Some Interesting Survey Questions

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Just like I am always picked to be "That Guy" in the Laugh Floor, I am always approached by the Disney CM's in charge of pestering guests to take surveys.

 

The way it typically works is the CM wants your email address, and some basic information, and next thing you know, a link to a survey ends up in your inbox.

 

Most of these surveys are very generic and boring.  I feel like the questions are always couched in a way to force a non-criticizing answer.  I figure it's that way so the guys and gals in charge can point to the surveys and say that guests are happy.

 

I got a different survey with some interesting questions this week.

 

Like this one:

 

 

I sure haven't heard of some of those sites.  And yes, I did click "other" and typed in fortfiends.net.

 

Then there was this question:

 

 

You had better believe I checked the choice that Disney is greedy.

 

This whole survey seemed very amateurish to me.

 

Strange stuff.

 

The questions seemed geared to drumming up data to support changes to the passholder program. 

 

TCD

[Memphis 105]

That is a strange survey.  The second question answers are all over the place.  You nailed the answer too.  

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

They missed a lot of periods at the ends of their sentences.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Verrrrrrry interesting!

[Beckers 1,136]

Wow. You think they would have sugar coated greedy. Sounds like a bitter survey created snuck that one in. Don't get me wrong, I agree they are greedy I just can't believe how they worded it.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

I wish I could get that survey!

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

They missed a lot of periods at the ends of their sentences.

 

LOL.  Leave it to you to notice that.  But, seriously, it does make the whole thing look very unprofessional.

 

Wow. You think they would have sugar coated greedy. Sounds like a bitter survey created snuck that one in. Don't get me wrong, I agree they are greedy I just can't believe how they worded it.

 

I know.  It's a very random thing to put in a survey like that.  And there is a statement a few below that one that says "The Walt Disney Resort is too expensive."  It's like they're asking for it.

 

I wish I could get that survey!

 

I wish you could too.

 

Didn't you used to create surveys?

 

What do you make of all those random statements in the second question I posted above?  It seems like there are so many issues they are lumping together in one response.  What kind of useful data do they really expect to get from that?

 

TCD

[keith_h 420]

I hear the response in the meeting room when talking about being greedy.

 

"Give them more Fast  Passes."

 

I'm waiting for the day the Fast Pass line becomes longer than standby.

 

I am surprise that the used the wording "too expensive". Usually you want to word that type of a question as "Do you think WDW is a good value?" This says to me that not only the person writing the questionnaire was clueless but also the various management that approved it.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

I am surprise that the used the wording "too expensive". Usually you want to word that type of a question as "Do you think WDW is a good value?" This says to me that not only the person writing the questionnaire was clueless but also the various management that approved it.

 

Agreed. Throw in the random replies and bad punctuation and my money is on an intern whipping this one up. 

[Seals 111]

Were these the only questions? I'm wondering if there's some sort of connection between the two. If you frequent one of the unofficial Disney sites are you more likely to have a negative opinion. And, going even further, will there be some sort of "action" taken. Don't some of those site administrators get invited to certain special events? Or is that too far fetched a theory. It does seem strane how they asked those questions. Or maybe those who don't select the greedy answer get more emails with special perks.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

They could be trying to draw a correlation between which sites are frequented by the people who think Disney is greedy.  Then they can yank the media credentials from those sites unless the starry eyed bloggers who run them do something to tamp down the negative opinions expressed on their sites.  

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Were these the only questions? I'm wondering if there's some sort of connection between the two. If you frequent one of the unofficial Disney sites are you more likely to have a negative opinion. And, going even further, will there be some sort of "action" taken. Don't some of those site administrators get invited to certain special events? Or is that too far fetched a theory. It does seem strane how they asked those questions. Or maybe those who don't select the greedy answer get more emails with special perks.

