Why Disney is Incredible - Part 2 of 5 - Be close to your best customers

If you read the previous post, we are still defining customers the same way.

What I mean by being close to your best customers is providing them a way to interact with your company easily and at a very personal level. This can be actual communications or helping them achieve some success.

My first example is from my previous post: The FastPass. If you haven't read the previous post, please do for a definition. The Fastpass is a very personal contact with the customer that gives them the chance to manage their amusement riding experience. It gives them control and allows them to save time, something very precious when you're trying to cover every inch of a huge park.

My next example is from the Laugh Floor in the Magic Kingdom. This comes from the Pixar movie Monsters Inc. As you walk to the entrance of the theater, you have the opportunity to text message a joke that could be used in the show. Again, a customer's very personal opportunity to provide actual input into what they're about to see. Once in the show animated characters interact in real time with the audience. Because of the unique interaction, each performance is completely different. You could see 10 shows and each would be different. Can you get any closer to the customer than this?

Why Disney is Incredible - Part 1 of 5 - Speed Transactions for your Best Customers

This is part 1 of a 5-part series on business tactics that make DisneyWorld incredible.

Let's define your best customers as those who do the most business with you or immerse themselves in what you offer.

If they want to do business with you, why would you slow them down? Ideally, you wouldn't.

Here's the idea I learned from Disney... Their customers are interacting with them in various ways. One way is the amusement rides. Everyone hates to wait in line. Especially in a long, hot line with other people. So Disney provides the FastPass. You probably know about it, but if you don't it's a ticketing system that lets you use your park ticket to get a ride ticket for a later time. You show up at the designated later time and you have little or no wait. It helps distribute the demand across the entire day.

This helps their best customers speed their transaction in this way - the rider (customer) now has a way to make his wait time shorter, or can get a FastPass ticket then go stand in another line. Once the longer wait is complete, he goes to the previous ride and gets on much faster. They have been on two rides in less time than it took before. Disney sped up their transaction. In this case the transaction was consuming an amusement ride.

Another Disney example of speeding transactions is providing multiple character viewings at once. Parents and kids stand in one line to get pictures and autographs from more than one character. This eliminates the individual lines for characters that could take much longer if done individually. It also ensures each character gets equal time. Because let's face it, some are more popular than others.

I personally benefited from each of these and appreciated the time it saved me. I'm sure your customers would do the same.

How can you speed your best customer's transactions to help them save time and help you with more transactions?