There is a famous Disney story about flowers. The gardeners had created a nice flower bed at Disneyland. The guests trampled the flowers. The gardeners replanted it. The guests re-trampled it. After several frustrated replantings, the gardeners met with Walt Disney. They wanted a fence or a “Do Not Walk” sign. Walt’s response was illuminating. "Now wait a minute! A path like that isn’t created by an occasional person cutting through, but many people cutting through. You’ve got to realize that people do this because they have a good reason to walk through there. Don’t fence it off. Pave it for them!”

Walt was tightly focused on what his guests wanted. In our last [MIC Key Snaps issue, V2I7](https://madmimi.com/s/a8563e), we explored some of the research Walt Disney conducted before he built Disneyland. That tradition of guest research continued to this day.

The above above showcases a representative of the Walt Disney Research Team getting three guests’ opinions. The team members are a continuing presence at the entrance of each park. They will approach a guest, ask if they can ask questions, and continue until the guest(s) has had enough and walks away.

The questions may include the following:

Demographics – Where they are from, how many are in their party, how long they are staying, where they are staying, which ticket package they chose

Selections – Which parks, attractions, food, merchandise locations they have visited

Reviews – Which of those locations were their favorites/least favorites and why

Improvements – Guest pain points and possible fixesPossibilities – Proposed attractions, merchandise, foods, and even parks

All the resulting data is then combined with attendance, hotel occupancy, [Fast Pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastPass), [Magic Band](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagicBands) and guest letter/comment data to continually improve the guest experience. The result often is a Mouse House providing for guest need and answering guest questions before, or at, the precise moment of guest need. It seems like magic. It’s really relentless guest needs focus that has been built upon the founders own “dog it until it is done right” approach.

There are a few points to draw from this Disney practice.

• Pay close attention to customer behavior
• Collect and synthesize customer data
• Apply that data to give customers what they really want BEFORE they ask for it

As Walt said, “You don’t build it for yourself. You know what the people want, and you build it for them.”