Spine thickness?? - Delaware North

54
GuestPath ®
When Delaware North developed GuestPath ® , its
data-driven continuous improvement process,
it had one thing in mind: providing exceptional
experiences to its 500 million customers around
the world. Having just celebrated its fifth year
as part of Delaware North’s core competencies,
GuestPath ® has been implemented companywide.
More importantly, it has become part of the
fabric of Delaware North’s being.
To celebrate GuestPath ® ’s fifth anniversary,
Delaware North declared 2009 the Year of the
Guest and went on the road to tape GuestPath ® in
action. The result is a library of online videos that
shows what it takes to create special experiences,
not to mention how paying attention to guests can
strengthen an operation. Even clients were happy
to make cameo appearances on GuestPath ® TV.
Across the lines
Delaware North’s internal motto is: One company.
One brand. One vision. Perhaps nowhere is this
played out more completely than in the area of
customer service. Indeed, one of the strengths of
the GuestPath ® team is its ability to cross operating
company lines. Because business partners are
responsible for regions rather than subsidiaries, each
business partner can easily cover for another. The
structure works so well, Delaware North is beginning
to apply it to other areas of the company.
If they’re happy, they will spend
GuestPath ® ’s ability to improve guests’ experiences
is undisputed. But it wasn’t until Delaware North
decided to examine the relationship between
satisfaction and spending that an additional
advantage of GuestPath ® came to light. Using
the company-owned resort Tenaya Lodge and
Yosemite National Park’s The Ahwahnee as case
studies, Delaware North set out with a hunch:
Happy guests spend more.
To determine if the notion had validity, the
GuestPath ® team went to work. The first task was
to comb through GuestPath ® data revealing the
satisfaction levels of former guests. Second, the
guests’ folios were pulled so that discretionary
spending (i.e., purchases other than the nightly
room charge) could be charted. In the end, the
data showed a positive relationship between good
experiences and guests’ discretionary spending
while at the resorts. Furthermore, the study
revealed the amount of discretionary spending for
things like food, spa treatments and retail items
increased as a guest’s satisfaction increased, thus
suggesting a correlation between the two.
Just ask
Can a service strategy drive business? Associates at
Cleveland’s Progressive Field believe that it can,
especially after testing the theory in May 2009.
The Delaware North team first documented sales
of combo meals. Then it added a simple greeting
(“Welcome to Progressive Field. Would you like
to try a combo meal?”) and counted up the sale
of combo meals again. The results showed a
73-percent increase in daily sales after the new
greeting was put in place.