The Magic of the MagicBand
“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”
Customer Experience (CX) can sometimes feel like one of those nebulous terms in business (much like Digital Transformation). Everyone knows how important it is, but there can be a large spectrum of what the words mean. And the truth is, when a customer experience is really good, the customer doesn’t necessarily even recognize it in the moment. However, they will come out of it saying “wow, that was effortless / cool / inspiring.” And then tell all their friends all about it… which is exactly what I’m about to do here.
The most magical customer experience on earth.
Last August I took a trip to Disney World for my dad’s 80th birthday. I love Disney but I’m not necessarily a “Disney person” (IYKYK). It had probably been about 15 years since my last trip and I was completely blown away by their updates to their experience! Despite the 95 degree heat and daily meltdowns (by both kids and adults), it almost somehow felt… easy??
Like many great customer experiences, I didn’t necessarily pinpoint at the moment all of the reasons why it felt so smooth. However, when I got home I started thinking about what made this trip so different from any other Disney trip I’d taken in the past (aside from the 4 extra kids I had in tow). So I began digging in and researching this new Disney CX to understand exactly what made it so great.
The biggest, and by far most impactful, change since my last visit was the introduction of the MagicBand. For those of you who aren’t “Disney people” either, the MagicBand is a wearable device with an RFID chip that serves as your ID, your hotel room key, your park ticket, your photo collector, and your wallet. Basically the only thing you really need when you leave your room as long as you stay within the massive walls of the Magic Kingdom.
What I discovered was that reinventing the Disney experience with the MagicBand was the result of years of innovation, hard work, navigating internal politics and most of all, putting the customers’ needs at the center of every decision.
Innovation starts with with a thorough understanding of who you’re innovating for.
Any great CX starts with a customer-centric strategy. This includes a robust understanding of the needs and pain points of your customers as well as macro and industry changes that can impact your customers’ expectations of the experience.
Today, Disney is recognized as an extremely innovative company and one of the most valuable brands in the world. But 20 years ago, the parks division was not necessarily thriving. Consumer research showed that guests’ “intent to return” was dropping with half of first-time attendees saying they would not likely come back because of the lines, ticket costs, and other pain points.
The parks were also failing to keep up with the rapidly evolving technology landscape including social media and smartphones. It was time to make a change or risk becoming irrelevant to future generations.
Enter the MagicBand.
Big Sky thinking can lead to value creation for all stakeholders.
The initial idea for the MagicBand was born when Disney business development VP, John Padgette, was flipping through a SkyMall catalog and saw the TrionZ: a magnetic wristband to help improve golf swings and prevent sore muscles (a perfect - and punny - example of what we at Winter Sun like to call “Big Sky Ideation”). Inspiration really can come from anywhere in and out of category!
The main goal of what was originally referred to as the xBand (x for experience): removing friction for the park visitors. People come to Disney for what Disney exec Neal Galer called “a better reality than the one outside”. But the current reality of the park was long lines for rides and food, complicated ticket systems, and treks from one end of the park to the other. The single, wearable device had the potential to cut out multiple pain points at once.
The added bonus of the bands is that they would provide Disney with a plethora of visitor data points. Today these data points are analyzed via machine learning in order to refine, enhance, and personalize the experience for its guests… and, let’s be honest, optimize revenue opportunities at the park. I’m sure my family spent way more by simply scanning their wrists than we would if we had to stop and dig through our wallets every time someone wanted a snack. Value enhancing all around.
Real change doesn’t happen like magic.
When you see the MagicBand in action and realize how smooth it makes the experience, it just seems like a no-brainer. And today things like wearable devices and tap-to-pay aren’t necessarily novel concepts. But in reality, the MagicBand took 5 years from initial ideation in 2008 to launch in 2013, and required a lot of thinking about what technology could be capable of currently, and 10+ years in the future. And that time was full of push back from the operations, creative, and security divisions as well as plenty of arguments over ownership and execution.
My point being that organizational and cultural change, especially truly transformative change, is hard. And to do it right you need much more than an inspirational vision. Ideation needs to start with the “Big Sky”... but then come back down to be grounded in the realities of what customers really want and what is both reasonable for a company and will have the most impact.
From there, you need buy-in and alignment from your leadership and down. At Winter Sun we find that the easiest way to achieve this is with:
A defined roadmap that shows dependencies, timing, investment, and revenue
Visuals and prototypes that get people on board and excited
Basically all of the details you will need to get from here to there. And it can’t be one and done. These will need to be reevaluated over the years as customers, industries, and your business evolves.
Am I a Disney person after all?
When Disney first started out to reinvent the park experience, one of their main goals was to advance in a way that kept them relevant to the next generation of park-goers. After this last trip, my husband and I made the bold declaration that we’d make sure to come back to Disney World every 2-3 years. Between that decision, and the fact that I just wrote a 1,000 word blog post to let you all know about the experience… I’d say that their mission was a success (at least according to my sample size of 1!)