 

No, there were many more questions.  They were in the same kind of format, where you had to select all the you agreed with.  The one I screen capped was the oddest one to me, but they were all repetitive like this one.  They also had the standard questions again that ask about race, age, income, etc.  I always select "prefer not to answer" for these.  I did that for the income one, and then a new question, worded a bit differently came up, still asking about household income, but this one wouldn't allow me to answer "prefer not to answer," and the survey would not complete until I provided a response.  Very odd.

 

They could be trying to draw a correlation between which sites are frequented by the people who think Disney is greedy.  Then they can yank the media credentials from those sites unless the starry eyed bloggers who run them do something to tamp down the negative opinions expressed on their sites.  

 

I didn't think of that, and all kidding aside, you might be on to something.  They may very well want to know what regular readers of certain unofficial sites think, and they may have some intention of addressing those issues.

 

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

 

 

I didn't think of that, and all kidding aside, you might be on to something.  They may very well want to know what regular readers of certain unofficial sites think, and they may have some intention of addressing those issues.

 

TCD

 

Yep.  I was only half joking about yanking the credentials....but completely serious about seeing value in them wanting to track the prevalent opinions of guests on various websites.  Taking the DIS for example, if they were to note a trend in DIS participants toward thinking that Disney is no longer a good value (or that Disney is greedy), they could absolutely employ people to browse those boards and post things refuting those opinions.  Internet opinions can easily go viral...and a company that lives and dies by immeasurable things like "good feelings" and "happiness" that drive people through the gates can't risk having "bad feelings" run through the population like the flu.  

 

Like Barney Fife said... you got to nip it in the bud!

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Were these the only questions? I'm wondering if there's some sort of connection between the two. If you frequent one of the unofficial Disney sites are you more likely to have a negative opinion. And, going even further, will there be some sort of "action" taken. Don't some of those site administrators get invited to certain special events?

 

Yep.  I was only half joking about yanking the credentials....but completely serious about seeing value in them wanting to track the prevalent opinions of guests on various websites.  Taking the DIS for example, if they were to note a trend in DIS participants toward thinking that Disney is no longer a good value (or that Disney is greedy), they could absolutely employ people to browse those boards and post things refuting those opinions.

 

Veeeeeeerrrrry interesting!

 

We all know Disney is well aware of all the fan sites - they included all the biggies on that list - and keeps tabs on them to some degree or other. 

 

There's a reason the big boards that are run by travel agencies tend to be pretty strict about what they'll allow, and usually moderate the heck out of their boards when it comes to anything that might piss Disney off. That whole "bite the hand that feeds you" thing. 

 

The big blogger and fan sites do usually get invited to the special press events.  I could see Disney simply not inviting some of them if they spend a big chunk of their time focusing on bashing Disney.  After all, why give them more fuel for the fire? 

 

The blogs/fan sites function as essentially free advertising for Disney.  It would make sense for them to cultivate relationships with those that mostly support them.

 

I could also see them planting some folks in the boards as Dave suggests.  Actually if you read enough of some of those boards you'll be pretty convinced that's already happening.

 

 

It's still a weird survey though. 

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

I got the same survey. and yes, I clicked other and typed in fortfiends.net :)

 

The survey was odd to me as I have a Premier Annual Pass, and the questions obviously weren't prepared to deal with that fact.

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

I got the same survey. and yes, I clicked other and typed in fortfiends.net :)

 

The survey was odd to me as I have a Premier Annual Pass, and the questions obviously weren't prepared to deal with that fact.

Although I was able to tell them I had a Premier Annual Pass.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

 

Didn't you used to create surveys?

 

What do you make of all those random statements in the second question I posted above?  It seems like there are so many issues they are lumping together in one response.  What kind of useful data do they really expect to get from that?

 

TCD

 

Yes, I helped create surveys.  I was in marketing/marketing research for 30+ years.

 

I agree that the wording was strange and unprofessional.  

[lightbikes 73]

This all sounds like some kind of master plan by some mid-level moron to try and develop and "massage" future messages to both the troops and the guests.

 

1.   Find out what places are allowing for some of the negatives to be discussed and commented on openly and either cut them off, or "plant" people on them to be more "pro".   Just like political comments.  

