Disneyland Paris: how Disneyland Paris has Mastered its Cxm

Introduction

Today, customer experience management has become the core of companies' marketing strategies.a study shows that customers are directly involved in strategies developed to improve a company's performance (robert johnston & xiangyu kong, 2011). To do this, the author of this article explains that there are three important factors that are linked: employees, customers, and performance. The experience is related to the field of tourism and leisure. That's why I chose to study the case of disneyland paris. This essay aims to show the importance of customer experience management and reveals the strategies adopted by this renowned theme park.

About disneyland paris disneyland paris' mission is linked to the experience of parks. Disneyland paris' primary objective is to make 'dream every day'. The company works on a daily basis to offer a different experience with each visit (disneyland paris news, 2019). When visitors talk about disney's magic, it is to demonstrate the staging of the stories and characters made by disneyland paris by creating incredible landscapes. Disneyland paris' goal is to create unforgettable emotions. This is the key point of the customer experience. For this company, it is a matter of creating a magical environment, new attractions and excellent customer service. According to heskett, you can analyse the strategic service vision framework of disneyland paris with a model in order to have a vision in the description of the business, to identify the points which affects the decision making process and service delivery and, to understand the company’s identity (heskett, 1986). This model is based on the following three points.

Targeted customers

Family with children and adults (26-45 years old) living in europe and enjoy the attractions and atmosphere of disney in the leisure and tourism sectors.

According to disneyland (appendix 1), there are three target groups:

• Disney adults: they love the disney brand and find it unique. They consume the brand's films and media.
• Aspiring families: they enjoy theme parks and/or leisure destinations.
• Disney families: they have children in the right age group.

Value proposition

International brand recognized for a sensory experience with an individual and personalized service. Disneyland paris purpose many offers: two theme amusement parks, parades, shows, restaurants, hotels (7 hotels including 1 golf club), shops with related products, two shopping centres nearby, including disney village, two conference centres for professionals, stations and public transport nearby.

Operating strategy

Disney's generic competitive strategy is to differentiate itself from its competitors. To do this, the company's growth strategies are focused on developing new products adapted to global market trends through new attractions in parks or to develop other service in other sectors. For example, walt disney company enters the vod market with disney+. « The key success is continued quality in experience, welcome, and service. »

The term « experience » is used specifically in some areas such as hotels, restaurants and travel (hirschman & holbrook, 1982). The notion of experience has become important in theme parks. Indeed, its services offer more and more interactions with consumers. It is from here that the notion of 'experience' in marketing came into being (milman, 2001). The evaluation of the service experience has become very significant for a company. «  A favorable evaluation of a service experience should delight visitors by creating feelings of fun and leaving favorable subjective memories » (ping dong and noel yee-man siu, 2013). In addition, a positive customer experience allows you to create a new experience and create word of mouth to attract new customers.

Servicescape, the physical evidence a servicescape is a theory developed by the stimulus-response model (booms & bitner, 1990). Servicescape is the combinaison of tangible or intangible elements of physical evidence and communication, to refers on the effect of cognition and emotion. The evaluation of the servicescape permits to identify the impacts of the physical environment on the customer behavior. It is an important element in tourism management (ping dong and noel yee-man siu, vol 36, p.541-551, 2013).

According to an article by harvard business school, customer journey maps permits to improve customer experience (adam richardson, 2010). The author, adam richardson defines this theory as « a diagram that illustrates the steps that a customer go through in engaging with the company ». The customer journey is an arc of engagement by the customer. A map permits to show the different timelines step by step. Customer journey map take takes into consideration different points like emotional factors and the purchase step.

Disneyland paris seeks to get to know its audience: the emotional and privileged relationship with its customers is always at the heart of its concerns. The brand knows that it must focus on an exceptional customer experience, combined with a loyalty strategy that meets the expectations of its visitors. And it works! Indeed, disneyland paris holds the 4th position on the criteria brand power, relationship and purchasing path, according to an article of betc digital and opinion way (france's leading barometer for measuring and managing customer experience, 2018). How disneyland paris has mastered its customer experience management? « Disneyland® paris is increasing its efforts to make the resort sparkle more than ever before. This is part of its strategy to continually improve quality with one goal in mind: offering guests an ever more immersive, creative, and interactive experience. »

1. Service employees are crucially important in customer experience management internal marketing would be a set of internal processes within a company, such as recruitment, the relationship between management and employees, or motivation, which increases employee satisfaction and to improve service quality dimension for the customer (richard j. Varey & barbara r. Lewis, 2000). Internal marketing is very important for a company. This strategy allows, for example, to link employee satisfaction with organizational performance (pervaiz k. Ahmed & mohammed rafiq, 1995). Today, employee feelings have become a very important factor in a company's performance. Strategies must then be developed to ensure that employees are more involved in their work.

