Episode 404: Automated surveys minisode

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Tired of outdated systems holding your attraction back? Gatemaster believes technology is part of the experience, transforming every touchpoint into an opportunity. Imagine seamless online booking, effortless mobile ordering, and data-driven insights at your fingertips. Ready to revolutionize your guest journey and maximize revenue? Power your attraction with Gatemaster. Discover the future at Gatemaster.com.

Organizations often rely on sporadic guest surveys to gather feedback, resulting in limited data and missed opportunities to enhance both the guest experience and operational performance. The challenge is not just about collecting data but about building meaningful relationships with guests at scale. In this episode, Matt and Josh talk about how automating surveys can go beyond data collection to drive engagement, service recovery, and even revenue generation.

Beyond the Data: Validating Assumptions

“You probably can walk through your venue and say, here are some friction points... but if you gain a large quantity of guests who are also saying the same thing, it helps to justify when you are bringing this into saying, hey, we need to invest in x, y, z.”

Even when assumptions about the guest experience seem obvious, large-scale feedback provides the validation needed to secure buy-in for improvements. Automated surveys ensure that decisions are supported by both intuition and data.

Strengthening Engagement and Recovery Opportunities

“Guests who do fill out a survey are allowing you the opportunity to continue the discussion about what went well with their experience and what fell below their expectation.”

Matt and Josh highlight that automated surveys keep the conversation going after a visit, giving guests an outlet to share both praise and complaints. This proactive approach helps capture issues before they escalate to public reviews, increasing satisfaction and creating service recovery opportunities.

Optimizing the Feedback Loop for Real-Time Insights

“If surveys are automated, then you've got a continuous stream of data... you're getting the real-time feedback from the guest.”

Automating surveys provides a steady flow of data, enabling venues to monitor the impact of operational changes in real time. This agile feedback loop allows teams to fine-tune guest experience strategies without waiting for periodic surveys.

Leveraging Surveys for Reviews and Revenue

“Your survey collection should be a revenue-generating source because you are strengthening the relationship with your guests.”

Josh and Matt discuss how surveys can be used to direct promoters toward online reviews, boosting search visibility, while also offering targeted upsells like memberships or bounce-back discounts—turning surveys into a marketing and revenue tool.

Building Relationships at Scale

“When you're building that positive relationship, it's now less of a chore for that guest to maybe give you feedback and it's more of part of a conversation that you're having.”

The core message can be summarized with a single word: relationship. By reframing surveys as a relationship-building tool rather than just a data collection exercise, operators can create deeper connections with guests at scale, making the process feel more personal and less transactional.

 

What methods are you using to build guest relationships through surveys? Share your ideas and experiences by reaching out through your preferred social media channels or contacting us directly.

This podcast wouldn't be possible without the incredible work of our faaaaaantastic team:

 

• Audio and Video editing by Abby Giganan

 

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