Picture above is not mine… or anyone that I know. Needed a non-descript image with a “park:” crowd…
This one sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised to know the level of guest intelligence that is “left on the table” and not acted upon. In 2022, park Operations, Marketing, etc… has more tools at their disposal to make data-based decisions than at any time in the history of the industry- but sometimes easy methods are overlooked and ignored because of the daily grind.
Knowing Your Guest:
How well does your venue ops know your guests? If someone were to randomly come up and ask operations to describe your:
- Typical daily guest
- Ideal daily guest
- Steps to achieve the ideal
- Barriers?
How do you collect data? Marketing Intelligence agencies would love to sign a contract for thousands to answer the above- and this is not to discount that. Generally speaking their intelligence and actions are collaborated on by a “committee” of creative, action-minded professionals with a vested interest in your success.
But, not all parks, venues, and destinations are able to pay lengthy contracts.
Resources at Your Fingertips:
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- Web, social media– the industry has real time access to intelligence at their finger tips- though most don’t know how to tap into this vital resource.
- Apps– Cost has come down significantly over the years. Some apps are severely underused and are only used for ticket scans and wait times. Make sure you look into the features that come with your app… and use them to your advantage to learn who your guest are.
- Email– not the tool it used to be. For most, email is mostly for essential communication- most other messages are most times ignored and get lumped into the “son of the disposed king of ____-” wanting to give people $5.9M to transfer their money. That doesn’t mean that you don’t use it. For the amount of email that can be sent to recipients in your database for literally pennies cannot be ignored… just don’t overuse it and keep it short and sweet.
- Polls and Surveys– Not all have to be specifically driven. You can get a lot of intelligence sometimes by taking nonsense surveys.
- Management Roaming the Property– Don’t allow upper management to stay in the office to just make decisions. Guests who feel like they can interact with someone that has authority and make a connection may be more disarmed when adversity strikes.
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- COMPLAINTS/GUEST SERVICES– take them ALL in. Take notes on all of them; even the ones you know only want free stuff. In a lot of places I’ve been it seems that the employee tasked with receiving complaints drew the short straw that day. A treasure trove of guest intelligence can be gathered in listening to what bothers the guest….. And create repeat guests as a result.
Know Thyself:
What steps do you take to get to know your profile in the mind of the guest? I did “Guest Experience” consulting with a venue in 2014-2015 that actively went through and, rather than address and engage with the upset guest, would delete/scrub any bad comments. Complaints are a great, free form of feedback. Some people may just want free things, that’ll happen, but if you come across the same complaint repetitively- there may be something that needs to be addressed.
You can use every tactic used to know your guest to reverse engineer the responses to learn the guest impression of your attraction.
In your surveys, ask guests their honest, maybe 1-10, opinions about specific aspects of your attraction. Tally results, then ask management to complete the same survey and match up answers.
Great AND terrible Guest Experience has its genesis in the same location:
- Knowledge of who their guest is, or lack thereof
- Knowledge of what the public “billboard” says about the venue
Managing a great Guest Experience is not rocket science but it takes focus and dedication to the “long game.” The parent company to the Attractions Group (the Office Group) consulted several venues on several disciplines before the COVID pandemic- Guest Experience being one of them.
We haven’t ventured back into that space with both feet yet, but if you would like to have a conversation- we’d love to talk to you!