Disneyland paris' internal marketing is based on different points. First, a team is responsible for recruiting the best talent. Once the employees have been recruited, they must go to the disneyland paris school where each employee learns the internal vision and culture of the company. Then, there are regular workshops organized to control work stress and learn to work in a team. Thus, employees are at the heart of the company. Disneyland paris regularly measures the level of involvement of its employees to reward them and improve their satisfaction.

« Building a culture is not a science, it is in fact a mysterious process that when well realized is able to gather the energy and emotions of a set of individuals. » By theodore kinni disneyland paris uses very specific company rules to ensure the quality of service:

• Maintaining a strong culture
• Establish standards (appendix 2)
• Define a singular language
• Being obsessed with fundamentals (effectiveness of routines and basics)
• Establish behavioral benchmarks (visual contact, thanks to customers, proximity to customers)
• Obsessive attention to detail (costumes, decorations, the « main street » - appendix 3)
• Create immersive experiences (villages - appendix 4, attractions)
• Do the show (appendix 5)
• Create magical moments
• Know-how in the face of service hazards (technical problem in an attraction)

Thanks to its internal marketing strategy, disneyland paris improves employee satisfaction and service quality. It is thanks to this that the company excels in customer experience management.

2. Marketing strategy: optimizing the customer experience

The group's marketing strategy is based on three ideas, all three of which are part of optimizing the customer experience. In his words: 'seamless, effortless, personalised'.

• 'Seamless' for a fluid course adapted to each profile
• 'Effortless', to meet customer needs as closely as possible
• 'Personalised', a personalised course for each profile

Disneyland paris has implemented several strategies below to improve customer satisfaction. Improve the customer experience by giving users the freedom to choose their communication channel disneyland's marketing strategy is evolving in the digital transition and is now part of a digital journey. The objective is to adapt to each type of customer according to their preferences. To do this, the company has set up:

• A personalized loyalty program,
• An emailing campaign based on emotional support,
• The many flash sales and limited offers,
• The possibility of celebrating a child's birthday,
• And, an 'annual passport' allowing you to come back whenever you want (appendix 6).

Sensory marketing

The company plays a lot with sensory marketing. Sensory marketing is a technique that involves one or more of the five human senses. Its objective is to seduce consumers while increasing their well-being in order to positively influence their behavior towards a service. For example, on rainy days, umbrellas are highlighted in shops. Disneyland paris also puts toys at eye level with children or even, food smells are diffused all day long. Diversity of attractions to reach all targets disneyland paris invests in research and development in order to offer visitors new attractions that correspond to their desires. For example, in 2014, the ratatouille attraction opened. It was an event that customers were eagerly awaiting. This attraction plays on sensory marketing elements in particular. More recently, the park has also opened an attraction on the star wars universe, which has made it possible to attract a new customer segmentation that the park has not reached until now. An application dedicated to the personalized journey of each visitor this work on personalized customer support continues within the park to improve the customer experience through a personalized journey and to engage customers through a mobile application .

This application allows you to see the waiting time at each attraction and create a personal journey. A few months after the launch of the application, disney recorded much higher satisfaction rates and promises of feedback than visitors who had not used the application. The company's marketing strategy is to create a multitude of touchpoint throughout the customer journey, via the actions previously presented. Its strategy is to create a positive customer experience and improve customer loyalty.

Discussion

The case study of disneyland paris is very interesting. Indeed, it is a company that knows which means are used to improve the quality of customer service. This is a very good example to show that there is a strong correlation between service quality and company performance. Disneyland paris focuses on customer satisfaction, in order to create a new experience in its parks, by developing touchpoint at each stage of the customer journey. For the company, the keys to customer experience are communication, personalization, sensory marketing, differentiation and value proposition. Indeed, disneyland paris proves that the physical environment helps to shape the appropriate feelings and reactions among customers and employees.

Conclusion

Disneyland paris, france's fifth largest hotel centre and europe's leading tourist destination, has built a reputation for itself thanks to an economic model based on dreams, emotion and attention to detail. These three elements are essential to a positive customer experience. With a satisfaction rate of nearly 90%, a record occupancy rate for its on-site hotels and exceptional attendance, disneyland paris is an american-style success story, the result of hard work and significant investments. Over the years, clients have become accustomed to coming to disneyland paris with the idea of spending a stay there, as he would do when leaving for another country.

 

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