed to get the attention of a large company. Then recently Chris Brogan discussed "guest experience design" and he followed up by touching on another new catch phrase "experience facilitators" (you might think "hotel concierge"). All of these discussions really are about marketing: marketing our businesses, marketing ourselves as employees, marketing ideas to our employers, marketing ideas to and for our clients, the list goes on. As I thought about all of this, it occurred to me that I would give you my take on "Guest Experience Design" and it might be fun to look back on some national advertising campaigns and see how effective these have been as "experience facilitators" over the years. This will be a multi-post personal walk down memory lane, because like the Meg Ryan's character in "You've Got Mail" said: "Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal."

Disney Resorts and Windows 7
Today I am going to combine two national advertising campaigns: Disney Resorts and Microsoft's Windows 7. I am a consumer of both and; therefore, an expert of sorts. Have you seen the latest Microsoft Media Campaign? It is "Windows 7 Was My Idea!"


This is a very clever ad campaign, but did you ever think that if Windows 7 is a commercial failure, like Vista was thought to be, Microsoft will have all of us to blame? All of the consumers that submitted suggestions, complaints, ideas, will be doing battle with thst MAC guy! Microsoft is trying to reach the people, the consumers, and thank them for their input on the ultimate guest experience design.

Now you are probably wondering how this campaign ties into Disney Resorts. I like to think that Disney's Fastpass was my idea. Historically I have been visiting Disneyland in Anaheim, California since 1955. My parents would drive us from San Diego, before Interstate 5 existed, when Orange County was really all orange groves. But there came a time in April 1994 when I visited Disneyland with Dennis (my husband), Aaron and Dan (our sons then 13 and 10) and my mother-in-law (then 82). In those days the Disneyland entrance had a huge sign that said "The Happiest Place on Earth". As a little girl, as a teen-ager, even as a young adult I never gave those words a second thought, but on April 17, 1994, I knew I was not in the happiest place on earth. The park was so crowded and really congested that one had to wait anywhere from 45-90 minutes to take a ride. In six hours we managed to ride four of the major rides and my children turned to us and said "can we leave now?" When we returned home from our long planned vacation I wrote a letter to the Magic Kingdom. I didn't yell, scream, or belittle the Disney staff, I didn't even ask for my money back. I calmly told them my story. I opened with this sentence: "On April 17, 1994, Disneyland was not the happiest place on earth." I pointed out to them that my mother-in-law was in a wheelchair sitting in the shade of a tree by the Matterhorn, waiting for us to disembark from the Matterhorn, when suddenly a man fell out of the skyway ride and into the shade tree! The day went downhill from there. My overall approach was not to just complain about the crowds, but to offer a solution. I suggested that Disneyland consider controlling the number of tickets sold per day, similar to a National Park (Yosemite) or any concert/special event venue. Then everyone would be able to enjoy that which they had perhaps saved for a lifetime to enjoy. About two weeks later I received a very nice letter from Disneyland. They thanked me for my suggestion and asked me to send them a copy of my receipts for all that we had spent at Disneyland that day. I sent them the receipts, two weeks later I received a gift certificate in the amount of $350 and in 1999 Disney's virtual queuing Fastpass was introduced. So you see I like to think that the Fastpass was my idea and maybe in some small way my ideas did matter to Disney. I like to think so.

Final thoughts and questions
In today's world I might have tweeted about my Disney experience in the moment and Disney would probably jumped right on my Tweet. But would they have had the opportunity to think through a resolution that would improve the experience for every potential guest? What do you think? Do you work on your "guest experience design"? Do you facilitate your guests' experience? Does the design control the guest's experience or does the guest's experience control the design?

Daniel, The Beast, and Judy April 17, 1994

SMO and SEO News Feeds For You

It seems it is almost impossible to keep abreast of all the SMO and SEO news. You can scan the headlines on Google, Yahoo, your favorite newspaper or tech magazine and the amount of information is astounding. Just today I again realized I have an account with Google Reader which automatically sends me more information. I signed in and saw my Google Reader inbox had 851 items! I guess you now know I have been too busy for Google Reader. But this post is not about the Google Reader, it is about how to keep our Webconsuls' clients abreast of internet marketing news. Turns out Webconsuls set up SMO and SEO news feeds for you and our clients over two years ago. So again I ask the proverbial question: Is anybody "listening" or in this case reading?

The experts keep talking about Twitter. I have a Twitter account, I follow and am followed; however, there are a few things about Twitter that annoy me. Today I will just mention two: (a) some people provide TMI (too much information) or should I say information that is redundant (since they have more than one account) and useless information; (b) it often takes two to three clicks to get to the meat of the message. Let me give you a real life example. Today I signed into my Twitter account around 6:30AM (MST). I read a Tweet that said: "6 Reasons to Embrace Social Media Today Web 2.0 Journal". So I clicked on the link, but instead of being taken directly to the article I was taken to a TweetMeMe page that listed 65 Twitterers who had RT (retweeted) this article. I then click on the original link and I am taken to a blog post by Web 2.0 Journal. I read the article, it was interesting, but didn't really provide too much new information, it was more one writer's opinion. Just like my blog post today, is basically my opinion.

Here is my advice for today. If you want to go to one place and read the headlines for SMO, then I invite you to visit Webconsuls' SMO in the News Page. There you will find the current SMO headlines and you only have to click once! If you want to read the SEO news then visit Webconsuls' SEO News Page.

P.S. If you want to find me on Twitter, click here.

P.P.S. If you are wondering about today's photo...this is from 1974 when I was employed by the Cal State Los Angeles University Newspaper, The University Times, a daily paper in those days.

P.P.P.S. As always, let me know what you think.

The World of Mouth Revolution

The world of Socialnomics has taken over and it is clear that Social Networking is not just a phase that will be over soon. The fact is that social media has a life of its own and it grows automatically, replicating itself like a virus. Just about everyone on the planet with access to the Internet has some kind of social networking account, and everyday that goes by more people sign up. The Internet is the voice of the world and it's calling out to us, this is the world of mouth revolution. It cannot be stopped and the statistics in the video below will back up that statement. People do not want directions they want conversations, everyone wants to feel like they are a part of this world that continues to get smaller as networks grow bigger. Watch the video and see for yourself!