 

2.  Make sure all the CMs are actively promoting the "official" websites that spew the koolaid appropriately and never never mention the ones that don't.  After all if nobody know about it it "ain't happening".  Right?

 

Or maybe I'm just a tad too paranoid

 

I hope I get one of these surveys next time - I have a lot to say!

[ependydad...Doug 176]

I'm betting this one was created as a training exercise (or less likely- as lark by some bored employees) and was never supposed to see the light of day. No chance this was officially sanctioned. Disney is way too particular about messaging to knowingly let this out.

I would have guessed that you might not have been on an official Disney site and were just phished. But with Carol also getting it, it messes with that plan.

--

Maybe related, maybe not...

I can tell you the time that I had another developer walk into my office and tell me, "I have 3 words for you. EOF <bad expletive> <super bad expletive>". When I stared blankly, he reminded me that I was dang lucky that a database table always had data or I would have had a very bad day with a feature on the Cunard Cruiselines website. I was having a rough go with some code and needed some debugging. My angst showed in my errors. Developers do crazy things.

(I can tell you- all of my debug messages are now clean and NOT embarrassing.)

[keith_h 420]

(I can tell you- all of my debug messages are now clean and NOT embarrassing.)

 

We had a young kid fresh out of college who debugged his code using write to operator commands thinking they would only go to his job log because he didn't understand routing codes. About the third or fourth run of his program he's called into the bosses office to explain why he was swearing at the operators.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

I'm betting this one was created as a training exercise (or less likely- as lark by some bored employees) and was never supposed to see the light of day. No chance this was officially sanctioned. Disney is way too particular about messaging to knowingly let this out.

 

Now that's a possibility!  The bigger the company, the more levels of management, the easier it can be for something like this to "sneak" out.

 

And having worked with developers for a bunch of years, both those stories bring back memories.

 

My favorite was the call from the customer after finding a cat with laser eyes "easter egg" a former (very young) employee had tucked away in their website.  They were probably one of our most conservative customers, but thankfully didn't freak out and were mostly just confused about why it was there and how it got there in the first place.

[ependydad...Doug 176]

Now my absolute favorite was my own- I built a help desk suite of tools. Up until very recently, clocking the "Help" link brought up a prompt that said, "Contact the Help Desk. Ironic, ain't it?"

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Now my absolute favorite was my own- I built a help desk suite of tools. Up until very recently, clocking the "Help" link brought up a prompt that said, "Contact the Help Desk. Ironic, ain't it?"

 

We've had some real comedians on our development staff over the years - including one that actually does local stand-up!  Luckily it got cleaned up between the test environment and going live.

 

Usually. 

[ependydad...Doug 176]

We've had some real comedians on our development staff over the years - including one that actually does local stand-up!  Luckily it got cleaned up between the test environment and going live.

 

Usually. 

Fortunately (or unfortunately), we've always been light on real testing- I've gotten to sneak in some hilarity from time to time.

I've heard stories that another project's error page showed a meme picture of "fail boat". That was hilarious to everyone until the client saw it in production.

But, they also managed to come up with system name acronyms of R2D2 and CP3O and got the customer to agree and refer to it that way! I have a customer referring to one level of pricing options as "RAD" aka, "really awesome database". It's written that way in all sorts of pricing documents.

[keith_h 420]

Fortunately (or unfortunately), we've always been light on real testing- I've gotten to sneak in some hilarity from time to time. I've heard stories that another project's error page showed a meme picture of "fail boat". That was hilarious to everyone until the client saw it in production. But, they also managed to come up with system name acronyms of R2D2 and CP3O and got the customer to agree and refer to it that way! I have a customer referring to one level of pricing options as "RAD" aka, "really awesome database". It's written that way in all sorts of pricing documents.

 

In the mainframe MVS operating system the disk access method code had something called the star routine. It was originally written during the time frame first couple of Star Wars movies by a real fanatic and all of the labels were Star Wars characters or other major points of interest from the movies.