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| Ocean Medallion |
A few years ago Disney embarked on a
massive customer experience journey that included the introduction of a ‘Magic
Band’. Disney at that time followed (and likely still does) an idea that can be
paraphrased as looking at everything through the eyes of the customer and pay
attention to all details. During his
2016 CRM Evolution opening keynote Dennis Snow explained this
concept and implementation in depth (see also my earlier CRM
Evolution post).
Dennis talked about the Disney way of
creating great customer experiences, which basically follows three simple rules
1.
Design your processes with the
customer in mind, not with internal/operational priorities; look through the
lens of the customer
2.
Pay attention to details
3.
Create little “Wow Moments”.
These add up to a lasting great experience and are easier to achieve than
single “big” experiences.
To me the most important message that
Dennis conveyed is that the simple things and consistency are what matters.
Consistently provide little experiences throughout the customer life cycle. He
underpinned this with some examples from the ‘ordeal’ of getting out of the park
and back into the hotel. Everybody is exhausted, kids may be edgy, riding the
bus is usually not fun. What about the bus driver singing some songs or doing a
little trivia? The rooms showing some little surprise, like specially folded
towels?
Another of his core messages was that a
company gets loyalty and advocacy only by creating those “wow” moments
mentioned above. For this to be effective, however, it must not fail at base
priorities. Customer expectations can get mapped to a pyramid. Every customer
expects accuracy and availability. These are just the baseline, however. If a
company fails at these then there will not be a good customer experience. There
is also no chance to create wow moments in these layers – only negative ones.
Opportunities for wow moments lie at the top of the pyramid, where a company
can become a partner or ultimately become a trusted advisor.
Why do I repeat all this?
A short time ago, on CES 2017, Carnival
Cruises announced that they, supported by Accenture, have created something
similar to the Magic Band: The Ocean Medallion, which will be given to
customers who book a cruise in Carnival’s ‘Ocean Medallion Class’. The device
will connect to and be tracked by approximately 4,000 sensors, including
interactive screens etc., on board and is intended to greatly enhance the
customer experience before, during, and after the cruise. Customers can provide
their profiles via a web portal pre-cruise and on board use the device to open
their cabins, pay for drinks/food or merchandise – or track their family
members on board …
It shall also help streamlining the
boarding process when in harbor.
On the backend the technology is driven by
machine learning and an advanced analytics system that learns about preferences
and over time, in order to better direct messages to the customers, based upon
their preferences. Communication between the medallion and the sensor network
happens in real time and it looks like, judging by the Carnival promotion video
that Chris Petersen linked to his article,
many processes will take advantage of this.
I can only surmise that Carnival wants to
create the little wow moments that are at the heart of Disney, with a little
help of technology, although there is no mention of service staff involved as
the technology is a support to the ship’s crew. And as Michael Lowenstein in
his column
as well as other people often repeat, the employee is an integral part of
delivering customer experience.
A Job well Done! But Who’s Problem does it Solve?
Watching said promotional video and looking
at the FAQ
I personally find only gimmicks that are creating a difference. Screens now
show photos relating to me when I pass a screen, I can get photos pushed to my
mobile phone – oops, do I really have my cell phone with me all the time on the
ship? – I can order a drink to be delivered in some time to my seat in the
show, etc. Ah, yes, I can track the whereabouts of my kids on the ship. Do I
really want that? Admittedly it is sometimes easier to meet as a group,
although here things can become positively creepy.
The rest is old wine in a new glass. Does
it really matter whether I present an NFC enabled plastic card handed to me or
use an admittedly more fancy gadget to open my door, or pay for a drink? Wasn’t
the detection of a person being in a cabin to control the AC possible before?
The Ocean Medallion along with its
accompanying technology first and foremost solves a problem that Carnival may –
or may not – have. It makes it simpler for the crews to do
their jobs, which is commendable in itself. Additionally it serves as a tool to
drive additional revenue by probably making it even easier to buy non-essential
things.
This also gets evidenced by a statement that comes at the end
of the video:
“At
the core of it we are taking the burden of service delivery off the crew.”
The Ocean Medallion system is an awesome
piece of technology. If wisely used it can make some aspects of a cruise easier
than they are without, and create wow moments. This, especially if Carnival
succeeds in delivering on the more basic customer expectations, and follows
simple rules, similar to the ones outlined above.
It also can become very creepy. Walking
this fine trail carefully is important
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