Intentional Disney

Our team at Planning Center had an awesome opportunity last week to take a tour at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. I learned a lot from the tour and wanted to share a few key highlights. 

On-stage / Backstage

The first thing we learned was that we’d be heading “backstage” at the beginning of our tour. Disney makes a clear distinction between what people see and what people don’t see. This goes back to Walt Disney’s desire for Disneyland to be a “show.” Whenever “cast members” walk on-stage, the show is on. This distinction continues into how cast members dress, the conversations they have with other cast members, and even to the fact that none of them carry cell phones. Customers are valued and the magic of “the show” must never be disrupted.

Strollers

Before we entered the gates, our tour guide pointed out the stroller rental area as a way that Disney continues to innovate to serve their guests.  Originally, the stroller rentals were inside the gate.  This was a perfect solution for many years, until Disney opened “California Adventure” — a sister park with gates 200 yards away from the original Disneyland. At first, a separate stroller rental was also placed inside this other park. However, they realized that many guests would visit both parks in a single day.  This lead to guests needing to rent/return strollers twice in a day — a daunting task for any parent. Disney realized this and moved the strollers outside the front gates and allowed guests to rent strollers once for both parks. It sounds pretty simple, but it shows how well Disney listens to their customers. 

Main Street

Walking through the main gates and onto “Main Street USA” was one of the best examples I saw of Disney’s intentionality. 

• Disney changes the atmosphere of the area based on the time of day. At the beginning of the day, guests are excited and energized. Therefore, the area is filled with fun music and lots of characters welcoming you. At the end of the day, however, kids are whiney and parents are exhausted. By 8pm, the loud brass bands were gone and the walk back to the gate was quieter and calmer.
• Disney knows that most guests entering the park are excited to look down Main Street and see Sleeping Beauty’s castle. To enhance this visual, the buildings along Main Street get shorter and the awnings extend out further along down the sidewalk. This makes the castle appear farther away and larger than life. Conversely, at the end of the day, the front/exit gates appear very close — a welcome site for weary parents.
• Disney even arranges different shops and vendor carts along different sides of Main Street knowing that incoming guests will typically stay to the right while entering and on the left while exiting.

Trash Cans

When Disneyland opened its doors in 1955, the original trash cans were simple metal cylinders with the word “WASTE” written across it in big yellow paint.  This drove Walt crazy. Continuing with the idea of “the show”, he didn’t want guests to have to look at the trash. Disney designed the now-common covered trash can. The cans are also painted in each “land” in the park to match the surrounding decorations and theme. It was great to see this incredible attention to detail.

Another fascinating fact here: Disney studied and learned that the maximum amount of steps a person will walk to get to a trash can is 30 paces. In order to promote the cleanliness of the park, trash cans are placed no farther than 27 paces away from each other. It was fascinating to hear this fact, then notice it throughout the park the rest of the day. Whenever I needed to throw something away, I could turn around and usually see 2 or 3 banks of trash cans within a short walking distance.

Fireworks

We spent a good chunk of time backstage with the leader of the Disney fireworks team. For Disney, their fireworks show is their “kiss goodnight.”  It serves as an incredible visual end to the night.  But aside from playing to the emotions of the guests, it also has an incredibly valuable purpose: it keeps guests in the park longer. Rather than bolting for the exit after dinner time, the fireworks show provides an incentive to the guests for sticking around a little while longer … just enough time to visit the gift shop and grab some Disney goodies.

Closed Areas

Disney knows that almost 20% of visitors to Disneyland are season pass holders (versus Disney World in Florida, which has very few). As a result, the expectations of the guests vary greatly.  This was made evident to us while passing an area that was closed for a movie shoot (“Saving Mr. Banks”, staring Tom Hanks). The entire area was fenced off with a green scrim. For Disneyland guests, this was an acceptable way to handle this closing. For Disney World, however, these guests’ expectations would be different. Disneyland guests are such repeat visitors, they would ignore the scrim and move on. Disney World guests — most of whom are first time guests — might be confused and frustrated. In that park, the area would be closed off with tall wooden walls, painted to match the area behind them.

In Disneyland, an attraction that usually had a piano player out front was closed down temporarily. In Disney World, they could simply close the attraction and send the pianist home. In Disneyland, however, many of the repeat visitors would be upset at the missing pianist: “Is he ok? Was he fired?” Instead, the pianist was moved to a nearby attraction and signs were posted on where to find him.

Needs, Wants, Stereotypes, and Emotions

All of these examples lead to another theme that was constantly reiterated by our tour guide.  Disney focuses on four areas for their guests:

1. Needs.  Guests need a vacation, accurate information, etc.
2. Wants. Guests want happiness, memories, etc.
3. Stereotypes. Managing and setting both positive and negative. Negative stereotypes (long lines) need adjustments and innovations. Positive stereotypes (clean and friendly) need to be maintained.
4. Emotions. The intentionality of Main Street (above) is a perfect example of how Disney understands and customizes the experience based on the emotions of their guests.

Conclusion

Overall, my biggest takeaway from the tour was how intentional Disney was with their guests. It’s easy for an organization simply to be reactive to the needs of their customers. Instead, Disney goes out of their way to learn about and respond to their guests. Most of my favorite companies operate the same way — not simply doing the bare minimum to keep a customer, but going above and beyond to create an enjoyable and memorable customer experience.

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Photos:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/39258671@N03/6238638240/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/habinsay/7522156940/sizes/n/