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Chapter 12 • Customer Relationship Management 333

that goes beyond today’s CRM,” he said, “using not just the data, but data in the context of
individual customer behavior.”
Due to technical and other problems, Disney has discontinued Pal Mickey since 2008
but supports customers who own a Pal Mickey and bring it to their theme parks. However,
Disney has developed two new CRM applications recently, “Mobile Magic” with Verizon
Wireless phones and several others with Apple’s iPhone. These applications provide guests
access to real-time park information similar to the Pal Mickey. Mobile Magic allows you
access to real-time information on wait times for rides, return times for “fast pass” (which
is another technology that prints a ride-specific card with a time on it when the guest can
come back and wait in an express line), and information on character locations. This appli-
cation also includes a GPS-enabled mobile map, which shows you your current location
while you are wandering the theme parks. You can scroll through an extensive list of loca-
tions and easily route to any location you choose whether it be a character greeting or a
short line for a ride that you found on the application or directions to a dinner you have
reservations for in the park. The Apple iPhone applications include the following: (1) The
“Walt Disney World Maps” application contains full-size maps for the Magic Kingdom,
Epcot, and other Disney theme parks in Orlando. For each map, you can look for individual
rides or attractions and make a schedule of the things you want to visit. You can also find
your location on the map; (2) the “Disney World Dining,” which includes full menus for all
160 restaurants and also locates the restaurants closest to you, with one-touch dialing for
the Disney dining reservations number; and (3) several others such as the “Disney World
Park Hours,” “Disney World Notescast,” “Disney World Wait Times Free,” and “Mouse
Memo.” The appendix at the end of this chapter provides more details on these iPhone
applications. Disney also relies on its guests to provide real-time updates to things like the
wait times for rides, which really creates a network of people who are users and updaters of
the applications.
What do you think about Disney’s CRM strategy? Will Pal Mickey and newer mobile
phone applications enhance the customer experience? Why?

PREVIEW
Disney’s CRM strategy is methodical, logical, and organized. Business strategy plays a very
important role in any CRM implementation. A good strategy coupled with a well-defined set of
requirements, identification of key success factors, and good partnerships will usually lead to
success in CRM technology. Disney’s goal is to reduce the hassle for visitors to the park by
creating a more personalized environment, with IT at the core. According to Disney CIO Russ
Berry, “The role of IT is changing. It’s not simply an organization that deploys technology, but
one that now integrates technology from a lot of different angles to improve the customer expe-
rience.” The complexity of implementing a CRM system in a company like Disney is to be able
to adapt to the changing requirements of the customers during the implementation of a system.
The implementation alone can take years for a project with as wide a scope and expectations of
what this system will mean to Disney.
CRM focus should always be on customer experience. Because customer expectations
often change, it is important for the company to understand that CRM implementation needs to
be customer driven more than technology driven. That is, CRM implementation must involve