Through rain, sleet or frigid weather, Disney World keeps on smiling

I spent the last two days in a very cold Disney World.  Forty-five degree weather (with blustery winds) is simply too frigid to see the sights of the Magical Kingdom and take on the rides at Universal Studios.

But, that didn't really matter to those in charge of this theme park. They simply found new ways to draw thousands of kids' attention and to certainly make lots of added revenues while doing it. I tip my hat to this company. It is among the best I've seen at marketing. More to the point of this blog, Disney changes how it provides service and value to meet customer demands as quickly as a company can.

For example, I couldn't help but notice how every Disney shop strategically rearranged its stores by placing all sweatshirts, coats, hats and even gloves right up front. There were long lines at the cash registers to buy these necessities. Conversely, the typical Mickey, Homer Simpson and Jimmy Neutron t-shirts were almost impossible to find.

It was certainly too cold for families to slip and slide on water rides. But, that made no difference to Disney. It still found numerous ways to entertain everyone, keeping them outside in the streets. I noticed that the parks had (what seemed like) an unusually large number of Disney characters in costume walking the sidewalks, greeting excited kids. When I asked one park official why, he (unofficially) told me that they tripled the frequency of these characters coming out into the open so that families would brave the cold to make their children's dreams come true. (I'm not sure if any dreams were realized for my kids... but after waiting for 30 minutes, they did get a nice photo with Homer, Bart and Marge Simpson.)

Although most rides and exhibits had long waiting periods, it was obvious that Disney employees were also doing everything possible to herd groups of customers into express lines. This moved crowds along at a quicker pace and, in many cases, pushed people inside where warmer shelter existed.

I heard from many native Floridians in Orlando that this is the coldest winter in 20 years. Some complained that lots of businesses have been hurt because of it. My bet (though) is that Disney World has weathered this crisis just fine.

Riding roller coasters, eating ice cream and standing around to watch parades doesn't make much sense in any place with such extreme cold weather. That is, except for Disney World, where every day is magical and everyone is always smiling.

Comments

[Steve]

I would bet that Disney must have a management culture that rewards (intelligently) taking the initiative and responding to circumstances. Too many organizations have a perfectly good game plan, but never adapt or improvise, so once conditions change, they're left out in the cold. What your write about, Ed, sounds like an organization that actually pays attention to what's going on--even if it's as prosaic as the weather--and encourages its people to do something about it.

[Ed Moed]

I think you're right, Steve.

It's clearly built into the culture. Disney World is one of the ultimate customer serving, "make people happy" institutions.

In a world where it's almost impossible to maintain high quality standards, it's good to see how with Disney somethings never change.