Experience Is Infrastructure Part 1: When the Guest Experience Slips, Look Beneath the Surface
Long lines at ticketing or bag check, an attraction or habitat that’s unexpectedly closed, confusing parking, or a food location that can’t keep up with the lunch rush may look like guest service problems.
But often, what the guest experiences is simply the most visible sign of something happening elsewhere in the organization.
Look Beyond What the Guest Sees
Take a recurring bottleneck at the entrance. Adding another employee might help—but the real issue could be ticketing technology, how staff are scheduled during peak arrival times, unclear pre-arrival information, or a bottleneck somewhere else on the property.
The same applies to repeated ride downtime, habitat closures, or long food-service waits. The guest sees the inconvenience. Leadership needs to understand what keeps causing it.
That’s where the right information matters.
Guest surveys may tell you what people are frustrated by. Attendance and transaction data can show when it happens. Staff input may help explain why. Maintenance records, schedules, and operating reports can reveal what’s happening behind the scenes.
Most organizations already have plenty of clues. They’re just stored in different places.
One Complaint Is Feedback. Twenty Are a Pattern.
When the same frustration keeps appearing across surveys, reviews, member comments, employee feedback, and operating data, stop looking at each complaint individually and ask:
Why does this keep happening?
Sometimes the answer lives between departments.
Marketing communicates one expectation while operations delivers another. Membership explains a benefit one way while front-line staff understand it differently. Facilities schedules maintenance without realizing it conflicts with a major event.
Everyone may be doing their individual job correctly while the guest still experiences friction.
Before You Fix It, Ask Five Questions
Choose one recurring issue and ask:
What exactly is happening?
When does it happen most often?
What else is happening operationally at that time?
Which people, departments, systems, or resources influence it?
Are we fixing what the guest sees—or what’s actually causing it?
Once you understand the cause, the solution still has to be realistic. The best answer isn’t always the biggest one. It’s the one that solves the right problem and fits the people, money, and time available.
At Monumental Strides, this is a big part of how we approach Data & Discovery, Planning, and Implementation Support: bringing together information, perspectives, priorities, and resource realities so leaders can understand what’s really happening before deciding what to do next.
Because before you invest in the solution, you need to be sure you’re solving the right problem